Apparently, Mitt Romney isn’t very well liked by his fellow candidates for President:
TAMPA, Fla. — At the end of the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire this month, when the Democrats joined the candidates on stage, Mitt Romney found himself momentarily alone as his counterparts mingled, looking around a bit stiffly for a companion.
The moment was emblematic of a broader reality that has helped shape the Republican contest and could take center stage again on Thursday at a debate in Florida. Within the small circle of contenders, Mr. Romney has become the most disliked.
With so much attention recently on the sniping between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama on the Democratic side, the almost visceral scorn directed at Mr. Romney by his rivals has been overshadowed.
“Never get into a wrestling match with a pig,” Senator John McCain said in New Hampshire this month after reporters asked him about Mr. Romney. “You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”
Mike Huckabee’s pugilistic campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, appeared to stop just short of threatening Mr. Romney with physical violence at one point.
“What I have to do is make sure that my anger with a guy like Romney, whose teeth I want to knock out, doesn’t get in the way of my thought process,” Mr. Rollins said.
One can expect this animosity to rear itself during tonight’s MSNBC debate.
The question, though, is why there is such a visceral reaction to Romney in particular. James Joyner offers this hypothesis:
That Romney’s able to self-finance his campaign and win several states essentially by default while others are having to pick and choose is grating, I’m sure. And there’s also a sense that it’s “not his turn,” although one could certainly say the same about Huckabee. Mostly, though, I think Romney simply rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
(…)
Despite the “insider” and “outsider” rhetoric, the ranks of governors and Senators and big city mayors is an elite club. The disparities between Mitt 2002 and Mitt 2008 are much more obvious to his debating partners than the general public — most of whom never met the first guy — and they likely think he’s a big phony.
That sounds good. Romney’s always struck me as a used-car salesman — willing to say whatever it takes to close the deal, even if it’s not exactly true. That the people who know him better than most would figure that out before the general public is not entirely surprising.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I’m not a huge Romney fan but you have to admit that he by far has the best track record of ANY candidate, Republican or Democrat. He gets stuff done, doesn’t have a ton of questionable goings-on in his background and he worked hard to earn his own money. Everyone has been jealous of someone else for some reason or another. I think a lot of candidates are rubbed the wrong way b/c Romney has funding that didn’t come from lobbyists, there’s not a whole lot of fatal character flaws. He’s just a white guy who has $$ - didn’t you know that’s the most hated kind in the USA. If he were black, or a woman, or any religion other than Mormon, he would be beloved by all. It is what it is. With America facing a recession and financial distress, he’s probably the guy to turn it around, like he’s done so many other times in the past and let’s face it, all candidates tell white-lies about things they’ve done in the past and they all do and say whatever it takes to close the deal. ALL OF THEM. Mitt’s not much different in that way at all, it just goes back to the white guy with money thing again. McCain’s just pissed because he didn’t actually think Romney was a threat until it was too late.