MSNBC First Read: First Thoughts: Romney's tough week [View All]

[OmahaBlueDog]

*** Romney’s tough week: Last week, we wrote that Romney took a few nicks but no major blows in this campaign. Well, the first major blow came with a Gallup poll (and other robos NBC doesn’t report on) showing him being knocked off his front-runner perch -- and Rick Perry leading by double-digits. It led to a round of headlines like this one from his hometown paper The Boston Globe: “Mitt Romney is the Republican front-runner no longer.” On the one hand, being a front runner this early is not always a good thing – it didn’t work out so well for Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani. In track, it’s always good to be a few paces behind the leader and make your kick in the final stretch. (But what happens if you don’t have that kick?) The Romney camp says it’s sticking with its non-interventionist (against the GOP field) strategy -- for now, but as Reuters notes, “

ressure could mount for a more aggressive approach as his poll numbers worsen.” And to that point, here’s David Brooks: “It’s more likely that sooner or later Romney is going to have to prove his own toughness by taking Perry on directly” because it’s “unlikely” that Perry “passively” “implodes.” Still, it’s too early to panic, especially since there is no national primary, and Romney continues to hold a substantial lead in New Hampshire, a key early primary state. (Romney has real problems if you start to see him slip in the Granite State.) What this likely means, though, as we pointed out yesterday, we could be in for a LONG campaign.

Read more at: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/26/7484322-first-thoughts-romneys-tough-week