Mitt Romney, Basking In the Momentum

Washington Post ^ | September 4, 2007 | Perry Bacon, Jr.

[Reaganesque]

ASHLAND, N.H., Sept. 3 -- Former senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee will grab most of the headlines this week as he enters the race for the White House, but Mitt Romney likes where he stands in the contest for the Republican nomination.

"When I started running seven months ago, I was at 5 percent in the national polls," the former Massachusetts governor said at a question-and-answer session here. "Now I won the Iowa straw poll; I'm ahead here in New Hampshire, ahead in Michigan, ahead in the Nevada."

The energetic Romney, who is shown jogging in a television ad that his campaign is running in the Granite State, put his energetic approach to work on Labor Day: two speeches, two town hall meetings, a parade and a breakfast stop to greet voters at a restaurant in Moultonborough. His exertions required several outfit changes, from tie but no jacket to jacket and tie and then, before the parade in 80-degree heat, khakis and a polo shirt. But Romney's manner never changed; whether describing his appreciation of the symbolic importance of the American flag or talking about issues such as illegal immigration, the ex-governor almost never stopped smiling.

[Atlas Sneezed]

We’re far better off as a party nominating someone who doesn’t at all even remotely resemble Bush in the upcoming election.

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I agree, we need an intelligent, articulate conservative who advocates persuasively and non-threateningly for limited federal government.

Fred is all of that, Bush is almost none.