fern strom. the guy he turns to when someone s leg needs breaks. if rove was bush s brain, then fehrnstrom gives romney a backbone. what does he bring that mitt romney needs and what s it like working with the guy from inside of the media? this is a very tight-knit group and they have conflict internally, but it rarely spills out publicly. he is one of three longtime boston-based aides along with beth myers who is running the veep search operation and doing a lot of other things and peter flaherty. they are very loyal and they know him well. you have seen other people run. senator mccain had outside and inside people, but there was a fair amount of conflict in that campaign. [ laughter ] and this operation doesn t have much. and eric fehrnstrom is a big
back into america. if we bring it back, we ll get taxed very heavily. and other people saying, why should we give big tax breaks to companies like apple which are doing incredibly well? they should be bringing it back anyway. if you want to be optimistic, it means there s a lot of spare firepower amongst american companies which means if they have confidence in the future that could be deployed to create jobs and invest. the question is what is going to create that confidence. up 94%, year-to-year, the profits. incredible. now let s turn to politics. decisive wins last night as expected in five states for mitt romney. pretty much officially putting the primary process behind him now. openly declaring what s been clear for weeks, he is the republican nominee for president. he swept the vote by double digits in connecticut, delaware, and new york. pennsylvania and rhode island. he racked up another 133 delegates last night, putting him 320 shy of the 1144 he will need to officially b
but what does romney probably at a zoo. yeah. but what does romney do about this, if anything? well, i think this is, you know, as we are talking about this, you look at a state like new hampshire, where you had a very close race a couple of months ago. the president has a nine-point lead. that s a function of how the suburbs are reacting to these republican primaries. and mitt romney is not going to do himself any favors if he puts himself in a negotiation for rick santorum s support in the context now of the argument he is trying to have in the general election. so i think he s got to be very close to the line to tell rick santorum to go pound sand and to call his bluff and to say, you can stay somewhere in georgia for the convention, and you re not speaking, and, you know, santorum, you ve jumped the shark here, because if he gets into a public pandering, trying to get gingrich s support, trying to get santorum s support, it s going to totally derail his ability to deliver t
trying to get there. john heilemann, what s the message if you re trying to shape the message? what is the answer to the question why mitt romney? we know now from the campaign why not barack obama. why mitt romney? what s the positive message? i think we ll end up coming back to the kind of message he tried to put forward throughout most of 2011 before things took kind of a wrong turn for him coming out of new hampshire, which is that he has the private sector experience, he understands how to manage the economy in a way that barack obama doesn t. you know, steve is a great source to talk about this. i think this race looks a lot like 2004, where you have an incumbent who is trying to turn this into a choice election. barack obama s team going to try to make this all about do you really want mitt romney or do you want barack obama. it can t be a referendum election. and of course that s what the romney campaign wants to make it. they want to make it a are you better off than four
about whether mitt romney is going to be conservative as a candidate, and if he wins as a president. and part of the discussion he says he wants to have not about the platform but what about what mitt romney will be about if he wins, what fight on conservative principles he ll take to the president and to the country if he s sworn in. what does he want to hear from him that he hasn t heard yet? i have no idea. i feel like his influence is a wasting asset at this point. there was maybe a moment right before he dropped out and right after he dropped out where he might have been able to have that kind of influence over romney. but as every day, it diminishes. and it seems to me as you were watching your chip pile just dwindle and dwindle to the point where you have one last $2 chip, i don t know how you ll get anything out of mitt romney. it seems to me every single day he loses leverage. and the romney campaign understands that they are carrying 90% of the republican voter base out