Romney In Iowa

January 1, 2008

Mitt Romney said he is still optimistic for his chances to win Iowa after a Des Moines Register poll released Tuesday showed Mike Huckabee with 32 percent of the vote compared to 26 percent for Romney and 13 percent for John McCain.Ron Paul and Fred Thompson tied for fourth place with 9 percent of the vote. Rudy Giuliani was fifth. Duncan Hunter and Alan Keyes trailed with 1 percent, behind the 4 percent of undecideds in the poll of 800 likely Republican caucus-goers.

Romney said his optimism for Thursday’s race isn’t the result of any internal polling that tells him differently, and had a laugh with reporters about whether he has a leg up on inside information. “I’m sure I know a lot of things you don’t know. No, I’m kidding. Oh you mean about the election? No, I’m sorry,” he said to laughter. ” I don’t think I have some secret poll. I know I don’t have a secret poll or something that describes to me something that you don’t know. But look, two weeks ago, I was 20 points down in this election and now three polls came out this morning — all have it within a few points. One has me ahead, one has the other fellow ahead and the other has us tied.”

Romney hasn’t released his campaign finance figures yet, but admits donating more of his own money to his campaign in the fourth quarter. He would not say how much.

” Did I give any more in the fourth quarter as opposed to the third? I’m sure I made additional contributions in the fourth quarter but I don’t have any numbers for you,” Romney said. “And we’re not going to get into the numbers probably until some time in the middle of the month. Right now, we’re focused on voters. ”

Romney did explain the source of some of his confidence, but it was couched in a shadow of doubt.

“There’s a great deal of freedom and confidence which comes with speaking about running for office because of what you can do for the nation and not worrying about what it’s going to do for me. I don’t have to win this election to feel good about our campaign and what we’ve done as a family to try and make a difference in America,” Romney said.

The former Massachusetts governor also responded to news that his chief rival, Huckabee, had filmed an attack ad against him, then didn’t schedule it for television time but instead showed it to reporters, a strategy that some say manipulated the media and gave him more bang for his buck than airing the ad would have. Romney said he thinks Huckabee was trying to have it both ways, releasing the ad so close to a holiday that some stations were not able to pull it from their rotations. He added that his own advertising has not been personal but strictly based on his rivals’ records.

“If you look at my comments about Governor Huckabee, you’ll see I always treat him with respect. We differ on issues and I hope that people understand the difference between pointing out differences on important issues and making attacks on other people or disparaging their character or their person. I do my best to speak positively of the people I’m running against. I think they are good people, they are friends, but I disagree with them on matters of issue and policy,” he continued, adding that he didn’t think that the Iowa voters would buy the explanation Huckabee gave regarding the decisions to cancell the ad buy.

“It does remind you a bit of person who stands up and says I’m not going to call my opponent any names but here’s the names I’d call him if I were going to call him names.”

But, come Thursday, we’ll see if Romney get the gold medal or a silver one. Either way, it’s then on to New Hampshire where he has an entirely different opponent- John McCain.

Written by Ernie · Filed Under Election News