Romney Report

Mitt Romney has apparently purchased the first set of presidential commercials of the '08 aspiring candidates (HT: Hugh Hewitt). The ad is apparently pretty good, but I cannot watch them as my Hilton hotel has a remarkably slow modem.... You can watch the commercials at YouTube.

Matt Lewis at Townhall has an interesting analysis post regarding Mitt's ad buy. Matt considers the possible reasons Mitt would spend his money so early, labeling the idea a potential "Hail Mary". I might call it an "early game on-side kick" personally. Mitt is trying to establish himself early. What good is money if no thinks you can win? We might ask Alan Keyes that question.... [A little bit of a cheap shot, but I volunteered for Alan in high school...]

Anyhow.. I look forward to watching the commercial. I also look forward to the FIRST Presidential debate, which a little over a month away!

Chris Cillizza @ the WashPost ("The Fix") has an article up detailing information from a memo of Alex Gage (strategist for Romney) regarding Mitt's early ad buy. Apparently Gage is seeking to lower expectations of results of the ad, noting that the purpose of the ad is merely to get name recognition for a small state governor.

Key 'graph:

"Gov. Romney is already well-positioned compared to previous candidates who came from similar backgrounds to win their party's nomination, but we should be careful not to expect to see movement in the polls until voters seriously begin to pay attention to the race," wrote Gage in the memo addressed to "Romney for President Leadership."

I'm writing this entry about 10 minutes after Mitt & Anne Romney's interview with Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes. So I don't have the actual transcript yet but you can get it here-

Anyways, Mitt made a very nice picture with his wife Anne in her white suit. Sometimes I wonder if his hair is dyed with gray and not natural. Just wondering.

I am writing this post to say that when asked the question by Alan Colmes as to his position on abortion and claims that he is a flip flopper he gave a very smart answer.

No one would question me on this issue if I were switching from pro-life to pro-choice.

It's true this wouldn't be an issue if he simply went from being against abortion to being for it. There wouldn't have been any crazy people harassing him at CPAC. And the media would not want to make such a big deal out of it- being the liberals they are-in fact he would probably be praised.

He would be called enlightened, etc. Well his next explanation that he changed his opinion because he was turned off by the fact that the pro-choice position has begun to include embryionic stem cell research and merged into ideas about euthanasia which, most of the pro choice people try to hide. I personally don't think it is a good idea to include abortion issues with the other two.

Also, before Romney came on Dick Morris accused MSNBC and the Politico of being against Rudy Giuliani. In other words because Mitt Romney got more words into the debate-which could be attributed to a faster rate of speech and better preparation-that the debate must have been rigged.

I did notice that it seemed Romney got asked one more question than some of the other major candidates-but how would all this compare to say Mike Huckabee? I can tell you there was more focus on the top two Rudy and Mitt than there was on the rest of the contenders-at least that's how it appeared to me. But I don't see Dick Morris complaining about

that

It seems that Mitt Romney is getting some mainstream attention now. Last week on Thursday May 31, 2007 Joy Behar of the View started talking about him and described him as someone who should be a spokesman for Viagra. Eh.

The audience laughed which could show an understanding of who he is or that the line was that funny, it is an odd line but funny. Unfortunately, Behar then when onto parrot a line obviously created by the hard right anti abortion and religious activists in symbiotic harmony with liberals who hate Romney. "He's a flip flopper." Despite Whoopi Goldberg's attempts to calm her down and arguing that just because 'they' meaning the right called Sen. Kerry a flip flopper because he flopped and flipped on everything, that 'we' meaning herself and the other liberals should not be doing that now to Romney.

What I found odd was that Behar failed to mention that she really is probably one of the leftists who hates Romney for 'defecting' in her mind. Behar is a devout supporter of what is called abortion rights for women. I have no link on this because you can simply watch any number of debates where she has gotten angry over anyone or anything where the topic has been broached over the past 6 months.

Romney already addressed the issue of his opinion change over a month ago saying that if he had gone from the right to the left on the issue no one would care in the liberal media establishment. It's specifically because he has become more conservative that he is getting picked on..it may not be the kind of mainstream recognition that he wanted but he has to start somewhere..

Also, I just have to say that I think his success and the fact that many liberals did not take him seriously until now, may have them wanting to disenfranchise him as a candidate. That may not be neccessary if the campaign keeps doing things like this incident that the American Prospect described awhile ago.

Jason Bonham has excerpts (here) from the Boston Globe's 7-part series on Mitt Romney. I read two pieces from the coverage last week and found them very interesting. Recommended reading if you want to learn more about Mitt....