"Hit the phones today," Romney told the group. "Make all the promises you have to."

[SolarEnergy1]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...=la-news-politics-national&ctrack=1&cset=true

After early setbacks, he turns to Michigan to jump-start his campaign.
By Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 10, 2008
GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. -- -- Reeling from defeats in New Hampshire and Iowa, Mitt Romney suspended TV advertising in South Carolina and Florida on Wednesday, a money-saving move that laid bare the dire condition of his run for the White House.

After a year of sparing virtually no expense in his quest for the Republican nomination, Romney's pullback amounted to an extraordinary retreat in two states that will hold crucial primaries this month -- even though he could resume advertising on short notice.


Romney's losses to Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses and John McCain in the New Hampshire primary have wrecked his campaign strategy. He was counting on victories in those contests to vault him to the nomination.

A day after the setback in New Hampshire, Romney turned Wednesday to another state to rescue his candidacy: Michigan. He grew up there, and his father, George Romney, was its governor from 1963 to 1969.

"I care about Michigan," Romney told a crowd here at Grand Valley State University. "For me, it's personal."

Michigan's primary will take place Tuesday, followed four days later by South Carolina's. Florida's primary is Jan. 29.

But Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, faces a fiercely contested race in Michigan, a state that McCain won in his 2000 presidential bid.

Basking in his New Hampshire victory, McCain arrived in Grand Rapids hours before Romney on Wednesday. Like Romney, he salted his remarks with plans to remedy Michigan's ailing economy. The state's 7.4% unemployment rate is the highest in the nation.

"There are tough times here in the heartland of America," the Arizona senator told several hundred supporters in a Grand Rapids airport hangar.

Huckabee, too, poses a challenge to Romney in Michigan. A former Southern Baptist minister, he has a natural kinship with many evangelicals in the state's rural areas. On Wednesday, he started airing an ad in Michigan that draws a contrast between his folksy style and Romney's more staid corporate image.

"I'm Mike Huckabee, and I approved this message, because I believe most Americans want their next president to remind them of the guy they work with -- not the guy who laid them off," the former Arkansas governor says in the ad.

With the Iowa and New Hampshire disappointments threatening to undercut his fundraising, Romney tried to show that he remained competitive. Romney met Wednesday morning in Boston with several hundred people who were soliciting donations by telephone at rows of tables in a vast convention center showroom.

"Hit the phones today," Romney told the group. "Make all the promises you have to."

The event was a replay of the "national call day" that Romney held a year ago to demonstrate his viability as he launched his campaign.

Seeking to put the best spin on a bad situation, Romney told the group that he had won more votes in Iowa and New Hampshire combined than any of his rivals had -- even if he finished second in both contests. He also mentioned his sweep of the Republican caucuses in Wyoming, a sparsely populated state where his opponents had not bothered to campaign.

Wandering among the tables of callers, Romney picked up a phone and told a supporter to keep faith.

"It's not a perfect start, but it's a good start," he said.

Later, he told reporters the race remained fluid. The party nomination, Romney said, would go to the candidate with "the staying power to go the distance" in all 50 states.

"I think we're used to a political environment where everything's decided after one or two primaries," he said. "That's not the case. This is going to be a much longer process."

In Boston and Grand Rapids, Romney amended his stump speech -- already retooled after his Iowa defeat -- with an exhaustive review of his Michigan ties. He has visited every county in the state. His wife, Ann, was born in Oak Park, and one of their sons, Josh, in Pontiac.

Romney recalled that his first job after high school was as a plant guard at Chrysler. He described the automobile industry as "part of my DNA."

At a voter forum in Grand Rapids, Romney reminisced about campaigning for his father, a onetime president of American Motors, at county fair booths when George Romney ran for governor in 1962. A local Romney supporter, Phil Vanden Berg, told Romney that his own father used to drive an AMC Rambler.

"I've got a '62 Rambler in my garage," Romney told him with a chuckle.

As Romney, McCain and Huckabee kicked off their Michigan campaigns, another Republican candidate, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, stuck to Florida, where he hopes to score his first victory.

In Melbourne, Fla., a bomb threat led police to evacuate dozens of Giuliani supporters from a campaign event in a corporate office. Giuliani's campaign moved the event to an airport hangar at a nearby flight school.

 

[Annie]

Then there's this:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8U4EN880&show_article=1

Huckabee and Thompson Trade Barbs
Jan 12 12:30 PM US/Eastern
By LIBBY QUAID
Associated Press Writer
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee went from Mr. Nice to Mr. Nasty when rival Fred Thompson started calling him what he considered a bad name—a liberal.

The Southerners are fighting on warmer, more familiar turf in South Carolina, which holds a Republican primary four days after Michigan votes on Tuesday. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, wants to build on his victory in the Iowa caucuses, while Thompson, once a Tennessee senator, needs a victory to keep his campaign afloat. ...

and this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/us/politics/12thompson.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

January 12, 2008
A Combative Thompson Sways Voters
By PAUL VITELLO

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — John and Ann Berenberk dutifully watched the umpteenth Republican presidential debate on television on Thursday night and had an epiphany. It was about the candidate they had previously referred to as the tall, silent one. Fred D. Thompson.

The last of the candidates to enter the race, Mr. Thompson, 65, a former Tennessee senator, has so far seemed to distinguish himself mainly by a laconic style that has made him almost invisible beside the others on the stage in past debates, the Berenberks said.

“But then last night — we hadn’t even been thinking about him — all of a sudden it was clear he was the one,” said Mr. Berenberk, a retired teacher. “The bluntness, the forcefulness. He was really impressive.”

Whether this was a new Fred Thompson, or just a sign of mirage-inducing campaign fatigue among voters, many people attending Mr. Thompson’s campaign rallies here on the day after the debate reported having similar revelations.

Mr. Thompson, who remarked Friday that he had “always been laid back — laid back when I became a U.S. prosecutor at 28, laid back when I became staff counsel to the Watergate committee at 30, laid back when I ran and won election twice to the United States Senate” — was clearly more combative on Thursday night than he had been in past debates.

He attacked former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, accusing him of stealing his tax plan, tagged Senator John McCain of Arizona as soft on illegal immigration and jabbed repeatedly at former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas for taking what he called “liberal” positions. Mr. Thompson scored one of the more crowd-pleasing remarks of the evening when he said about a recent encounter between a Navy ship and several Iranian speedboats: “I think one more step and they would have been introduced to those virgins they’re looking forward to seeing.”

In an official statement, a campaign spokesman, Todd Harris, said Mr. Thompson’s performance showed that he was the only candidate that voters in the Jan. 19 primary here should trust “to be a strong, consistent conservative.”...