Item: a deal through which Governor Mitt Romney might have been able to walk away from the stem cell debate with something like half a loaf (Sen. Pres. Travaglini was reportedly considering adopting two of Romney’s proposed amendments to the bill) falls apart because Romney’s chief spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, chose the wrong moment to trash the legislature on budgetary issues. To be fair, it appears that the Globe mischaracterized Fehrnstrom’s comments somewhat by saying that they were about legislative pay raises when in fact they were about state workers’ contributions to their health insurance, but surely Fehrnstrom should have just kept his big mouth shut until Romney and Trav sealed the deal, no? And, according to the Globe, the normally unflappable Romney was in fact quite flapped when he found out that the deal had collapsed, leading state Sen. Fred Berry to comment that "the Governor was so upset his hair was shaking." Heh.
Item: Romney’s top policy guy, Tim Murphy, sends shock waves through the health care community by stating that getting hospitals to be more aggressive in recovering health care debts from poor people will be an important part of how Romney will fund his health care plan. Poor Eric Fehrnstrom was so freaked by Murphy’s comments that he apparently tried to declare the entire conversation "off the record," thereby keeping Murphy’s comments out of the papers, but the Globe wouldn’t have it.
I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I can tell the Mittster this: if you want to run for President, you’d better get control of your PR operation pronto. Message control is everything in Republican politics these days, and your team is looking pretty lame in that department.
Actually Trav just used that editorial as a convenient excuse. He would have found something else if that was not there.
Maybe you’re right, but I wonder why? What’s in it for Trav to lead Romney down the garden path of getting 2 of his 4 amendments approved, only to pull the rug out from under him at the last minute – why not just never give the amendments the time of day? Not that I really know, but Trav doesn’t strike me as that nasty…do you know him better than I do?
I don’t know. Who are you?