Is Mitt Romney Count Dracula?
By ROGER SIMON | 5/22/12 4:34 AM EDT
In the end, it won’t be about who raises the most money. It won’t be about who ate a dog or kept one on the roof of his car.
It won’t be about whether Barack Obama will protect the middle class against Mitt Romney’s predatory capitalism. And it won’t be about whether Mitt Romney will create jobs by eradicating Obama’s “European socialism.”
It will be about who you like. (Or even whom.)
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Just look at the results of every presidential race since 1980: Ronald Reagan beats Jimmy Carter and then Walter Mondale. George H.W. Bush beats Michael Dukakis. Bill Clinton beats George H.W. Bush and then Bob Dole. George W. Bush beats Al Gore and then John Kerry. Barack Obama beats John McCain.
In every one of these elections, I would argue, the more likable candidate won. (I would add one asterisk: Gore did win the popular vote by more than 500,000 voters in 2000.)
Likability is an entrance gate. It opens people up to your message and, yes, to your issues. If they don’t like you, they’re not going to listen to you or believe you.
Today, Romney’s campaign is worried about its candidate’s likability, and it is trying to “warm” him up.
Others think it doesn’t matter. Phil Musser, a senior adviser in Romney’s presidential campaign in 2007, recently told Dan Hirschhorn of The Daily: “As long as you’re not Count Dracula, in an economy that’s still mired in a weak recovery from an awful recession, people are looking for someone who can cut through the fog, not someone who’s going to make them warm and fuzzy. Likability is important insofar as people don’t despise your candidate.”
History would disagree. I would disagree. And if I were the Romney campaign, I would keep my candidate off of surfboards, away from wet suits and out of blood banks.
Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76593_Page2.html#ixzz1vaVDtZ5b
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