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Michigan Reception Cool For Romney

By GLEN JOHNSON, The Associated Press

Published: January 12, 2008

WARREN, Mich. - Despite embracing Michigan as the heart of his bid to revive his campaign, Republican Mitt Romney was greeted by anemic crowds Friday as he began his final push for votes in Tuesday's crucial primary.

No more than 150 people were on hand for his appearance at Macomb Community College's Center for Alternative Fuels, in a space set up for an audience twice that size. Romney delivered an unusually short, 13-minute address, breaking with recent practice and taking no questions from his audience.

Later, in Lansing, the audience was crowded into a conference room at the Small Business Association of Michigan. Romney spoke 20 minutes and took two questions - one of which was a statement thanking him for coming.

In each location, he tugged incessantly at a variety of heartstrings as he pleaded for support in his effort to rebound from second-place finishes in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, both of which he worked hard to win.

"My Mom and Dad are buried here," Romney told his audience in Warren, recalling his father, Michigan Gov. George Romney, and his mother, Lenore, a 1970 U.S. Senate candidate in the state.

Fresh from Thursday's debate in South Carolina, Romney assailed his top rival in Michigan, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for stating that some of the jobs lost in Michigan will not be recovered.

Singling out McCain, Romney told the audience: "I'm not willing to accept defeat like that."

He added: "I'd like to say, 'What have you done, given the awareness you have of the one-state recession going on in this great state, which, when I was growing up, was the envy of the nation, and the powerhouse economically of the world. What have you done? What did they do when they were in the Senate and the House for 27 years? What action did you take?'"

Later, in Lansing, Romney touched on another home-state issue: more stringent federal automobile gas efficiency standards. Calling them "anvils" on carmakers, he said, "When that hurts the domestic manufacturer and helps the foreign manufacturers, that's not good for Michigan."

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