Romney Adds Note of Inevitability to Stump Speech

September 27, 2012, 6:03 pm

By ASHLEY PARKER

To hear Mitt Romney tell it, a Romney administration is not a question of if, but when.

Speaking to a group of veterans in Springfield, Va., Thursday morning, Mr. Romney made a point of stressing that come Nov. 6, he expects to be the president-elect.

“And if I become president - no, when I become president of the United States - we're going to do what we have to do,” he told the group, pausing for effect.

In the face of public polls that show President Obama leading Mr. Romney in a number of crucial battle ground states, Mr. Romney has recently added a deliberate line to his stump speech - a when-not-if quip - that seems designed not only to pump up the crowd, but perhaps also to reassu re weary Republicans and staff members that he has what it takes to wrest the Oval Office from Mr. Obama on Election Day.

Addressing a group of wealthy donors at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles last weekend, Mr. Romney tried to sound a confident note.

“I'm asked from time to time, ‘What are going to do if you get to become president?' ” he said, gearing up for his big applause line. “And the answer is, ‘Well first of all, I'm going be president.' That's No. 1.”

Making his way through Ohio Wednesday on a modified day-and-a-half long bus tour, Mr. Romney  made sure to incorporate the line at every stop.

At a morning rally in Westerville, Ohio: “I can commit to you this: With every ounce of my energy, when I'm president of the United States,” Mr. Romney began, before repeating the phrase again, for added emphasis, “When I am president of the United States, I will strengthen America.”

Before a business round-table discussion in Bedford Heights, Ohio, encouraging the small business owners to give him suggestions: “So if there's some impediments to that growth, some challenges you think we face, if you'll let me know what those things are, because I'm going to be the next president of the United States and I want to know.”

And at an evening rally in Toledo, Ohio: “If instead I - no, instead when I become president - we're going to get this economy growing again, we're going to do the things that ignite this economy.”

The cheerily confident assertion that Mr. Romney believes he will be the next president has become a fail-safe applause line for him - akin to repealing the president's health care plan, or making the nation energy independent - and a way for Mr. Romney to project optimism at the daunting path he faces to 270 electoral votes.
The line is a big hit with voters.

Don Byers, 80, a Korean and Vietnam veteran, recalled that w hen Mr. Romney reassured the audience Thursday morning that he was going to be president, “the crowd roared.”
So what did his wife, Joyce Byers, 80, think?

“Hope,” she said emphatically. “We hope that he does, hope that he makes it.”