[former scandal-sniffing veteran reporter for the Boston Herald]Eric Fehrnstrom's Moment

BOSTON -- Eric Fehrnstrom began to panic when he landed on Sanibel Island off Florida’s Gulf Coast in December 1989. Fehrnstrom, a scandal-sniffing veteran reporter for the Boston Herald, the then-Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, was on a juicy story he knew had page one potential. It might even, as he would later describe it, become a “kill shot.”

With Massachusetts in a fiscal free fall, the lieutenant governor, Evelyn Murphy, had jetted down to the island for a short vacation. If Fehrnstrom could find her, the story of an out-of-touch politician would write itself. But out in the island heat, away from the smoky cocoon of the fourth-floor statehouse press room, “Fernie,” as he was known, wasn’t so sure he could land his prey.

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This is the same Eric Fehrnstrom who now serves as Mitt Romney’s chief media strategist and right-hand man. He's become not just a campaign surrogate, but Romney's surrogate, with a preternatural ability to know exactly what his candidate needs. On top of his responsibilities as Romney's alter ego, he's the muscle behind Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) re-election campaign, having guided Brown's historic insurgent takeover of the late Ted Kennedy's seat in 2010. GQ recently dubbed Fehrnstrom "Romney's balls" in a glowing profile.

But before taking on the president of the United States, Fehrnstrom's subjects were anyone who offered the slightest whiff of scandal or sensationalism. He dispatched plenty of stories on Beacon Hill malfeasance, large and small, in old-school, tell-it-to-me-straight prose. Still, he was no social justice crusader. Robert Connolly, a former Herald guy, described Fehrnstrom as "a Herald hardliner," an ankle-biter of the highest rank.

“He had no shame,” said the photographer Fein. “To be good at it, you have to suspend what’s probably appropriate behavior.” In 1992, Fehrnstrom outed a transgender politician, Republican State Rep. Althea Garrison. Connolly told GQ that he could "remember his glee when he found the birth certificate.”

more:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/eric-fehrnstrom-romney-_n_1754252.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012