Professor of Constitutional Law, Pepperdine University; Chair of the Courts and the Constitution Committee of Romney for President

 The latest Rasmussen telephone survey finds Mitt Romney with a lead in Florida’s Republican Presidential Primary. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are close behind in what may develop into a three-man race. It’s Romney at 25%, McCain at 20%, and Giuliani at 19%. Romney has picked up seven points over the past week while McCain and Giuliani each inched up a point. Huckabee is way back, falling to 13%.  These percentages likely understate Romney's strength now with Thompson dropping out after his disappointing showing in South Carolina.  Romney and Thompson, as the debates revealed, agreed far more than they disagreed, and key supporters of the "Law & Order" Senator are now making their way into the Romney fold.

Why the focusing of interest on Governor Romney?

In part, it is momentum. While finishing second in the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney is today the frontrunner in delegate count, with wins in Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming. Florida is also the first true Republican primary, where independents and cross-over delegates cannot game the system – a fact that was an indispensable help to McCain in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Even more importantly, with the steep dive in the financial markets, the nation’s attention has turned to the economy, and Romney is the only candidate of either party with a substantial history of successfully addressing economic challenges. 

 Change is more than a slogan.

 Governor Romney also quickly moved to demonstrate that expertise by proposing an economic stimulus plan that would lower taxes on individuals, reduce taxes for businesses and help homeowners through the current housing crisis. The plan is far meatier than that proposed by President Bush or any of Romney’s Democratic rivals and addresses both short and long-term objectives.   For Romney, change is more than a slogan, and a slumping DowJones supplies an opportunity for him to give concrete illustration of capabilities honed at the Harvard business school and as a turnaround whiz in the public and private sectors.

Here’s the plan in broad-strokes. With respect to individuals, Governor Romney would permanently reduce the lowest income tax bracket, permanently eliminate payroll taxes on seniors and make middle-class savings tax free.   Romney thus aims the stimulus where it is most likely to have an immediate impact. Given the origin of the economic distress in the housing sector, it also makes perfect sense to expand the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan portfolio, adjusting limits to allow larger loans to homeowners. Having witnessed the hardship of Michigan unemployment, the Governor is mindful that real investment, not temporary hand-out, is the best long-term antidote, and to that end, he sensibly calls for an immediate 100% expensing of equipment for two years and permanently reduce the corporate tax rate.

  The Complete Record Answers His Critics

While a pair of Northeastern economists have recently questioned Romney’s economic bona fides, Romney’s resume includes too many notable successes, such as rescuing the debt-ridden Salt Lake City Olympics and helping to set up office supply retail-store chain Staples Inc. which employs about 70,000 people, to be fooled by statistical sleight of hand. Premised more on guestimate than hard numbers, job growth tallies are notoriously slippery – some would say subject to manipulation – but it is undeniable that Massachusetts won a credit-rating upgrade during Romney's term as governor for the first time since 2000.  

 Romney, himself, freely concedes that the liberal Democratic legislature in Massachusetts gave him a hard time as he pursued free market means to bolster a lagging state job market. Nevertheless, the direction of Romney’s proposed reforms was “encouraging,” according to the more balanced appraisal by the Club for Growth. His record on trade, school choice, regulations, and tort reform all indicate a strong respect for the power of market solutions. The report found his deregulatory initiatives to be “impressive,” even as he often had to “clash with the knee-jerk anti-business Legislature over his attempts to ease Massachusetts’ regulatory burdens. Though some of his largest undertakings were ultimately crushed by liberal opposition, Governor Romney deserves praise for attempting to change the relationship between government and private enterprise for the better.”

Hope is more than rhetoric.

 Perhaps the best measure of Romney’s economic savvy is his own record of achievement in the private sector when not weighed down by the obstructionist policies of partisan power. When Romney was asked to return to Bain & Company in1990, the firm was facing financial collapse. As CEO, Romney managed an effort to restructure the firm’s employee stock-ownership plan, real-estate transactions and bank loans, while increasing fiscal transparency. Within a year, he had led Bain & Company through a highly successful turnaround and returned the firm to profitability without layoffs or partner defections. Romney’s 14 years at Bain Capital yielded an average annual internal rate of return on realized investments of 113 percent.

Romney won in Michigan and Nevada telling voters he would “fight for every job.” Apparently, he knows how to win those scraps, as during Romney’s tenure in private business, he helped found, acquire, or invest in hundreds of companies including Staples, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Brookstone, Domino's, Sealy Corporation and The Sports Authority.

The polls are showing Romney breaking into the lead in Florida – with good reason.