Romney Report

Campaign staff for Mitt Romney will begin making phone calls in Iowa in the next couple of weeks. The phone calls will be voter identification calls to identify potential Romney supporters to vote in the Iowa straw poll on August 11. Campaign staff will be doing 2-3 phone banks per month to work on getting greater name recognition for Romney.

Romney himself will soon be making calls to several potential supporters in Iowa in locations where volunteers are still needed for county chairs and other local positions.

Tag Romney , one of Mitt's 5 sons, will be attending a lunch with Iowa College Republicans at their state convention on Feb. 24 in Des Moines. The lunch is provided by the Romney campaign.

One of my best buddies from college had the opportunity to see Mitt Romney speak in CT on Monday. Knowing I was very interested in all things Romney, he emailed me this thoughts on Romney's speech. With thanks for letting me post his email, here are the relevant paragraphs:

I saw Romney speak at a fundraiser in Connecticut last night. His audience was mostly business people and his talk focused on his business background. One of the main take aways from the talk was his ability to solve complex problems. He talked about the turnaround at the Salt Lake City Olympics and the health care reform he initiated in Massachusetts.

A major theme it all of this seemed to be his ability to get people in a room and crank out solutions to problems. The major problems he has dealt with to this point seem to be finance based (deficits, health care insurance etc.), but you get the idea he can work with people on many different issues.

Some other key points were:
Taxes- Keeping the Bush tax cuts, phasing out the AMT, and lowering/eliminating capital gains and dividend taxes.

Military - expansion of 100,000 to 200,000 troops

The talk finished with Romney stressing his confidence in the American people to be innovative and improve their lives without unnecessary encroachment from the government.

Hey Readers - I just arrived about an hour and a half ago at CPAC, having flown in from Denver (work-related travel). I apparently was too late to register, so will do so in the morning. Not sure if any of you readers are here, but feel free to shoot me an email.

[sidenote: The problem w/ luxury hotels is that they charge you extra (cough: Marriott) for internet, when their lower hotels (Courtyard by Marriot) give it to you for free]

Anyhow- I am not an official blogger, so will not have a laptop plug-in place to blog. As such - I will try to update on the many candidate speakers tomorrow night in my hotel room.

Word on the street is that there are LOTS of "Mitt Kidz" (HT: MKH) out and about, as well as Brownback folks. The only candidate who will not be speaking here is McCain. Even Rudy will be making an appearance, which should be interesting.

Update: This is pretty funny. There is a Dolphin walking around saying that Romney is a flip-flopper.

Grover Norquist introduced Mitt to CPAC this afternoon to cat call's from the audience. There were lots of Team Mitt members spread out in the audience. Many signs, as well as some clever "Mitt Mitt's" (see photo of me w/ a Mitt Mitt). Romney began his speech by bringing up his wife Anne, who mentioned their upcoming 38th wedding anniversary.

Takeaway: Mitt's speech was well delivered, perhaps at a pace a bit quicker than most politicians. This is also the most I have seen MItt use emotion in person as well. Good speech, good reception. I was reminded of the reasons I really like MItt: articulateness, intelligence, and now conservative principles. Key points below.

-First pres candidate to sign no tax pledge
-Romney is an economic conservative
- He came into office as gov of Mass w/ a $3 Billion deficit, and balanced the budget all 4 years by cutting govt spending.
-600 fewer workers than when he took office
-When faced by legislature with a retro-active tax bill, Romney had the govt send invoices to all state tax-payers of what they would owe. State citizens then got mad and called representatives, who then passed Mitt's amendment to turn the retro-active tax bill into a tax refund. (This sounds to me similar to when Reagan took to the airwaves in CA regarding a similar tax issue as governor in CA).
-Promised to cap all non-military discretionary spending to Inflation - 1%
-"I like vetoes"
-Promised a personally led top-to-bottom review of federal government (note: this is a consulting specialty of his)
-Wants to cut taxes for middle class
-Borders: we have a wall against those who are well educated, but we let those not educated walk right in
-Will fight to repeal McCain-Feingold
-Will stand up to "violent Jiahadists"
-Marriage must be about children first.

P.S. I also got to meet Justin of MyManMitt

Note: Just a reminder that while Mitt is my favorite candidate right now, I have not formally committed to anyone... However, I think the rest of the crew here is pretty dedicated for the long haul!

No, not that Rocky. Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City.

For those unaware, the news emerged that Mitt Romney had endored Rocky Anderson for Mayor of Salt Lake a handful of years ago. Romney worked with Rocky while managing the Salt Lake Olympics (see Romney's book: Turnaround). Endorsement YouTube video here.

Anyhow, apparently Rocky is hard-left, having called for President Bush's impeachment very recently. As such, the Boston Globe is reporting that Romney is "distancing himself" from Mayor Anderson.

He was a mayor that worked well with me during the Olympics, and I supported his work as a mayor," said Romney, who spoke before an event in western Iowa, a Republican stronghold. "I do not endorse or support his views on President Bush or almost any other issue particularly that's unrelated to being a mayor.

The article can be found here.

Fundraising totals for the first quarter (as of March 31, 2007) were released last week. Romney has raised $20.63 million in addition to a personal loan of $2.35 million putting him at the head of the pack for the Republicans. Rudy Giuliani has raised $15 million, John McCain - $12.5 million, and Sam Brownback - $2 million.

While Democrat presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have a few interesting fundraising tricks (such as hosting events with tickets priced at only $25 which have been attracting large crowds) Mitt has a few tricks of his own to gain financial support. Romney will be giving student fundraising interns a 10% commission. In an age of competitive, unpaid internships this will certainly be an interesting approach to campaign fundraising.

As Leslie mentioned in Romney's speech at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University on Tuesday he detailed his plans to increase the military presence in Iraq and military spending if elected president. His plans include an increase of troops by at least 100,000 and increased spending ($30-40 million more than outlined by President Bush) in order to modernize the military. This increase in spending would also help to lessen the strain of lower troop levels which in turn strains our National Guard and Reserves.

“But increased spending must not mean increased waste,”

Related articles:
Romney Says He’ll Expand Armed Forces by 100,000
Romney Strategy Pays Off Quickly

I just have to comment on a recent bit of news that Romney is planning to unleash a series of proposals that would combat pornographic pop ups on the internet.

This seems like a slippery slope because it will automatically be called an impingement on free speech. Sure anyone would like to have a filter that keeps those nasty emails and pop ups away but how would that be done? Personally, I have had debates with porn lovers who can't stand the idea that porn would be restricted at all, they really freak out and start by shouting that their freedom of speech is being taken away. Even if the restrictions apply to kids and would be for parent's use. It's a little crazy.

I haven't seen or heard what Romney proposes so this should be interesting when he gets around to it. He might be better off with hitting the war topic.

In the meantime, Hugh Hewitt has a book on Mitt Romney and his presidential bid. I happen to like HH's other books and would think this book is worth perusing at least.

As many of you know Mitt has five sons - all of whom are on the campaign trail. This blog is maintained by the Romney clan: Mitt, Ann, Ben, Josh, Matt, Craig, and Tagg and gives a very interesting view into the Romney world.

It's updated fairly regularly and has lots of photos for those who prefer looking to reading.

http://fivebrothers.mittromney.com/