The National Review's Katrina Trinko unearths a Boston Globe report from 1994 in which Mitt Romney's campaign team refused to offer support for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America.
Romney was running for Senate, at the time, against Ted Kennedy.
Republican US Senate hopeful Mitt Romney yesterday distanced himself from a GOP leadership move to rally congressional candidates behind a “contract with America” – a 10-point manifesto that embraces welfare cuts, tax cuts and a beefed-up military.
.... Romney aides, hoping to keep their candidate out of the controversy the contract has generated and as far from Washington politics as possible, said the GOP hopeful, who is seeking to unseat US Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, has not read the document and had no plans to support it.
But there's an important paragraph following that.
Yet the document contains a number of proposals that Romney has made a centerpiece of his campaign, including welfare reform, a balanced budget amendment and a line-item veto for the president.
Newt would probably love, Love, LOVE it if Mitt were asked about it in Saturday night's debate.
1. The story, if not its details, highlights the fact that Mitt didn't want to exactly run as a national Republican in '94 but instead as his own brand -- a nod to the reality of politics in Massachusetts but another reminder of how moderate he was back then.
2. It's also a perfect topic for Newt. There's nothing he'd rather hear than a extended discussion of the Contract with America -- both an ideological and electoral triumph to most conservatives.
Reminding everyone of Romney's MA links at the same time? Priceless.
