Mitt Romney's opening moves this fall - Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com

By JONATHAN MARTIN | 9/2/09 10:29 AM EDT Text Size-+reset.
While he remains publicly coy about the possibility of another White House bid, Mitt Romney's calendar tells a very different story.
Photo: AP Spies and his wife, Lisa, are hosting the dairy-themed Romney reunion at their downtown Washington condo, where there also may be some former aides to other 2008 GOP candidates in attendance.

On Friday, Romney heads across the Potomac to Alexandria for a breakfast fundraiser benefiting the reelection campaign of Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, an early supporter and state chairman of the former governor’s 2008 bid.


The day after the Values Voters event, Romney is keynoting a $500-per-person afternoon reception at the Great Falls, Va., home of former solicitor general Ted Olson for Barbara Comstock, a Romney adviser now running for state delegate.


On that Monday, Romney will deliver a foreign policy address at a Washington conference put on by the hawkish Foreign Policy Initiative. Romney’s speech will come at a luncheon during what the group is billing as an event in support of “advancing and defending democracy.”


At night, he will raise money for Bob McDonnell, the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, at an evening reception in Washington.


But Romney’s not just tending to old relationships and building new ones inside the Beltway.


On Sept. 22, he’ll head to Atlanta – a major Republican fundraising hub – to raise money for Georgia’s House Republican caucus.


And that weekend, the son of a former Michigan governor will return to his childhood state to keynote the annual Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, a heavily attended activist event on a picturesque island near the Upper Peninsula. In 2007, Romney used the same conference to offer a critical assessment of his own party and won the straw poll. He later carried the state during the GOP primary.


Asked about the flurry of political activity by Romney — who is also writing a future-oriented book titled “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness” — spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom suggested the fast pace wouldn’t be limited to September.


“Summer's over,” Fehrnstrom said. “With 2010 right around the corner, there's a lot of work to do, which means more travel, more fundraising and more campaigning.”


All of which, of course, could redound to Romney’s benefit should he run again for president in 2012.



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