WP: Bartlett on the GOP Field: A Hick, a "Dud" and a "Flip-Flopper"
One of President Bush's closest advisers has a brutally candid analysis of the Republican nomination battle: Fred Thompson is the campaign's "biggest dud," Mitt Romney has "a real problem in the South" because people will not vote for a Mormon, Mike Huckabee's last name is too hick and John McCain could end up repeating 2000 by winning New Hampshire but losing the nomination.
Dan Bartlett, who stepped down as White House counselor in July after working nearly his entire adult life for Bush, gave those frank assessments of the Republican presidential candidates during a recent appearance before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that went unnoticed outside the room. Never before has Bartlett opened up in a public setting with such an unvarnished analysis of the race. And while he no longer formally speaks for the president, Bartlett spent 14 years channeling Bush and remains virtually his alter ego, so his views could be seen as a revealing look into the thinking within the president's inner circle.
Bartlett was harshest in his judgment of Thompson, the former Tennessee senator who jumped into the contest a month ago and faces his first televised debate today. Thompson, Bartlett said, was the "biggest dud" because he peaked last spring when he first started talking about running and since then has yet to articulate a compelling vision for why he is running. "The biggest liability was whether he had the fire in the belly to run for office in the first place and be president," Bartlett said. "So what does he do? He waits four months, fires a bunch of staff, has a big staff turnover, has a lot of backbiting, comes out with his big campaign launch and gives a very incoherent and not very concise stump speech for why he's running for president."
His judgment of Romney was only somewhat less negative. While crediting the former Massachusetts governor with the "best strategy and organization" born out of his "business acumen," Bartlett said "the flip-flopping on positions" stemmed from a miscalculation that the primary field would be more conservative than it proved to be....The flip-flopping issue, Bartlett added, provides an outlet for another big reason why Republican voters will not back Romney -- his religion. "The Mormon issue is a real problem in the South, it's a real problem in other parts of the country," he said. "But people are not going to say it. People are not going to step out and say, 'I have a problem with Romney because he's Mormon.' What they're going to say is he's a flip-flopper....
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As it happens, the Bush adviser was most enthusiastic about a contender who seems to have even less chance. He called Huckabee the "best candidate," one who seems to most mirror Bush's own vision of compassionate conservatism....But Huckabee probably cannot win, Bartlett added. "He's got the obvious problems -- being from Hope, Ark., and, quite frankly, having the last name 'Huckabee,'" he said....The only top-tier candidate Bartlett did not criticize was Rudy Giuliani, whom he credited with the "best message," particularly because the former New York mayor has kept his focus on attacking Democrats, not fellow Republicans, which serves as an effective distraction from his own liberal positions on guns, gays and abortion....
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/10/09/bartlett_waxes_on_gop_field.html#more 
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