DES MOINES REGISTER: Thomas Beaumont

"If you were taking a snapshot right now, Gov. Romney has got the most momentum in Southwest Iowa", said Pottawattamie County Republican Chairman, David Overholtzer.

This article speaks to the outstanding organizational ability of Team Romney. Although the author stresses that Rudy Guiliani tops the polls, his on the ground presence significantly trails MR's.

If I were Guiliani and McCain, I'd be looking in the rear view mirror and watching MR pull up to within a couple of inches of my bumper!

~~John Cronin~~

http://www.californiansforromney.com/

As this year progresses toward the February primary in California, please drop in to visit the Californians For Romney Blog. You will start to see much more content that is of course unique to California.

There will be many important events planned by Governor Romney throughout the State of California and these events will be covered in detail at the site as well as many other developing stories and issues distinct to CA. At the end of April, Mitt will be making a number of appearances in the state and on May 3rd, he will be in Simi Valley for the first GOP debate.

If you live in California and are aware of breaking news or know of important visits planned by Governor Romney, please leave a comment on this post with details and we will get that information to our friends over at the CA blog. As well, you can go there now and leave comments to Aaron and Paul who have posted on the site today. Any and all suggestions will be seriously considered!

Please return often to the CA site and look for new blogs by those who have just joined our team. We welcome all to visit The Land of Ronald Reagan!

To visit the site, click:
CaliforniansForRomney
.
~ RHR

This piece from W. James Antle III of The American Spectator does a good job of summarizing the rapidly deteriorating possibility of religious and social conservatives co-existing and forming a coalition with Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential race due to abortion. And while there seemed to be room for compromise between the two sides, the Mayor’s flippant plus legally and morally inconsistent recent remarks about the issue, in addition to his similarly terse and incoherent thoughts on gun control, have arguably caused an irreparable rift that is going to cost him significant conservative support.

Mayor Giuliani didn’t exactly have conservatives at hello, but many of them were listening to and considering him up until he failed to speak their language on the issues they care most about. Now, some of his staunchest supporters in the media, such as John Podhoretz and the editors of National Review, are opining that the Mayor “has tied himself in knots” and squandered an opportunity to form a broad and winning coalition over his recent pronouncements on social issues. Ah, what might have been.

http://www.slate.com/id/2164380/

Romney, the richest candidate, was stingiest with his staff members' salaries and often had them fly discount airlines and double up on accommodations like the Super 8 Motel. Instead of free drinks and food at the campaign, they're only subsidized (sodas at 25 cents a can; snacks in the vending machine are 50 cents). His [religious] ties appear to be paying off. So far, Utahans have contributed more than residents of any other state except California.

Click here for the complete article.

Hey John Dickerson, you ever hear of the 2002 winter olympics? Do you know where they were held? Do you know who ran them? Perhaps this had something to do with it?

Also from the piece:

Clinton: ($26 million raised; $30 million on hand.) The senator owes $277,000 to Penn, Schoen & Berland, the polling firm run by her chief strategist, Mark Penn. No candidate in either party spent more on polling, which will not undermine her image as a calculating politician. The senator is also a thorough politician. The filings also show she made a $4,000 donation to House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the senior Democrat in Congress from South Carolina, a key 2008 primary state. All the campaigns are heavily courting the so-far unaffiliated Clyburn; Clinton is the only one to use her presidential committee to make donations to him.

...John Edwards has a hair weakness. His FEC filings show two $400 haircuts, which raise at least two issues. The first is: what can you get for a $400 haircut, anyway? The second is, given Edwards' past trouble of looking like he cares too much for his hair, couldn't he have put the trims on his personal account?

McCain...$16,317 in catering costs for an event at the swank Beverly Hilton hotel seems more politically problematic, especially since it may come to symbolize the trouble the campaign finds itself in after having raised only $13 million in the first quarter while spending $8 million...McCain has campaigned for years as a pork buster and someone who hasn't been tainted by the profligate spending ways of Washington.

~ Mike

Got this comment:

I serve on the Mass. GOP State Committee, and it was long a joke that we went from catered dinners to a glass of ice water and a peppermint for refreshment when Mitt became Governor! Heck, it took two months to get coffee served!

I especially remember one event - the Rooftop of the Ritz Carleton in Boston - and the refreshments were stale blue corn chips and watery salsa. On the other hand, our state party chair announced that we raised $200,000 that evening - so you be the judge!

And we all went back for those events again and again.

All of you who read my post from earlier this week know that McCain has managed to receive the endorsements of a majority of the state legislators from the state of South Carolina.

And all of you who read an even earlier article know that it is straw poll time in South Carolina as each county holds their county conventions this month. As a result, many of the candidates are down in South Carolina for extended stays: Giuliani, Brownback, Hunter, and Romney were/are all down there, and probably some of the other candidates as well.

One man conspicuously absent from working the county conventions is John McCain, and the grassroots folks are taking note. Some are even comparing it to his missing the CPAC, Club for Growth, and the Heritage Foundation conferences earlier this year. And his absence might cost him, too, in the areas of not only grassroots activists but endorsers as well:

State Rep. Thad Viers of Myrtle Beach was one of 40 Statehouse Republicans who earlier this year endorsed McCain. But Saturday, Viers was at the Horry County GOP convention wondering where McCain was and listening to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“He gave a great Reaganesque speech. I liked him so much I voted for him in the straw poll,” Viers said.

Viers hasn’t yet decided to withdraw his support for McCain, but will if McCain’s doesn’t steer away from an immigration law compromise he’s been developing with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. “I think he is taking people for granted,” Viers said. “You can’t assume that people are voting for you.”

McCain is continuing his strange tactic of avoiding places where conservatives are gathered (and where the rest of the candidates are). His answer to all who are wondering where he is?

McCain’s camp says his calendar precludes him from attending, and that the candidate prefers to speak to smaller crowds for longer times than conventions allow.

While some question McCain having prior commitments during the SC convention season, he is doing two things to try and soften the blow of his absence: sending proxies and counting on his money buying support:

His campaign has contacted delegates with mailings, staffed tables at the events and sent surrogates to speak for him. The stand-ins include former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who is to speak for McCain at conventions in Spartanburg, Laurens and Richland counties this weekend… Boling said McCain’s campaign…is instead focusing on building a support network in part by donating money to local GOP groups and candidates. He said the campaign made $180,000 in donations before the November election.

As we await more straw poll results, it will be interesting to see if McCain’s lack of campaigning at the county conventions will continue to cost him support in the state