How Romney got his reputation as a squish

Major Garrett:

To anyone who thought GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich attacked Mitt Romney Saturday by joking he was only one loss to Sen. Edward Kennedy away from "career politician" status, think again.

Compared to what Gingrich could have said, that was no attack. It was practically a Cinnabon served with cold milk.

Romney remains a well-funded, well-organized candidate with a raft of supporters in many states. But he's weak - so weak his campaign advisers now envision a long slog in pursuit of the nomination - one that could last until the California primary on June 5. This is what passes for optimism in Boston. It reminds me of Hillary Clinton's optimism after then Sen.-Barack Obama fought her to a tie on Super Tuesday.

Two points about the Romney-Clinton optimism convergence: we all remember how well it worked out for Hillary; that Romney and his team now see a fight for the nomination lasting until June even before a single vote has been cast bespeaks a grudging acknowledgment -- bordering on panic - that Gingrich's momentum is real, debates are unlikely to rattle him and playing the long game is the only option left.

The deeper issue for Romney is that Gingrich, who has managerial and temperamental issues of his own, is just about the worst Republican challenger he could face at a time when  undecided Republicans are trying to decide if Romney is an ideological cipher.

In this regard, 1994 is very tough on Romney. The contrast between Romney and Gingrich in this year of GOP ascendancy and congressional clout unrealized since the days of Eisenhower and Truman that many conservatives may find it disqualifying. Whatever Republicans come to think of Gingrich's leadership style as speaker, they know Gingrich helped lead the GOP to its first House majority in 40 years and didn't tinker around the edges with his newly won power. An agenda that achieved spending cuts, sought and over time won  a balanced budget, welfare reform, tax cuts, telecommunications reform and congressional reform is not and was not timid. 

Gingrich led this effort, he said, on behalf of the legacy of President Ronald Reagan. Gingrich said at the time the "Contract With America" was the second stage of the Reagan revolution, an attempt to translate his unfinished policies by means of a GOP-led Congress.

At the same time, Romney was running against Kennedy in Massachusetts, a liberal state where a successful Republican had to soften some of the harder edges of the GOP's anti-Clinton, anti-Democratic rhetoric. Romney softened them past the state of sponginess and came out on the hardened side of opposition.

When asked about the Contract, Romney said: "It is not a good idea to go into a contract like what was organized by the Republican Party in Washington, laying out a whole series of things which the party said 'These are the things were are going to do.' I think that's a mistake." 

...

There is more including video of Romney in 1994.  He has been accused of running to the left of Ted Kennedy.  I am not sure that is possible, but his performance  that year is still coming back to haunt him.  I though Gingrich's statement was a good rejoinder to Romney's standard career politician attack.  I am surprised Rick Perry did not try it earlier.  I certainly suggested it well before Gingrich finally used it.

What Garrett does is point out the contrast between Newt and Mitt in 1994.  For all his warts, Gingrich wins this comparison.