GOP governors see Mitt Romney as one of their own, but hesitate to endorse him

“If people think there’s something wrong with being successful in America, then they better vote for the other guy because I’ve been extraordinarily successful and I want to use that success and that know-how to help the American people,” he said on Fox News Sunday.

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore notes the difference between now and 2000, when Republican governors played a key role for George W. Bush, a fellow governor.

“Republican governors at that time were very much playing a major, muscular role in the delivery of their states to the nominee,” Gilmore, who is backing Romney this year, told Politico. “I don’t see as much of that now…. They’re trying to either pick the winner or make the winner, and if they’re not doing it, it’s because the environment is too uncertain.”

“They are cautiously tip-toeing around the matter that the rest of the party is consumed with,” writes Politico’s James Hohmann. “For an influential group that casts such a big shadow over the party, the governors have been remarkably reticent to play a role in picking a nominee.”

Not all of the fence-sitting Republican governors are waiting to eventually back their party’s nominee among the remaining contestants, Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage longs for a convention floor fight from which a new GOP champion goes forth to do battle with Barack Obama.

"The candidates in this primary have beat themselves up so badly it would be nice to have a fresh face that we all could say, Okay. The country deserves better than having people stand up and keep criticizing each other,” he said Saturday at the governors association meeting in Washington. "I would love to see a good old-fashioned convention and a dark horse come out and do it in the fall.”

Is that at all possible? Or could somebody else – say, an uncommitted governor or former governor like Indiana’s Mitch Daniels or Florida’s Jeb Bush – jump in before that?

“There are 22 contests where the filing deadlines to get on the ballot in states are still open,” notes Bob Schieffer, host of CBS’s Face the Nation. “Those states don't provide enough delegates for a late starter to get the nomination, BUT a late comer who got a big part of the delegates could probably stop any of the current candidates from wrapping up the nomination before the Republican convention.”

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