Romney's 2nd Run for the White House

MS. IFILL: Let’s move out on the campaign trail, where the Republican presidential contenders do agree that the election will turn on the economy, but first, they have to decide not to turn on each other.

Officially in this week, Mitt Romney. Unofficially in, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and officially stirring the pot, Sarah Palin.

Romney took aim at Obama.

MR. ROMNEY: When Barack Obama came to office, we wished him well and hoped for the best. Now in the third year of his fourth year term – or his four-year term, we have more than slogans and promises to judge him by. Barack Obama has failed America.

MS. IFILL: And Palin took aim at Romney.

MS. PALIN: Health care plan, in my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not – not a good thing. So obviously – and I’m not the only one to say so – but there will be more the explanation coming from former Governor Romney on his support for government mandates.

MS. IFILL: Now, as it happens, she was on her way to or in New Hampshire when she said this, on the same day that Romney was making his well publicized in advance formal announcement. So was there offence intended here?

MR. ZELENY: She was going to a clam bake and I think she had some salt along, too, to pour in the wounds, but of course there was offense intended, but she was arriving in New Hampshire one day earlier than she planned to. She initially said Friday. She came Thursday. But I think at the end of the day Governor Romney got a lot of attention for the message that he was giving. He finally announced he’s running for president. He’s been doing it for a long time. Of course, this is his second bid for the Republican nomination. And he’s been kind of in a shell for at least the last six months or so, really only holding one campaign event every month.

He’s taking a completely different approach or sort of a different approach in this second time around. Four years ago, he was everywhere at this point. He was all over Iowa. He had been on TV advertising on television commercials for some four months at this point. He started February of 2007, which I’d forgotten about actually that I went and looked it up this week. So I think he is trying to introduce himself and trying to capitalize on the fact that the economy, obviously, as Deborah just said, is the central issue. And he thinks that this is his moment because he’s a businessman. He’s a former governor. So he is not talking about health care, but that’s what everyone else wants to talk about. That’s what Sarah Palin was doing there, talking about it. He didn’t give any specifics. He’s going to have to, but he finally has agreed to join the field and be in the first debate in two weeks in New Hampshire.

MS. IFILL: If he has run before, which he has, and he’s been especially in New Hampshire when he was governor across the line, how’s he doing in terms of the still forming field? It seems that there’re a lot of people nipping at his heels fairly closely for someone who ought to be this well-known by now.

MR. ZELENY: A lot of people are nipping at his heels and he has more people in the Republican Party who don’t like him than do in terms of like different groups and different sects of the party. So it’s a little bit hard to see how he’s going to thread the signal, but his strategy is, I’m going to be the last man standing. I’m going to raise more money than anyone else. I am going to sort of push through the primaries. I am going to still be alive after Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, into Florida. We’ll see how that goes from when he needs to pick up some wings along the way. But one strategy that they haven’t quite figured out is Iowa. He spent more than $10 million there four years ago, and this year he’s kind of flirting with the idea of being there or not.

He was there last Friday. I was with him. A fire alarm of all things goes off in the middle of his presentation. It cuts it short. He’s not quite sure how to handle Iowa, but I think he knows that he has to play everywhere if he’s really going to be the frontrunner. If he’s really going to be the man who can beat Barack Obama, he can’t pick and choose different places. And the White House has their eye on Mitt Romney, for all the criticism from Republicans. So they’re watching him. He could be the nominee as well as anyone.