{"id":10054,"date":"2007-02-27T14:15:58","date_gmt":"2007-02-27T19:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10054.html"},"modified":"2007-02-27T14:15:58","modified_gmt":"2007-02-27T19:15:58","slug":"romneys-oppo-memo-leaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/romneys-oppo-memo-leaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Romney’s oppo memo leaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The season has not been kind to confidential, internal campaign memos for Republican presidential candidates. Last month, Rudy Giuliani’s 140-page playbook was leaked<\/a> to some New York reporters. This month, the oppo memo Mitt Romney’s campaign team put together on its own candidate landed at the Boston Globe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are some views of Mitt Romney causing concern inside his campaign: His hair looks too perfect, he’s not a tough war time leader, and he has earned a reputation as “Slick Dancing Mitt” or “Flip-Flop Mitt.”<\/p>\n

Romney and his advisers have identified those perceptions as threats to his bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, according to an exhaustive internal campaign document obtained by the Globe.<\/p>\n

The 77-slide PowerPoint presentation offers a revealing look at Romney’s pursuit of the White House, outlining a plan for branding himself, framing his competitors, and allaying voter concerns about his record, his Mormon faith, and his shifts on key issues like abortion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The strategic blueprint, drafted in part by Romney strategist Alex Castellanos and dated Dec. 11, acknowledges that the “electorate is not where it needs to be for us to succeed.” At least they’re somewhat in touch with reality.<\/p>\n

In all, Giuliani’s leak was far more damaging, and included more embarrassing revelations, but the entertaining part of the Romney leak was the document’s list of “bogeymen” the candidate would target for criticism over the course of the campaign. It includes, of all things, Massachusetts.
\n<\/p>\n

The plan, for instance, indicates that Romney will define himself in part by focusing on and highlighting enemies and adversaries, such common political targets as “jihadism,” the “Washington establishment,” and taxes, but also Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, “European-style socialism,” and, specifically, France. Even Massachusetts, where Romney has lived for almost 40 years, is listed as one of those “bogeymen,” alongside liberalism and Hollywood values.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, far be it for me to offer a GOP hopeful strategic advice, but in the history of presidential politics, I don’t think there’s ever been a candidate who ran on a platform bashing his own state<\/i>. How’s that pitch going to work, exactly? “You know what’s wrong with America? The state I was proud to serve for one term as governor.” Yeah, that ought to go over well.<\/p>\n

The campaign also seems to have a preoccupation with France.<\/p>\n

Enmity toward France, where Romney did his Mormon mission during college, is a recurring theme of the document. The European Union, it says at one point, wants to “drag America down to Europe’s standards,” adding: “That’s where Hillary and Dems would take us. Hillary = France.” The plan even envisions “First, not France” bumper stickers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“First, not France<\/i>“? That’s the anti-Hillary slogan Romney has in mind?<\/p>\n

I’ve heard of lowest-common-denominator politics, but this is just sad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The season has not been kind to confidential, internal campaign memos for Republican presidential candidates. Last month, Rudy Giuliani’s 140-page playbook was leaked to some New York reporters. This month, the oppo memo Mitt Romney’s campaign team put together on its own candidate landed at the Boston Globe. Here are some views of Mitt Romney […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}