Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, listens to a question from a reporter as he visits a campaign call center in Livonia, Mich., Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012.Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
For a candidate who has been accused of sounding out of touch with ordinary Americans, Mitt Romney found new ways to emphasize the disconnect in the run-up to the Michigan primary contest – and unless the former Massachusetts governor can find a way to talk about his wealth and find common ground with voters, his candidacy will be hobbled.
On voting day, he was asked by a reporter at his campaign headquarters in Livonia, Michigan, whether he felt his recent gaffes had hurt him.
"Yes," he told reporters. "Next question." Mr. Romney went on to narrowly win his home state of Michigan, a state he carried easily just four years ago.
"I think it was [American journalist]Michael Kinsley who said that, 'A gaffe is when someone accidentally speaks the truth,'" says Boston University historian Bruce Schulman.
"When you're under this constant scrutiny for month after month, it's hard to keep the real you from coming out. And the real Romney is someone who has hundreds of millions of dollars and that puts him in pretty rarefied air."
At a campaign event in Detroit last week, Mr. Romney casually mentioned that while he drove two cars, his wife Ann drove "a couple of Cadillacs." At the Daytona 500 last Sunday, when asked about his interest in car racing, Mr. Romney explained, "I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners."
Rather than identifying with the people in the viewing stands – which is why he was there in the first place – Mr. Romney appeared to link himself to the wealthy racing team owners.
"I just don't think he has never been able to articulate a message that speaks to people who earn less than $100,000 a year," argues Rutgers University historian David Greenberg.
"He just doesn't think about those things. It's not in his world. I mean just these gaffes – 'I drive two cars, my wife drives two Cadillacs' – it's mind-boggling that he can talk like that."
The former Massachusetts governor, who made his fortune as the head of investment firm Bain Capital, has delivered a stream of what-not-to-say quips on the campaign trail at a time when the country's economic recovery is shaky, there is focus on the estimated $200-million Romney family fortune, and there's growing concern that Republican front-runner lacks a common touch.
But Mr. Romney is by no means the first wealthy candidate to seek the White House.
A President Mitt Romney, according to two studies – one by financial news analysis group 24/7 Wall Street and the other by Forbes – would rank very close to the top on America's wealthiest presidents list.
The 24/7 Wall Street study looked at the peak wealth of each U.S. president and adjusted the figures in 2010 dollar terms. In both studies, George Washington, with his vast Virginia plantations and slaves, ranks first, with one estimate suggesting his net worth would be $525-million.
Even Mr. Romney's rivals in the Republican leadership contest may not rank close to him in net worth, but they are worth millions, made from writing books and speaking and consulting fees. The 'poorest' is Rick Santorum, whose net worth is estimated at over a million dollars.
President Barack Obama's books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope, delivered significant royalties, with most of the Obama household's 2009 gross income of $5.6-million coming from those books. According to Forbes magazine, President Obama's net worth is likely around $10-million.
Wealth and the White House are intertwined.
Indeed, that is the story of U.S. presidential politics for over a century, and Mr. Romney – with just eight months before the November presidential election – would do well to study his predecessors and learn how to wear that wealth, according to American scholars and historians.
"For most of the 20th century, the conventional wisdom was that patrician candidates – men of great wealth – could win American national elections but only if they were the champion of the common man, the candidate with the ideology most congenial to the interests of ordinary workers and farmers, with a willingness to criticize big business," explains Mr. Schulman.
The 'champions,' as Mr. Schulman explains, were Democratic Party presidents, men born into established families and heirs to tremendous wealth – Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) and John F. Kennedy (JFK) – but still managed to connect with voters.
A patrician running as a Republican in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s would have faced tremendous obstacles, Mr. Schulman adds. "The Republican party had a hard time making the claim to be a champion of the little guy and it was widely viewed as the party of business and the party of the wealthy."
Mr. Romney is part of a trend of wealthy businessmen-turned-politicians that has been brought about by an ideological shift in U.S. politics since the 1970s when "worship of the free market becomes part of the American political ideology," Mr. Schulman explains. "[In the 1970s] businessmen become the heroes in American public life and that creates a different kind of space."
