Photo from CBS News article/AP Story bashing Romney and Bain Co.

To start with the obvious Mitt Romney is most conservative candidate in the field who has, at present, a chance of winning. The press doesn’t like conservatives, or at the very least, is more hostile to conservatives than it is to liberals. The press sees everything regarding a conservative in the worst possible light; liberals are more likely to get the benefit of the doubt.

A second reason is that Mitt Romney doesn’t look like a politician should, or at least the way the media thinks a Republican politician should. Given that Romney is constantly praised for his patrician demeanor, his impeccable manner and his smooth-as-silk politicking...

The press has come to expect Republicans to fit certain molds. They are supposed to be inarticulate and not quick on their feet. The press has stereotyped every Republican presidential nominee since Ford in this way. They are also supposed to be intellectually unimaginative or downright unintelligent. Again, every Republican presidential nominee since Ford has had to live with this label. They are further required to be creatures of politics who have accomplished nothing or next to nothing outside of the political world. Lastly, all Republicans ought to have a bit of Elmer Gantry in them. They should preach about morality and piety, but they should always be obliging enough to have at least a few skeletons jangling in their closet.

Mitt Romney fails to live up to any of these stereotypes. Intellectually, Romney graduated Harvard’s Business and Law Schools with top honors. Furthermore, it seems like he’s completely unfamiliar with the media dictates that Republicans should wrestle with English like it’s a hostile foreign language and make themselves available for lampooning as dullards.

Lastly, and probably most frustratingly for the media, the Romney closet is depressingly barren. When Mitt Romney talks about family values, he’s able to point to his own wife of 40 years and a brood of children and grandchildren that seems too good even for a Christmas card.

Labels: anti-romney, bash, dean barnett, flip-flop, mitt romney, press

Dean Barnett explores an excellent theory; Romney brings in the money.


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Labels: campaign, dean barnett, mittcast, press

But after, a good night’s sleep, I’ve come to see things differently. It’s all good. Really - this has been a great week for the Romney campaign.

In these early days of the election cycle, Romney is playing the role of Ali and the press is Foreman. Although it’s easy for us political obsessives to forget, there can be no knockouts a year before Iowa. The flip-side of that coin is also informative – Howard Dean had a perfect 2003 and wound up a distant also ran to political titans like John Kerry and John Edwards.

The press and other entities who are hostile to the Romney campaign feel like they’re landing haymakers about his purported flip-flopping. Big deal. When the press is all punched out, Romney will have $100 million and his own formidable political skills available to make his rebuttal.

THE OFT-REPEATED CHARGE AGAINST MITT ROMNEY IS THAT HE’S A FLIP-FLOPPER and an opportunist. As someone who knows him and who is familiar with his character, it annoys me no end to see Romney’s detractors so relentlessly peddle such an inaccurate caricature.

But there’s an undeniable political upside to this development. It will hardly be possible for the press to release a big “breaking news” story on the eve of the Iowa primary that says in effect, “This just in: Mitt Romney is a flip-flopper!!!” By the time the public is steeling itself to take a hard look at who should be its next President, the press will have punched itself out as far as Mitt Romney is concerned. Believe me – Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani should be so fortunate.

And when the time finally comes for Romney to counterpunch after all the breathless “exposés” have been written and all the YouTubes have been aired, Romney will find his opponents in the media as easy to knock out as George Foreman was in the 8th round of the Rumble in the Jungle. The governor will be able to respond to his critics with two easy smackdowns that will be devastating when the time is right. The first is an old John F. Kennedy saw: “It’s not where you come from, but where you stand.” The second will be a completely justified swipe at the pettiness and endlessly repetitive nature of these attacks: “I want to talk about our country’s future. I will, even if the press and my opponents are obsessed with my past.”

The fact is, Mitt Romney will have enough money and enough political skill to define himself when the time is right. The fact that the hostile factions of the press will no longer be relevant when that time comes is a wonderful bonus.

Labels: blogs, campaign, dean barnett, george foreman, mohammed ali, press