On Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC, George Will noted that the tough week former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had, with losses in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota, continues the same narrative that has been played out throughout this Republican nomination process.
“Another week and the narrative is unchanged,” Will said. “The strongest Republican candidate has the last name ‘Romney’ and the first name ‘not.’ This week, the ‘not Romney’ is [Rick] Santorum. Romney carried no counties in Minnesota, lost 48 out of 64 counties in Colorado. In Missouri, where five times more people voted than in Colorado and Minnesota combined, Romney loses to 2-to-1 to Santorum. So it looks as though it is like a binary choice has emerged.”
Will noted a Rasmussen poll in which Romney is trailing President Barack Obama, whereas his competitor, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, is tied. He said this shows some vulnerabilities with the “inevitable and electable” message portrayed in the media.
“Always beware the candidate in a nomination race who has two words attached to it: Inevitable and electable,” Will said. “They’re deflating words. Just as these words are being used about Romney, a Rasmussen poll comes out from Ohio — and no Republican president has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio — and he shows Romney losing to Obama by four points, Santorum tied with Obama.”
Later, Will took a jab at Romney’s impromptu insertion of the word “severely” into his CPAC speech.
“It wasn’t in his speech,” Will said. “He ab-libbed that word. It wasn’t in the text that they handed out. It’s just again, again a sign that he seems around conservatives like a well-meaning earnest tourist in a Latin country where he doesn’t speak the language and he’s trying hard to connect with them. And he says ‘my father grew up poor.’ Please.”