Mitt Romney’s recent campaign strategy involves emphasizing his business experience while ignoring the four years he spent doing a job generally considered good preparation for the presidency. Understandably, the Republican candidate wants to put some distance between himself and the notoriously liberal state where he enacted a precursor to Obamacare. Now Massachusetts would like it to be known that they both knew it was time to end the relationship.
When Massachusetts voters first met Romney, he seemed great. The Harvard grad had raised five kids in his Belmont, Massachusetts, mansion, and he told the left-leaning state that though he’s a Republican, he’s actually a pretty moderate guy. Soon enough, they’d made him their governor. At first he worked hard to show he was committed to helping the state, but about halfway through his term he started eying a higher office. Andrew E. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center, tells the Washington Post, “There was an undercurrent that in his last two years in office he was already running for president and neglecting his duties as governor.” Many supporters dropped him after learning he was mocking the state in speeches to out-of-state conservatives.
Though Massachusetts was Romney’s home for years (and one of his three residences is still located there) he doesn’t have a strong base left in the state. According to a poll conducted last month, more than half of Massachusetts voters have a unfavorable opinion of Romney, and there’s essentially no chance that Obama will lose the state.
On Friday morning, Romney is kicking off his “Every Town Counts” bus tour in New Hampshire, which comes as no surprise to Massachusetts residents since commercials designed to woo their neighbors to the north air in the same market. However, doesn’t it seem a bit odd that Romney will be just twelve miles from the Massachusetts state line, but he isn’t stopping to say “hello”? Acting like he was never even governor just seems so childish. Not that Massachusetts cares, of course.
