Romney on the Stump

Absentee Governor Romney was in Utah yesterday, where he gave essentially the same speech he unveiled in front of South Carolina Republicans on Monday. Ostensibly, Mitt was there to raise money for the Salt Lake County Republican Party at their Lincoln Day Dinner. Unlike South Carolina, Utah's primary is generally a month into the process so it is less important for Mitt to boost his already high profile there. Mitt is also unlikely to get much money from donors in Utah should he run for president, at least according to Brigham Young University Law Professors.

What's becoming increasingly clear, however, is that Romney is practicing a stump speech in front of small groups of conservative Republicans -- possibly in preparation for the 2008 Presidential primary.

Here's how Romney's stump speech goes:

1. Introduction by local GOP chair who jokes about how terrible it must be to live in Massachusetts.
2. Joke by Romney about how he's never seen so many Republicans in one place before.
3. Romney takes credit for "turnaround" of the state economy.
4. Hero worship of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
5. Republican social red meat: Religion is awesome, stem cell research is bad, gay marriage is really really bad.

Of course, you have to wonder when Massachusetts Republicans are going to get tired of being the butt of Romney's out-of-state jokes. While the state GOP has to know that they are seriously outgunned, I'm sure they don't appreciate their titular leader having a laugh over it Missouri, South Carolina and Utah. There are already some signs that state Republicans are ready for Mitt to decide if he's serious about continuing as governor or wants to focus on his presidential ambitions. In a Globe article about possible GOP successors to Romney, James Rappaport, former chairman of the state Republican Party, had this to say:

[Rappaport] urged Romney to make up his mind sooner than later, preferably by the summer.

"The Republican electorate in the presidential primaries would never forgive him for hanging the Massachusetts Republican Party out to dry and forgo any chance for it to retain the governor's office," Rappaport said.

Of course, what Rappaport doesn't realize is that the national Republican electorate thinks that Romney, as a Republican from Massachusetts, is a novelty -- despite the fact that he's fourth in a line of Republican governors. So, if he bolts and the Democrats finally recapture the corner office, national Republicans will just think it's the natural order of things reasserting itself.