Romney Watch: A journal of opposition research

I'm going to be keeping a DU journal focused on potential Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He's from my home state and I briefly met him once when we were boys.

I'm watching his PAC, Free Strong America (http://freestrongamerica.com); that PAC made hefty contributions to Republican candidates around the country in the 2010 election season. He'll be owed a lot of favors by the time the Republican Convention begins in late August 2012.

The largest chunk of Free Strong America PAC contributions went to Nikki Halley, the Tea-Party governor-elect of South Carolina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Haley). I'll be keeping an eye on her as a possible VP candidate, a la Sarah Palin: beautiful, exotic, conservative, with outside-Washington credentials.

I'm also reading Romney's books, currently Mitt Romney's "Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games."

I'll also be watching the current crop of Republican hopefuls, currently including Sarah Palin, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, and Georgia gadfly New Gingrich,

Generally, I think Romney is a smart, good-looking, ambitious guy, with no known sexual scandals in his past, a lot of money behind him, a well-polished political style, and a justified claim to business expertise. He is definitely part of the old-school Republican party of the Rich; his father was president of an auto company.

(This is the first post of my first attempt to keep a DU journal.)