A home-court loss here in the kind of Midwestern state that Republicans want to be competitive in against President Obama could cripple Romney’s effort to fulfill his longtime ambition to be the Republican presidential nominee - and avoid repeating his father’s failure to win the White House. So Romney is pouring out the family memories, reminding voters about his father’s legacy, writing an op-ed for the Detroit News about how he is a “son of Detroit,’’ and flooding the airwaves with a television ad that recalls his trip with his dad to a local auto show.
“This is personal,’’ he says in the ad.
But as much as Romney declares his love for Michigan, the real question is whether Republican voters here will love him back - or rebuff him as sharply as voters in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado did earlier this month. Indeed, by invoking the father-son comparison, Romney has launched an uncommonly personal campaign subplot: the Michigan primary is not just a race between Romney and his Republican opponents, but also between Romney and the long shadow still cast here by his father. Even Romney has said that he could never come close to matching the accomplishments of the man he idolized and calls the “real deal.’’
George Romney’s legacy here remains very real, even if memories of it are fading. He turned around American Motors Corp., and served three two-year terms as governor. But he did so as a relatively liberal Republican, blunt and outspoken, even walking out on the party’s national convention in 1964 when it nominated Barry Goldwater. Whatever one thought of George Romney’s political views, there was little doubt where he stood - toward the left end of the Republican Party spectrum - and that he detested efforts to label politicians. Writing to Goldwater, the elder Romney criticized “dogmatic ideological parties.’’
