Malleable Mitt, the Money Man

Malleable Mitt, the Money Man

by Paul Szep

There was a reason he was called “Slick Mitt” around here.

… .. Suspicions about Mr. Romney’s Mormon faith consumed his campaign early on, only to seem to fade from view. But his advisers and outside experts agree that the unease ultimately helped pave the way for Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor, to emerge from the backbench of the Republican field to win the Iowa caucuses, a central, costly goal of Mr. Romney’s strategy. But in an election cycle in which authenticity is an overriding concern among voters, the perception of Mr. Romney remaking himself into a Reagan-like figure through his positioning on issues like abortion rights and gun control exposed him to biting, often mocking attacks from his rivals, who were almost universal in their scorn of him. His fellow Republicans used the flip-flopping accusations to reframe everything he did. Even in the final hours of Mr. Romney’s candidacy, Mr. McCain was running advertising suggesting Mr. Romney had shifted radically in his view of Ronald Reagan. The authenticity issue was a problem his advisers recognized early on. … .. Miscalculations Dogged Romney From the Start