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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (20855)	2/2/2008 12:37:12 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224729

>Repub Governors Who Support Open Borders Endorse McCain: By: Charles Mahtesian, politico.com Feb 2, 2008 As chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2006, Mitt Romney crisscrossed the country to elect GOP governors and broke the group’s fundraising record by hauling in $20 million. Just three of the nation’s 22 Republican governors have endorsed him. Most have not endorsed any candidate. On the eve of Tuesday’s crucial primary in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist announced his support for John McCain — despite the fact that Romney, as chairman of the RGA, had greenlighted a $1 million check to Crist’s campaign in 2006. McCain won Florida by 36 percent to 31 percent over Romney. And the exit polls found that 42 percent of the voters said the popular governor’s endorsement was very important or somewhat important. The majority of McCain's vote came from large Spanish communities in the Miami area. On Thursday, two more big-state governors who were on the 2006 ballot, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Rick Perry of Texas, lined up behind McCain. Schwarzenegger’s decision came just days before California Republicans vote in this Tuesday’s primary. Perry switched to McCain after his first endorsed candidate, Rudy Giuliani, ended his campaign. Nebraska’s David Heineman and Rhode Island’s Donald Carcieri are behind Romney. But the rest of the class is sitting it out, having declined to endorse anyone. Phil Musser, a Romney supporter who served as his RGA executive director, says Romney’s dearth of gubernatorial support is less revealing than it appears. “With his peer governors, he is very popular and well-liked,” Musser said. “There wasn’t much grousing from anyone.” Instead, Musser points to a variety of factors that might have led some governors to sit out the presidential primaries — the volatility of the GOP field, the reluctance of newly elected governors to take sides and deference to Huckabee, who was familiar to many of them as the former chairman of the nonpartisan National Governors Association. The fact that very few new Republican governors were elected in 2006 due to the gale-force Democratic winds, Musser said, also accounts for the low number of Romney supporters. “Part of it is the widespread, scattered nature of the field, part of it is that no one wants hurt feelings, and part of it is decisions made about self-interest,” said Musser, now a Republican consultant. Still, with just three governors behind him — the little-known Heineman and Carcieri, and Missouri’s Matt Blunt, who recently announced he would not seek a second term — Romney’s base of support stands in stark contrast to the impressive roster assembled in 2000 by then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who had 24 governors backing him. And Romney’s thin list of gubernatorial supporters pales when compared with some of the heavyweights aligned with McCain, including Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty, who was elected to a second term in 2006 and is frequently mentioned as a vice presidential prospect, and Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, who served a stint as President Bush’s budget director. Beginning in 2005, McCain, who has spent his entire political career in Congress, made a concerted effort to line up gubernatorial support in anticipation of his 2008 run. He met with nearly every incumbent Republican governor, and campaigned and raised money for them and for other Republicans running for governor in 2006.<