Home-State Haters
GOP candidates feeling heat from own backyards
Dec. 12, 2007 — -- As former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani crisscrosses the country in his presidential bid, small klatches of New York City firefighters and 9/11 victims' families have set up outside some of his events, ready to tell tales of the "real Rudy."
When Mitt Romney's rivals need to counter a claim about his record, they can turn to Romney's two immediate GOP predecessors as governor of Massachusetts -- both of whom have emerged as outspoken Romney critics.
And as reporters comb through Mike Huckabee's record as governor, they're finding no shortage of Arkansas-based conservative voices to blast him on taxes, immigration, leniency for convicted criminals.
Candidates cannot mount a serious bid for the presidency without leaving a political record that has earned them enemies. But to a remarkable -- and politically perilous -- extent, several major GOP presidential candidates are seeing some of their fiercest critics emerge from their own backyards.
"This is potentially very difficult to overcome," said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant who is not aligned with any of the 2008 presidential contenders.
"You can't be in public life and make critical decisions without inevitably making some enemies," Ayres continued. "Whether it amounts to a fatal failing depends upon the criticism. But anytime there's home-state criticism, it's always deemed to be more credible."
The home-state sniping seems particularly intense for the three Republican candidates, whose campaigns are based on their executive experience.
Unlike the senators and former senators running for president, Giuliani, Romney and Huckabee oversaw vast executive bureaucracies, giving them wide agenda-setting and policy-making authority. That meant plenty of opportunities to make enemies in their home jurisdictions.
Giuliani's feud with New York City firefighters has perhaps been most widely publicized. It's a fight with roots in difficult contract negotiations during Giuliani's time as mayor, and anger at the former mayor crystallized over his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
