Romney's Southern Tour

Romney wasn't the only person to spend the long President's Day weekend travelling. On Saturday, The governor was in Missouri where he was the keynote speaker for a meeting of the state Republican party. On Monday, he was the keynote speaker for the President's Day Dinner in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

You can see his South Carolina remarks from C-SPAN (RealPlayer required). Romney's speech starts around 36:00. If you're curious, Katon Dawson (the chairman of the SC GOP) goes off on new DNC Chair Howard Dean at 26:40.

In the speech, Romney engaged in a verbal love-fest with the local GOP, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He also layed out what his sure to be his presidential theme. He's running as the lone voice of reason in a state populated by 'Liberal Democrats' and other irrational beasties. He claimed that he turned the state's economy around despite the objection of Massachusetts Democrats -- a GOP David to the Legislature's Goliath. Can Romney simultaneously win re-election here in Massachusetts in 2006 and run for president in 2008 positioning himself as being against the people whose votes he needs to continue as governor? The Rah-Rah Republican stuff may help him in a South Carolina primary, but it will be a liability here in Massachusetts, where less than 13% of registered voters are Republican, and the rest routinely vote for Democrats for nearly all other offices.

Of course, none of this will matter if the Mass. Dems can't find a candidate or an organizational scheme that can wrest the corner office from its streak of Republican occupants. The state Democrats are going to have to come up with something better than "We're Democrats! You like Democrats! Vote for us!" Unfortunately for Reilly, Patrick et al, I have yet to be convinced that they will. However, Romney may not be willing to gamble his political future on whether the Dems will finally get their act together, and some people have been speculating that he'll decline to run again.

Interestingly enough the local press focused as much on his religion as it did his views:

Concerns also were raised about his association with the Mormon church.

"Good luck," said Clemson's Woodard, a Republican and an evangelical. "I don't think that will play well at all."

Furman University analyst Don Aiesi, a Democrat, said, “This puts conservative Christians in the South in a real bind.”

So, Southern Republicans may be against Romney because, even though he is a Christian, he is the wrong kind of Christian. How can anyone say the GOP has a 'big tent' with a straight face?