By Nancy French
I read with great amusement the post on Ankle Biting Pundits that claimed, “Romney Caught Playing the Kos/Armstrong Blogger Game”–this, of course, referring to bloggers being secretly paid by campaigns to make it appear they have grass roots support. This post was created after a diarist at Red State insinuated the pro-Romney articles are somehow orchestrated by Gov. Romney.
I actually had to laugh. When some of us joined a Romney Yahoo listserv over a year ago, we never thought we’d be accused of professionalism. But, as I surfed the net today, I noticed that it is true that Gov. Romney already has the best presence on the web. AmericansforMitt.com is the national umbrella organization that Nathan Burd started over a year ago. (I’m a “regional advisor” for the site, representing the South.) The organization already includes:
Floridians for Mitt (No word if his motto is “I may not know how to vote, but I do know for whom to vote.”)
Massachusetts for Mitt (Perhaps “Massachusettsians” was awkward?)
another Texas for Mitt (apparently Texans have to outdo everybody in everything.)
and another Utah blog (just to make sure Texas doesn’t get too big for their britches)
And this is not even including the various groups that have created sites in the “for Mitt” family:
Law Students for Romney which makes the point that Gov. Romney will not lose daily efficiency because of “cheap whiskey hangovers” (“Tennesseans for Mitt,” declines to speculate whether this was a potshot at their state.)
If you peruse our sites, you’ll see that there are differing levels of quality and quantity of posts. (Another Romney supporter recently claimed my orange Tennesseans for Mitt site was “hideous”–but he must’ve been a Kentucky Wildcats fan opposed to me honoring the Vols.)
Since I’ve been in the grassroots Mitt group, I’ve noticed there are professional writers, lawyers, doctors, and pro-life crusaders in our midst, as well as Catholics, charismatics, LDSers, and Baptists. In other words, the ubiquity of websites are a testimony to the diversity (geographically and theologically) of the types of people Gov. Romney attracts.
(In an ironic twist, Jim Geraghty reports today that the Ankle Biting Pundit himself Patrick Hynes is actually a paid political consultant working for Sen. John McCain. He’s already offered a mea culpa for not disclosing this, so I won’t pile on.)
So, to clarify, we don’t get paid for any of this, and the organization of “for Mitt” sites is as grassroots as it gets. (In one of the RedState articles, you might even note that “Mormon” is misspelled a few times.) Nevertheless, we do take the astroturf accusation as a high compliment.
If you’d like to be a part of the “for Mitt” family, please contact Nathan Burd. We may be grassroots, but–like our candidate–we certainly have gravitas.
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