But it was his line that “humans contribute” that sparked the conservative backlash.
Romney has long known that the health-care legislation he signed in Massachusetts — like Obama’s federal health-care overhaul, it includes an individual mandate — could be his Achilles’ heel in pursuit of the Republican nomination.
Now, some conservatives say, he should add climate change to that list.
“If [voters] get past Romneycare, then this will be a ‘do not pass go’-type issue,” said Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute and a leading global warming skeptic. “This could just be the last straw.”
Four years ago, Romney drew scorn from some conservatives when he appeared to veer to the right and disavow his formerly liberal positions. And after he lost the 2008 nomination, polling suggested that many Republican voters doubted his authenticity.
This time, Romney is trying to turn around that narrative. That effort began last month in Michigan with a PowerPoint presentation on health care.
Trying to stop a drumbeat of conservative criticism, Romney said that the law he signed as governor was “a state solution to a state problem” and that he stands by it. But if elected president, he said, he would issue an executive order on his first day in office paving the way for states to opt out of the new federal law.
In the 2008 presidential campaign, climate change was not a major issue. Although Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican nominee, said he believed the science behind global warming, he did little to highlight his earlier bipartisan work in the Senate on climate change.
Public opinion is politicized on the issue. A March Gallup poll found that 32 percent of Republicans think the effects of global warming are already being felt and 36 percent believe the rise in the Earth’s temperatures is caused by humans, while 67 percent say the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated in the news.
The same survey found the opposite trend on the other side of the political fence. Sixty-two percent of Democrats polled said the effects of global warming have begun, and 71 percent said humans are causing the rising temperatures, while 22 percent think the situation is exaggerated. Among independents, there was a fairly even split on those questions.
For Romney, the past few weeks have been encouraging. He raised more than $10 million in a single day last month and has since crisscrossed the country vacuuming up many more checks. He is widely expected to trounce other candidates when he posts his fundraising total for the quarter that ends June 30.
Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll this week showed Romney as the strongest current or prospective Republican candidate in the 2012 presidential field. Among all Americans, Obama and Romney are locked in a dead heat, at 47 percent each. But the poll found that among registered voters, Romney is numerically ahead of Obama, 49 percent to 46 percent, while independents split for Romney 50 percent to 43 percent.
“I hate to disagree with Rush Limbaugh, but I don’t think the campaign’s over,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, pointing to Romney’s strength in fundraising and organization. As for climate change, he added, “I’m not sure that’s a deal-breaker for Mitt Romney.”
Polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.
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