Boehner: People Don't Love Romney, But They Dislike Obama More

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) spoke at a fundraiser in West Virginia on June 30 and conceded that very few people will go to the voting booth because they are enthused about or in love with Mitt Romney or his candidacy, according to Roll Call.

Boehner told attendees that that would be okay, though, because Republicans are hoping to make the 2012 election a referendum on President Barack Obama and his failed policies.

“Mitt Romney has some friends, relatives and fellow Mormons … some people that are going to vote for him. But that’s not what this election is about,” Boehner said, according to Roll Call. “This election is going to be a referendum on the president’s failed economic policies.”

Boehner continued, according to Roll Call, by saying Romney is needed in the White House to fix the country’s economy and sign conservative policies into law: 

Mitt Romney believes, just like we do, that if we’re going to get the economy back, if we’re going to put the American people back to work, we need to fix the tax code, we need to stop the regulatory juggernaut that’s going on in Washington and we need to fix our economy. Solid guy, he’s going to do a great job, even if you don’t fall in love with him.

The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney. I’ll tell you this: 95 percent of the people that show up to vote in November are going to show up in that voting booth, and they are going to vote for or against Barack Obama.  

Boehner’s  comments are significant because it is an admission from one of the GOP’s senior leaders that Romney’s best strategy, though there are risks to it in a general election, may just to be to run as the “not Obama.”

Especially after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare as a constitutional tax, conservatives have viewed Romney the way sports fans view an owner of their favorite sports team whom they cannot stand — someone who will just sign the bills sent to him.

Simply put, conservatives cannot get anything accomplished if Obama wields the veto pen, and that makes Romney an immeasurably better president than Obama.