| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
Mitt's stock is sky-high
Massachusetts GOP clamoring for him to run for governor
By Dennis Romboy
Deseret News staff writer
Utahns have a sky-high opinion of Mitt Romney right now, but they probably won't get the chance to elect him to political office.
A Boston newspaper poll has Romney, a Republican, leading all five Democrats running for governor of Massachusetts, the state in which the outgoing Salt Lake Olympics boss has said he's most likely to seek election.
And in a new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll of 600 Utahns conducted this week, results indicate more than 87 percent of respondents gave Romney a favorable rating. His unfavorable rating was a mere 4 percent.
"The guy looks like he walks on water," pollster Dan Jones said.
The numbers published in Wednesday's Boston Herald aren't nearly that lofty but do elevate him above every Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate, including Gov. Jane M. Swift, a Republican incumbent against whom Romney said he would not run.
The Boston poll showed 57 percent of registered voters gave the soon-to-be-former Salt Lake Organizing Committee president a favorable rating, compared with 27 percent for Swift. Swift's unfavorable rating was 53 percent, compared with Romney's 8 percent.
Jones said a candidate needs a 3-to-1 ratio of favorable to unfavorable to be viable, which Romney easily has.
"That's very good, especially for a Republican. That's a Democratic state," he said.
The poll also showed him outpacing the Democrats, while Swift lagged behind top contenders.
Romney was favored over Massachusetts state Treasurer Shannon P. O'Brien by 6 points, 38 percent to 32 percent, and over former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich by 9 points, 40 percent to 31 percent. Romney held double-digit leads over the other candidates.
"He is going to Massachusetts, in my opinion," Jones said, citing two reasons Romney would choose that state over Utah.
First, he ran a credible campaign against Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1994. Second, the Eastern state offers more electoral votes and a larger media market should he decide to run for president.
Romney said Sunday during a 2002 Winter Games wrap-up news conference that his longtime home state was the "most likely place" in which he would run for office. He did not want to discuss the Boston Herald poll Wednesday, spokeswoman Caroline Shaw said.
"If he did want to get into the race, he'd be better off doing it sooner than later to capitalize on these numbers while people are still thinking about the Olympics," Massachusetts pollster R. Kelly Myers told the Boston Herald.
The RKM Research and Communications poll of 406 registered voters was conducted Feb. 24-26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
Romney has drawn widespread praise for steering the Salt Lake City through the bid scandal and financial woes to what International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge called "superb" Games.
Romney has repeatedly said the past three days that he has not made a decision about his political future. He must pack fast if he intends to head East.
The state Republican Party plans on April 6 to hold its convention, at which the party will endorse a candidate for governor. The party's primary is Sept. 17.
Meantime, the campaign to draft Romney to run in Massachusetts has intensified. A Boston Herald columnist no longer is asking Romney to run. He begged him in a Wednesday column.
Also on Wednesday, a Web site called www.enlistmitt.com popped up on the Internet.
Ian Bayne, who runs the site, says the state needs the Olympic boss to overhaul a sluggish state economy — similar to the repairs Romney performed when he took over SLOC three years ago.
"We really need someone with a professional business background to turn our economy around," Bayne said.
From 9 a.m. to noon, Bayne, chairman of the Republican Party in Somerville, Mass., and a statewide political action committee representative, was on the phone to GOP chairmen statewide.
By day's end, he had 19 city chairmen pledging support for Romney, including the one in Lowell, the city slated to host the state's Republican convention.
Besides organizing the troops, Bayne said the site is designed to show Romney residents back him.
"I heard that he's looking and seeing what kind of support is out there, and we wanted to show him there is solid support," Bayne said. "I have not talked to too many people who want Jane Swift. All the people I've talked to want Mitt."
Contributing: Brady Snyder
E-MAIL: romboy@desnews.com
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February 28, 2002
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