The tedious fable of the Republican primaries, “The Tortoise and the Hares,” is limping toward its predictable close. But if “fear the turtle” turned out to be wise advice for Mitt Romney’s Republican opponents, the general election promises an even bumpier road for the plodding candidate. “We hit the reset button and the campaign begins anew with a different opponent,” Romney’s senior adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, told reporters. “We’ll be able to draw sharp contrasts with the president and the president alone, not worrying about our competition. It will be a different race at that point, and the numbers will begin again.”
He wishes. Romney would be a general-election opponent who needs to be taken seriously, which is why the Obama campaign has been doing that for so long. But Romney emerges from the primary marathon a more bruised, less adept candidate than expected. The lingering negative impressions remain of an uninspiring candidate in an uninspiring primary season.
The campaign has not been kind to Romney’s image. Nearly four in 10 voters said they had a somewhat or very negative view of Romney, compared with one in four a year earlier. Meanwhile, voters are both more enthusiastic about President Obama and more optimistic about the economy. Last August, voters were almost evenly divided between Obama and Romney; now, Obama leads, 50 to 44. The president’s support among white working-class voters edged up to 43 percent from the dangerous, south of 40 percent levels of previous months. Nearly six in 10 believe that the worst of the recession “is behind us,” up from half in November.
Indeed, the spillover effect goes beyond Romney. Voters have gone from preferring a Republican-controlled Congress last August to preferring Democratic control: 43 percent now say they have a very or somewhat negative view of the Republican Party, compared with 36 percent negativity toward Democrats.
