Mitt Romney and an aide, Garrett Jackson, in Michigan on a bus, where a banner from a previous Romney campaign hangs.
NOVI, Mich. — This was supposed to be a state, at last, where Mitt Romney could coast. After all, he grew up here. His father, an automobile executive, had been the governor. And the last time there was a Republican presidential primary in Michigan, Mr. Romney won handily.
A one-stop destination for the latest political news — from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.Yet, with less than a week until Michigan Republicans vote and with polling suggesting that Rick Santorum is mounting a serious challenge, Mr. Romney finds himself urgently pouring resources into his home state — unveiling gauzy television ads aimed at reminding residents of his family roots and rolling out endorsements from a virtual who’s who in Lansing: the governor, a former Senate majority leader, the attorney general, a former attorney general, and on and on. While Mr. Romney’s comments against the federal bailout of the auto industry have drawn particular attention in Michigan, his troubles among Republican voters here appear to have less to do with his views on the bailout — which plenty of them say they were not keen on either — than with a shifting political landscape in a changing state and a fading, and in some cases tattered, emotional bond to the Romney name. “Sure, I’d love to be able to say that our president is from Michigan, but that’s not all that matters to me,” said Cindy Minier, a Republican Party chairwoman from Presque Isle County, who said she was leaning toward Newt Gingrich or, given a second choice, Mr. Santorum. “When it comes right down to it, I just don’t feel that Romney is a real conservative — not a real, true one.” It is hard to remember that in 2008, Michigan voters perceived Mr. Romney as the more conservative Republican beside Senator John McCain of Arizona, who ultimately won the nomination. This time, of course, others are claiming that mantle. Meanwhile, Michigan is changing too, with its long-struggling economy in the uncertain midst of transition, the emergence of Tea Party groups and conservatives who helped Republicans win a wave of elections in 2010, and an ever-growing generational split between those for whom 1950s- and 1960s-era images of Mitt Romney with his father still stir nostalgia and younger people with blurry memories of Gov. George W. Romney, or none at all. “It’s a joke,” Randy Bishop, 54 and a Tea Party organizer, said of Mr. Romney’s emphasis on his connections to Michigan. “He left after high school, became the governor of Massachusetts and never looked back.” Mr. Bishop criticized Mr. Romney for the health care insurance law he supported in Massachusetts, portrayed him as a “moderate in lockstep with the establishment folks” and described Michigan’s economy as a far cry from the manufacturing capital over which Mr. Romney’s father presided. Mr. Bishop said he would vote for Mr. Santorum. In a way, much of Michigan is only beginning to meet Mr. Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania. Even some supporters here acknowledged that they had not given particular attention to him until this month, when he won a series of races elsewhere. Michigan’s influential Right to Life political action committee said it would not endorse any one Republican over the others; all oppose abortion, it says. But Mr. Santorum drew praise from voters who said their evangelical Christian or Roman Catholic faith drove their political outlook, particularly from voters in the state’s western section and rural northern stretches. Plenty of Republicans — even some of Mr. Santorum’s supporters — said they believed that Mr. Romney would ultimately win here, given a flood of advertisements and support from influential Republican leaders. Mr. Romney certainly has a base of loyal supporters, some of whom seemed to view the outcome of Michigan’s primary as carrying a special, personal weight, and the notion that Mr. Romney might actually be in trouble here as reason to redouble their efforts now. “His family made a substantial effect on our state, and you just can’t take that away from him,” said Al Heilman, 76, who said he still had a photograph socked away somewhere of himself meeting Mr. Romney’s father decades ago. Mr. Heilman, a Republican chairman from Kalamazoo County in the southwestern part of the state, said some people seem to want to penalize Mr. Romney for his business experience. “I don’t understand people who kick people in the shins because they’ve been successful — profits make the world go around,” Mr. Heilman, who retired after running a confections and nuts business, said. “Look, we’re on a dive, and this is the time for a true businessman like Mitt Romney who can turn around the country.”
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