More cash than dash: Romney’s likeability gap

It is being described as Mitt Romney’s $3m weekend. That is how much he is expected to rake in from a series of big-cheque fundraising events in the Hamtons, hosted by some of his billionaire supporters.

If you are free for Sunday lunch, there is an exclusive bash at the home of financier Ronald Perelman, a mansion said to be worth $25m, with 57 acre grounds which the New York Times says are dubbed the “eighth wonder of the horticultural world.”

Or there is an evening event at the Southampton mansion of billioniare tycoon David H Koch: tickets are yours for a mere $50,000 a head. You might have to push your way past a group of protestors to get there, though.

A range of groups, including Greenpeace and Occupy Wall Street plan to rally outside Koch’s house to protest against “money in politics”. “We want everyone who is not arriving by helicopter to have to pass by us and be shamed by us”, a spokesperson said.

The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney. John Boehner, House Speaker

Critics might assume that all this hobnobbing with the super rich might not do much to dispel Romney’s image as an out-of-touch rich guy who can’t comprehend the problems faced by ordinary people, in ordinary life. The Republicans may not care: after all, they are on track to seriously outraise Barack Obama, after pulling in $100m in June alone.

Likeability stakes

For it seems many on Romney’s own side are giving up on the likeability stakes. A poll by Gallup earlier this year showed almost twice as many people thought Obama, rather than Romney, was likeable. Add to that, Mitt’s uncanny ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or look uncomfortable trying to relate to voters, and you could have a problem.

John Heilemann, from New York Magazine, put it thus: “Mitt Romney is never going to be likeable because he is never going to be comfortable talking about the things that animate him as a person. The Romney campaign is not going to try to fix that problem. They are just going to stay focused completely on this is a referendum on the president’s economic stewardship.”

One would-be supporter took her concerns right to the top last week, buttonholing House Speaker John Boehner at a speech in West Virginia. “Can you make me love Mitt Romney?” she asked – “No” was the frank reply. “I wasn’t elected to play God. The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney.”

He went on to say that a handful of Mitt’s friends, relatives and fellow Mormons might actually make a positive choice to vote for him – but insisted that come November, most people would be voting for or against Barack Obama: that referendum on the president trope again.

A race for the soul

Big news. Romney doesn’t come across as the most likeable guy. Does it even matter? Back in 1987 the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd brought the issue to the fore, describing the clash between Dukakis and Bush as “a race to show who has a soul.”

She recalled a conversation with Dukakis about what he liked to do in his spare time, which turned out to be putting mulch on his tomato plants. “And I thought to myself right then: this man will never be president.”

A glance through most modern presidential elections shows that the candidate who comes across as less likeable invariably ends up on the losing side: like Al Gore in 2000, whose campaign staff took to wearing badges proclaiming “I’m Al Gore, and I don’t like you, either.”

Hillary Clinton famously battled negative perceptions of her personality when she ran against Obama for the Democratic nomination in 2008: it was alleged that it was only when she broke down in tears during a campaign event that people started warming to her.

As for Obama, at the moment it seems people still rate him personally, even if they don’t like some of his policies. So far he has managed to weather a series of disappointing jobs reports, last Friday’s included: there may only be the faintest glimmer of economic recovery, fragile at best, but nothing to knock the opinion polls off course.

Vacation friends

In his home state of New Hampshire, Mitt Romney has plenty of friends: as the LA Times put it: “He likes to go – and who doesn’t – where everybody likes him, and he’s just plain Mitt.” Except the long road to the White House is far more than a Fourth of July vacation: and even if the American people don’t have to fall in love with Romney, they surely have to like him, to want him around for the next four years.

Money is one thing, and Romney certainly has it in spades: but it seems it really can’t buy you love. So will 2012 turn out to be a “race to show who has a soul” – or a referendum on the economy? The result could depend on it.

Felicity Spector writes about US politics for Channel 4 News