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Norquist says GOP front-runners have serious challenges to overcome
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WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Virginia Sen. George Allen are strong candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, although each has serious challenges to overcome.
That’s the view of Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and one of the most influential conservatives in Washington.
“When I talk to each of the presidential candidates, every one of them brings up Romney — unsolicited — because they’re all focused on him as the smartest, toughest guy in the race,” Norquist told reporters Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “He is very well thought of.”
But Norquist cautioned that Romney could be hampered by the fact that he grew up in the western, conservative state of Utah and then moved to the eastern, liberal state of Massachusetts. Americans who live in the vast middle regions — both geographically and ideologically — might find it hard to relate to the governor, Norquist said.
“And the other challenge [for Romney] is being a Mormon: Is that something that’s going to bite him?” he said. “I spent this weekend with an evangelical conservative Republican group and everyone said, ‘Well it doesn’t bother me, but my friends.’ And it really makes you wonder.”
Religion is not an issue for Allen, whom Norquist described as “most comfortable” with the conservative movement’s positions on taxes, property rights and traditional values.
“So he’s best-positioned, policy-wise,” he said. “His challenge is that he looks and sounds like George W. Bush. It’s the boots, it’s the ‘hail fellow well met.’ It’s the, ‘Hi, when you talk to me for five minutes, I don’t scare you into thinking I’m going to outsmart you next week.’”
Referring to Bush as a “non-fluent English speaker,” Norquist said Allen’s similarities to the president could be a negative.
“If there’s Bush fatigue, I think it’s not just personal, it’s maybe stylistic,” he said. “So that’s a challenge for him.”
Norquist, who has been criticized for his association with disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, said whoever wins the Republican primaries almost certainly will face Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. He said all other Democratic contenders, including Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, will spend the primaries “sucking up to Hillary.”
“There are going to be eight people sitting up on the dais — Hillary’s chair will be a foot higher than everyone else’s — and the other seven guys will kick each other under the table,” he said. “They will all be auditioning for vice president.
“And they will say things like, ‘I was thinking today how wise Hillary Clinton was and it reminded me that BIDEN’S AN IDIOT!’”
bsammon@dcexaminer.com
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11:29 AM MST on Thu., Jul. 10, 2008 re: "White House compares illegal immigration to speeding"
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Examiner Reader said:
So once again we are being lied to AMNESTY, hell no. these bastard politians have sold out our country. I personally feel that they are traitors. Who the hell are they to be getting amnesty, everyone else came here the right way. WE DO NOT NEED THE ILLEGALS.
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Examiner Reader said:
you wrote, "On May 1, 2003, the term “Navy One” was employed for the first time when Bush helped pilot a Navy plane onto an aircraft carrier for a victory speech about Iraq. Democrats later accused him of prematurely declaring an end to major combat operations." In fact, Bush HIMSELF said, "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
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