The week couldn’t end soon enough for Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, what should have been several days of a news cycle devoted to his crushing Florida primary defeat of insurgent candidate Newt Gingrich, was instead spent attempting to recover from another embarrassing gaffe.
A verbal miscue, that even had republican establishment pundits wondering aloud, if the presumptive Nominee would ever be ready for prime time politics. To add injury to insult Governor Romney was obliged to publically accept the endorsement of Birther in Chief Donald Trump, Unlike the much hyped and carefully staged Chris Christy endorsement, one rolled out for maximum media exposure; the Trump endorsement lasted less than ten minutes and the Governor nearly tripped over Casino patrons in his haste to exit without taking any questions from the media.
Sources close to Mr. Trump revealed the Donald gave camp Romney one of his infamous ultimatums to decide quickly on accepting his blessing, in public on Thursday or he would throw it to Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Trump aids going so far as to alert Gingrich people of his intentions when the Romney camp was slow to get back to him, evidently they needed time to assess the pro’s and con’s of appearing on stage with Trump.
Gingrich senior aids, having been told by Trump’s people he was going to endorse Newt, promptly leaked it to the major media outlets, who ran with it all afternoon and into Thursday Morning, Reportedly the Governor had to personally call Mr. Trump to regain the endorsement.
The Romney’s campaign decision to embrace Trump, while initially a perfectly logical political tactic to deny the opposition any perception of advantage, could in retrospect hurt the Governor in a general election campaign where he must pivot from appealing to the base and attempt to establish a connection with independents and marginal democrats.
Just when it seemed the week couldn’t get any worse for Mitt, the labor department released employment figures for January; the best job growth figures in more than three years drove unemployment numbers down and pumped the Dow Jones, to a level not seen since the Bush administration recession began.
Conservative and progressive political pundits agree on very little, save the general consensus that the only pragmatic hope any republican has toward defeating Barack Obama in November, lays in an unemployment figure at or above nine percent coupled with voter perception that it’s only getting worse and Mr. Obama is to blame for it.
One ray of sunshine for team Romney came from the revelation that the infamous Koch brothers and three hundred of their closets friends, held a yearly retreat and pledged an additional one hundred million dollars toward defeating President Obama in the fall, but should the economic recovery continue it’s unlikely to affect the outcome.
Governor Romney, always favored to win in Mormon dominated Nevada, anticipated Congressman Ron Paul’s well funded and organized ground game would result in denying Newt Gingrich a major share of second place apportioned delegates, Friday’s daily tracking polls indicate even Saturday’s expected victory will be tarnished, polls report a sudden grass roots surge that pushes the former Speaker into second place and a great deal more delegates than even he hoped to win.
While he remains the front runner, the main stream media has begun to add caveats when speaking of Mitt Romney as the probable nominee and offers equal credence to those who argue, Former Speaker Gingrich could still pose a challenge or draw out the primary process and force a brokered convention.
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