HUFFINGTON 08.26.12
“When he makes jokes about
being unemployed or a waitress
pinching him on the butt, it does
snap your head back, and you say,
‘What’s he talking about?’” Axelrod said at the time.
Romney’s greatest troubles
have been with the base of his
own party, which has viewed him
with suspicion. Romney’s fragile
relationship with the conservative grassroots put his candidacy
in peril in February, when former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.),
whose deeply conservative views
on social issues made him popular
with the base, won three contests
on Feb. 7—Missouri, Colorado
and Minnesota—and was on the
verge of winning the Michigan
primary on Feb. 28.
If Santorum had won Michigan, all bets would have been off.
Despite his penchant for putting
his foot in his mouth, Santorum
was gathering serious momentum
among the GOP party faithful. Romney narrowly defeated him in Michigan, however, and held off a few
more challenges from him in the
subsequent weeks, until Santorum
finally dropped out in early April.
Santorum, who took some of
the hardest swings at Romney,
represented the views of a large
swath of the conservative electorate. In late March, he called Romney “the worst Republican in the
country to put up against Barack
Obama.” He was talking narrowly
THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
my: makers of wheel rims, photo
albums, and handbags,” rather
than jumping into the burgeoning
1980s world of tech and computers, Kranish and Helman wrote.
As a politician in Massachusetts,
Romney waffled back and forth
between a pro-choice and pro-life
position when running for the U.S.
Senate in 1994 and then as the
state