Romney Woos Conservatives In Battleground Colorado
DENVER (AP) - Mitt Romney has clinched the Republican nomination for president, but he's still working to clinch conservatives in the battleground state of Colorado.
On the same day he formally became his party's nominee, Romney campaigned in a conservative western Colorado town. The Craig visit came despite assumptions that the battleground state will be won or lost in the Denver suburbs.
Romney's speech Tuesday to rock-ribbed Republicans in Moffat County instead of a more moderate crowd on the Front Range underlines a crucial task: Romney has to fire up a base of conservatives who didn't support him during the primaries.
Colorado chose former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in the February presidential precinct caucuses. And about two months later, with Santorum out of the race, Republicans gave a healthy portion of the state's national convention delegation to independents or Ron Paul supporters.
Throughout the Republican primary season in Colorado, party members have seen shifting alliances and bickering. The frustrations erupted at the April convention, with Romney opponents accusing insiders of unfairly steering support toward the former Massachusetts governor.
Little surprise, then, that state GOP Chairman Ryan Call and the state's two Republican National Committee members, Mark Hillman and Lilly Nunez, waited until Romney clinched the nomination Tuesday night before making public their endorsements of him.
"My job at the end of the day is to unify all Republicans to support the eventual nominee, and I can do that much better if they know I'm not getting in there and putting my thumb on the scale," Call said Wednesday.
The question now becomes whether rank-and-file Republicans here will fall in line behind Romney.
One of the holdouts is Florence Sebern, a Denver Republican who was elected to represent Colorado at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. Sebern still backs Paul, who is no longer actively campaigning. Sebern says she doesn't trust delegate counts that have Romney certain to win the nomination.
Sebern says that from the beginning party officials supported Romney tacitly while claiming to be impartial.
"You know what? They're employed by the GOP. That's what they're paid to do. That was evident early on," Sebern said.
But Sebern says she has no hard feelings and that state Republican leadership handled the divisive primary season well. She hoped national Republican leaders will be as understanding in Tampa.
"It's not going to be, 'Come in, sit down, shut up and follow our lead,'" Sebern said.
Colorado Republicans may not yet be lockstep behind Romney, but interviews Wednesday showed them united in their advice for the presumptive nominee, saying Romney needs to circle back to the Republican base.
Many Republicans say 2008 GOP nominee John McCain erred by assuming Colorado conservatives would work for him when they didn't support him in the primary season. Instead McCain suffered from a smoldering base that wasn't pumped to work for their presidential candidate, while Obama drew record crowds.
Romney's Colorado campaign may have learned that lesson from McCain's loss. John Justman, a farmer who raises corn, wheat and alfafa in Fruita, supported Santorum in the caucuses. Just last week, he got a fundraising appeal from Romney.
"I think a lot of people will say, 'This isn't my first choice, but by golly, Mitt Romney's a lot better than what we have currently,'" said Justman, who is running for Mesa County Commission and spends a lot of time talking to Republican voters.
Romney also helped himself with conservatives by visiting conservative Fort Lupton a few weeks back, said Karen Pelzer, Weld County GOP chairwoman. Santorum soundly beat Romney here in February, but Pelzer said Romney is changing minds.
"The feeling in our area is getting better. The fact he showed up here a couple weeks ago shows his commitment to conservatives in Weld County," Pelzer said.
Call, the state Republican Party chairman, said the next step for Romney here is to open campaign offices, which in many areas will be unified GOP campaign offices.
He says Romney should keep talking about the economy, because that's what won him the GOP nomination and can win the overall vote in a battleground like Colorado.
"The message is what you lead with," Call said. "And on that message, Mitt Romney is spot on."
- By Kristen Wyatt, AP Writer
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