Posted on 12/25/2006 2:56:05 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
BOSTON (AP) -- Gov. Mitt Romney, who is preparing for a possible run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, has spent all or part of 212 days outside Massachusetts in 2006, according to the Boston Sunday Globe.
Romney plans to spend the rest of the year vacationing with his family in Utah, putting him on track to be away from Massachusetts for all or part of 219 days this year.
Since announcing he would not seek re-election a year ago, Romney has traveled to 35 states and eight countries and been out of the state an average of more than four days each week, according to The Globe, which reviewed his public schedules.
In October, for example, he spent six full days and four partial days in Massachusetts, his schedules show. Starting Nov. 28, he was gone for 19 of 20 days.
New Hampshire, home to the first presidential primary contest and Romney's summer home, is one of the states he visited more than 10 times in 2005.
Romney, who is expected to announce his presidential intentions early next month, spent most trips working as the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, raising money for his Commonwealth PAC or testing the waters for a presidential bid, the newspaper found.
Among other trips, Romney attended the elevation of Cardinal Sean O'Malley in Rome and made visits to troops and officials in Iraq and Afghanistan and a detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He recently returned from a trip to Japan, Korea and China, which he paid for himself.
``Governor Romney is a national leader in the Republican Party. He was increasingly called upon to help candidates from his party, and he took a leadership role in the Republican Governors Association,'' said Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's communications director, in defending Romney's absences.
Romney's State Police security detail accompanies him out of state. Fehrnstrom said he did not know the cost, but the charge to the state was ``minimized.''
Romney also used his PAC created in 2004 to raise money for Republican candidates to build and sustain an infrastructure of at least 17 paid staffers and a large group of consultants in eight states.
New Hampshire's Republican State Committee received $20,000 and overall New Hampshire candidates and party committees were among the chief recipients of Commonwealth PAC money, $164,150, second only to Iowa and Michigan, which received $276,165.
State's population growth on stagnant course (Massachusetts to lose electoral vote)
Note to the nation: Vote for Romney and all this, too, can be yours....
But Channel 4 is,at best,telling you half the story.In the 18 months (or so) before the '04 elections,John Friggin Kerry missed about 90% of the Senate votes that were held...and neither Channel 4,the Boston Globe nor the state's RAT Committee Headquarters didn't make a peep.
You gotta love these political whores (both Pubs and Dims) who are always running for a higher office, but can't seem to find the time to run the office they are currently holding.
I'm having a hard time finding all the stories from CBS Boston about how many days Kerry was out of state, out of DC during his run for president.
Well I guess there must be dozens of these stories about Kerry, from the Globe to the Herald to the local TV channels ... I just can't seem to have them pop up on google search ... hummmm.
It should also be noted that Kerry also has the worst attendance record in the Senate. His attendance for 8% of votes thus far in 2004 can be explained by the presidential campaign; however even in 2003 he voted only 36% of the time. (The average for all Senators is 97%). Remarkably, he also missed 76% of the Senate Intelligence Committee's public hearings over the course of his 8 year tenure on that committee (http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=241).
If Romney was a Democrat, this would be no big deal. But since he is a Republican, . . .
LOL!
Exactly so, and it's very interesting that the liberal press in the state of Massachusetts and elsewhere appear deathly afraid that Mitt Romney could gain traction in a bid for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. All conservatives should be curious about why the libs seem so concerned about Romney in comparison to Giuliani and McCain.
I know it only serves to make me more curious to hear Romney's ideas and positions on the issues in the months ahead, whether or not he gets the nomination.
I'm from Mass and if I could be out of State that much I would be too.
But seriously, the office of Governor in Massachusetts is among the weakest in the US as outline by the Constitution here.
I really don't think he needs to be here 24x7 to perform his official duties. It would be nice if one our recent Republican governors had helped build up the party statewide though.
As far as that goes Romney gets a D imo.
Massachusetts needs to knock off their bragging. I'll bet Gov. Billy Richardson, DemocRAT-New Mexico, has got that beat, bigtime!
Despite staff cutbacks, the Globe assigned a reporter to this story for considerable time. The Globe, which knows Romney, is doing everything it can rough him up. Freepers need ask themselves why the MSM is so hot to keep Romney in particular from the GOP nomination. They fear Romney will be an effective conservative GOP candidate.
Boston Globe/MSM to GOP voters:
"Romney isn't the candidate you're looking for".
The hypocrisy of the liberal left is stunning only in its open chutzpah.
I'm sorry, are you suggesting Romney should have impregnated women in Mass?
It would absolutely kill the liberals if the first modern President from Mass were a Republican and a Mormon.
Report: Ted Kennedy drunk 214 days in the past year
Part 218 of the Boston Globe's attempt to derail Mitt Romney's accelerating presidential campaign details the governor's travels and his PACs' spending this year. (The Globe neglected to give us the citation to its parallel story on John Kerry's absences from DC or Massachusetts in 2002, or Mike Dukakis' journeys in 1986. Perhaps they are in the same file as the Globe's stories on the citizenship/green card status of the crews working on Kerry's many homes?) Rarely have we ever had such a clear demonstration of the hard-left nature of a modern MSM paper than in the side-by-side comparison of the Globe's Kerry/Romney coverage.I wonder why that is, Hugh?!?!?!? It's not like honest "reporters of the news" could have an agenda that favors the election of like-minded liberals over a charasmatic and articulate mainstream conservative, eh?
What the paper's staff doesn't seem to understand is the incredible lift they are giving the Romney campaign. There is no surer signal to the GOP base of a candidate's conservative principles, competence and electability than an early and sustained attempt to damage him by the MSM. One of the reasons that Senator McCain is viewed with such distrust by the Republican base is the fawning coverage he receives from the Beltway-Manahattan media elites. One of the reasons Rudy Giuliani has credibility with base despite his views on abortions rights etc is that the MSM clearly fears him. Negative MSM coverage of Republican candidates is like a divining stick pointing towards those Republicans the Democratic Party fears the most.Gotta believe Hugh will continue to be a voice of reason about a Romney candidacy. He's spot on with this one.
Yes, the taste of their tears of sorrow would be sweet indeed.
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