For Romney, a different campaign but old obstacles

Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Mitt Romney wasn't in Iowa on Monday, which tells you much about his second campaign for the presidency. It will not be a rerun of the first.

The former Massachusetts governor skipped the first mini-forum of the 2012 Republican nomination battle. As several of his likely rivals shared the stage at a church in Des Moines, appealing to Christian conservatives, Romney chose to make his splash on the front page of the Boston Herald with a guest column ripping President Obama on the economy, just as the president was arriving for a visit.

Four years ago, Romney was in a great hurry to prove his bona fides as a candidate against better-known Republicans such as John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. This time he has been content to wait and to focus on the president rather than fellow Republicans. His strategy has helped dictate the pace of the slow-starting campaign, which he hopes will be to his advantage. The change reflects Romney's status in the top tier of the Republican field as well as lessons learned from his flawed campaign of 2008.

At every turn four years ago, Romney wanted to be first and earliest. He was overeager. He tried to match McCain organizationally, starting in 2006. He made a fundraising splash in January 2007 as a way to signal that he could go the distance financially, even if he was in single digits in the polls.

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