Mitt Romney eases into the arena

By Dale McFeatters

In the kabuki dance that is the run-up to a presidential campaign, Republican front-runner Mitt Romney filed papers this week to create an exploratory committee that will allow him to raise money. A formal announcement of his run for the White House is expected this summer.

Like the other semi-announced GOP candidate, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Romney disclosed the creation of his committee in a Web video and on Facebook.

It is probably not a good omen for Romney's hopes that Mark McKinnon, a political consultant and strategist for the last two GOP front-runners ― John McCain and George W. Bush ― greeted his arrival on the scene with a post on the Daily Beast headlined, "Why Mitt Won't Be President."

On paper, Romney would seem to be just what the Republicans are looking for ― successful in the private sector as a venture capitalist; in the public sector as the GOP governor of the blue state of Massachusetts; and, in the public-private sector, as the leader who turned the disaster-bound 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics into a financial success.

He asserts that he would provide the economic leadership that Barack Obama lacks and, with Reagan-like optimism, insists that "America's best days are still ahead." Romney, 64, is telegenic, as is his family, and has a large personal fortune ― he put over $40 million of his own money into his 2008 race ― a strong donor base and a drawer full of political IOUs from candidates he's helped over the past two and a half years.

As runner-up to McCain for the 2008 nomination, Romney can lay plausible claims to the Republican tradition of being the next in line.

However, he has drawbacks that could potentially be fatal in the tumultuous world of the GOP's internal politics. The Tea Party movement doesn't trust him, suspecting that he has a barely concealed streak of political moderation on issues like abortion, gay rights and stem-cell research. Some fundamentalist Protestants in the party are skeptical of his Mormon faith.

And perhaps worst of all, Romney was the architect five years ago of a health-care plan in Massachusetts that was a prototype for Obama's own.

The best part of such an early semi-announcement is that Romney has 16 months until the Republican convention to allay those suspicions. The betting is that the Tea Party will make them 16 uncomfortable months for a man who has been a political and financial golden boy up until now.

Dale McFeatters is an editorial writer of Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com).