The result, Mr. Schulman adds, is that over the last two decades wealthy businessmen like Ross Perot, Steve Forbes and Mitt Romney have run for president and argued that their business experience gives them a unique advantage to help turn around the fortunes of the United States.
Texas businessman Ross Perot's third-party candidacy in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections generated a lot of excitement. In placing third in 1992 behind George H. Bush and winner Bill Clinton, Mr. Perot was still able to win nearly 20 per cent of the vote.
"Ross Perot was wealthy," explains Donald Critchlow, Arizona State University historian. "His wealth was not an issue. He was a self-made man, even though his contracts came from government. He was a populist. Romney is also a self-made man. Unfortunately, his wealth was made in finance and he is not a populist, and he lacks a Texas accent."
But if the 1992 presidential election provides an example for Mr. Romney, it also offers a cautionary tale.
The parallels between Mr. Romney and President George H. Bush, as he sought re-election, are significant.
Mr. Bush was a moderate, eastern establishment Republican, and the product of an elite background, Mr. Schulman explains. "In a time of economic turmoil, and during the recession of the early nineties, his being out of touch was crippling for him."
Mr. Bush's missteps were glaring, argues Rutgers University historian David Greenberg.
"In 1992, [President Bush]had his own Romney-like gaffes, such as not being able to guess how much a gallon of milk costs and being stunned by the use of a supermarket price scanner, which had by then been in use for years."
For his son, George W. Bush, the lesson had been learnt, and during Mr. Bush's time in office, it was cowboy boots and denim shirts.
"He'd be seen on his ranch, or on a dirt bike. He effected, and you know some people said it was phony, but I think this was part of who he was. He effected a more regular guy style that I think probably took the edge of his political views for a lot of people," says Mr. Greenberg.
Mr. Romney, to his credit, has tried the boots and jeans, the informal style, the empathy. In Florida in January, ahead of a must-win primary, he met homeowners facing foreclosure or dropping house prices.
He listened to their struggles and said their stories "break my heart." But on another occasion, meeting unemployed Floridians, he started by telling his own story. "I'm also unemployed."
His unofficial and unpaid job, in fact, has been running for president. Nevertheless, Mr. Romney earned $21.6-million in 2010, mainly from investments. He also earned about $370,000 in speakers' fees, which, he explained, is "not very much."
Pushed in to a corner over his recent gaffes, Mr. Romney has gone on the defensive.
"If people think there's something wrong with being successful in America, then they better vote for the other guy. Because I've been extraordinarily successful, and I want to use that success and that know-how to help the American people," he told Fox News, when asked about his Cadillac comment.
Thirty-six hours later he was acknowledging, for the first time, that he was doing his own cause a great deal of damage.
If Mr. Romney does become the eventual nominee, it's not like he will be competing against a politician known for his 'common touch.'
Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University historian who campaigned for candidate Barack Obama in 2008 in Indiana, remembers how then-Senator Obama's comments about "bitter" working-class voters who "cling to guns or religion" ended up costing the presidential hopeful votes.
And while Mr. Kazin will campaign for Mr. Obama this year in the swing-state of Virginia, the challenges are clear.
"A lot of Republican-leaning voters – which is about half of the country – they kind of like the idea of a businessman in politics. That is not a problem for them at all. Even if Romney was a more appealing individual, had a more appealing personality, seemed more genuine and authentic then it wouldn't matter at all."
But can Mr. Romney learn the 'common touch'?
Mr. Kazin's answer: "It's kind of tough. He's what – 64 years old? And he's go to learn it in the next eight months or less?"
"I think it would be wrong to count him out just because of these gaffes," says Boston University's Mr. Schulman, arguing that Mr. Romney is someone who can learn and adjust. He "retooled" after losing a senate race to Ted Kennedy and then successfully ran and won the Massachusetts governor race in a Democratic state, Mr. Schulman adds.
"But I don't think he is ever going to succeed in making that kind of intimate connection with people. I don't think he's going to succeed on the 'Do you want to have a beer with him?' test that Americans for some reason want to ask of their presidential candidates – even though we're never going to have a beer with these guys."