The 2012 front-runner played the pincushion role before, in the lead-up to the 2008 GOP primaries. But this time around, Romney has largely avoided being perforated by rivals. That’s likely to change on Saturday and Sunday due to a mix of personal animus and strategic imperatives.
“In 2008, he found himself in the middle of a circular firing squad … and it really put him on an uncomfortable defensive posture throughout the whole debate,” recalled Rich Killion, a New Hampshire-based strategist who is neutral in the Jan. 10 primary. “Truly, this [weekend], he could be seeing two or three candidates come at him.”
“Gov. Romney has been this nominal front-runner from the get-go yet he’s not been anybody’s big target in the debates,” said Chip Saltsman, Mike Huckabee’s campaign manager in the 2008 presidential race. “We’re gonna see that change this weekend, and now these guys are making the decision.”
One veteran GOP strategist put it even more bluntly: “He will be a political pinata, no question about it. The question is, how does he handle it?”
The chances of a Romney pile-on are fairly high, especially with a field that’s been whittled to six candidates, down from eight just a few weeks ago.
There are two debates within 16 hours of one another — an ABC News-sponsored event on Saturday night, followed by an NBC News-sponsored forum the next morning. The two face-offs are consuming gobs of time for all the campaigns, and essentially freezing campaigning over much of the weekend in what is an already-condensed run-up to the Jan. 10 primary.
Newt Gingrich is the safest bet to go after Romney — the only question is whether it’s a strafing run or a full shock-and-awe bombing. The former House speaker, who has repeatedly denounced Romney for the barrage of negative ads that helped sink his fortunes in Iowa, has made clear he is going to draw sharp contrasts, emphasis on “sharp.”
But Gingrich isn’t the only one taking the stage with issues with Romney. Jon Huntsman, who has staked his fortunes on New Hampshire without any notable rise in the polls, also has no love lost for Romney. Rick Perry, as he demonstrated at the Dec. 10 debate in Iowa, has a unique ability in the field to get under Romney’s skin.
Then there’s Rick Santorum, who isn’t known to harbor any ill will toward Romney but has consistently gone after the front-runner at the debates for months — the problem was that he got very little time from the moderators to make that case. That’s certain to change this weekend, given his squeaker of a loss to Romney in the Iowa caucuses.
The debates were the forums Gingrich used to rehab his moribund campaign in the fall, and the timing of the weekend debates works well for him — it gives him a platform, at a very opportune time, to climb back into the race. Outgunned in finances, Gingrich is visibly furious with Romney over the bruising campaign that was waged against him in Iowa, and is looking forward to a chance to even the score. But it will mean abandoning the cheerful warrior posture he’s adopted at most of the past debates, in which he’s excoriated President Barack Obama and the media to in-house crowd applause.
Santorum has also been an able debater — and, like Gingrich, likes to mix it up. It’s not hard to envision him getting aggressive with Romney in the debates.
Huntsman has generally steered clear of real attacks on Romney in the debates, although they had a memorable exchange about Afghanistan that was seen as benefiting the former Utah governor during a foreign policy-focused debate. And he’s now running out of options to stop Romney, against whom he’s positioned himself as the clearest alternative.
“Newt’s already told the world what he’s going to do Saturday night. Huntsman spent an entire campaign [making] muted, subtle contrasts to Mitt on the trail. This is his last shot,” Killion said.
Saltsman said that some of the anti-Romney sentiment isn’t personal, just the practical impact of his standing.
“Nobody likes the guy in front of them,” Saltsman said. “You can be nice to him, but nobody likes the guy out front. [Huckabee’s campaign] certainly four years ago [was] always very friendly and always had a good relationship with John McCain, but I can tell you, after he beat us in South Carolina, I didn’t feel so friendly.”
Attacks this late in the game may not matter much. The debates played a significant role in the lead-up to the caucuses since they drove the narrative, but now that Romney has won a contest and heads into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary as the front-runner by a wide margin, there’s a limited amount his opponents can do to drag him down.
“Except for the very rare silver bullet, attacks on opponents need to start before voters and the media have begun to harden their sense of who the candidate is,” said one veteran GOP strategist. “This late in the election cycle, it will be very difficult to introduce attacks and make them stick, particularly on Romney, whose vulnerabilities are so well known.”
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