Crece la impaciencia entre algunos aliados de Romney

POLITICO.com:

The Boston powers insist that they’re not panicking over Perry’s burst into the lead in a series of recent national polls. Two top officials separately said the numbers were inflated by the Texan’s strong early showing in the South.

Still, Romney supporters are starting to grow anxious.

“Perry has certainly changed the mix of the race,” said former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Romney supporter and fundraiser. “I do think [Romney] needs to step it up several notches. The low-key campaign has served well him well to this point but coming out of Labor Day, he needs to be a lot more aggressive. The low-profile strategy is not going to work this fall.”

South Carolina state Rep. Nathan Ballentine, also a Romney backer, said Perry had garnered “a lot of buzz” in the Palmetto State.

“For a lot of people who were waiting around, he’s going to be the one they hop on with,” said Ballentine, who, before learning that Romney had reconsidered attending DeMint’s forum, said he wished Romney would do just that.

Neither Lott nor Ballentine said they thought their candidate should directly take on Perry, but other senior Republicans believe that the Texan could ultimately stand in the way of Romney’s path to the nomination.

“The world has changed in the primary,” said veteran GOP consultant Mike Murphy, who worked for Romney in his 2002 gubernatorial race. “They have to decide how and where they beat Perry. The passive strategy — where they have name ID and none of their opponents do — is not working anymore.”

Perry will be an especially formidable rival to Romney if Michele Bachmann and other GOP contenders fade, leaving primary voters with a stark choice between the former Massachusetts governor and an alternative who meets both ideological and electoral muster.

“A binary choice between somebody who appears to be an electable, clearly conservative candidate and Romney is a tough fight for Romney,” said Republican strategist Terry Nelson, who had been working for Tim Pawlenty.

But Romney’s gurus point to three important but as yet unknown factors to explain why they’re not ready to reach for their rifle.

As long as the final field remains uncertain, the caucus and primary calendar unset and Perry’s ability to hold up over a series of debates and heightened media scrutiny unknown, they say they’re reluctant to make any hard and fast strategic decisions.

In state-by-state terms, this means they’re going to keep playing wait-and-see in Iowa and South Carolina, where they’ve limited Romney’s presence this year, until it becomes more clear who will be in the mix.