Those comments followed Romney’s speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference last week in which he labeled himself “severely conservative’’ and highlighted his opposition to abortion rights, gay marriage, cloning, and “embryo farming.”
Republican political observers said Romney’s new emphasis on social issues risks taking him off an economic platform that was geared toward a broad, general election audience, and thrusting him into more emotionally charged territory where he has struggled in the past. Charges of ideological inconsistency hurt his last campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
But, some say, he may have no choice if he is to fend off Santorum, who last week swept nominating contests in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado. Santorum leads in recent national polls of Republicans. In a CBS News/New York Times poll released yesterday, Santorum had support from 30 percent of self-described GOP primary or caucus voters, compared to 27 percent for Romney, 12 percent for Ron Paul, and 10 percent for Newt Gingrich.
Romney has been “pulled out of the Rose Garden and out of the inevitability, and he needs to go out there and compete, and it would have been better for him to do it earlier,’’ said Dave Carney, a Republican political strategist who worked on the presidential campaign of another social conservative, Governor Rick Perry of Texas.
“If he’s successful and pulls it off, he’ll be in good shape,’’ Carney said. “But it’s the phoniness of candidates trying to do that that really turns off voters, particularly base voters.’’
Mark McKinnon, a Republican strategist who worked on President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004, also expressed concerns.
