An unusual turn in the Mitt Romney presidential campaign has been playing across US TV screens today. Romney, who has presented himself as being a Washington outsider not beholden to lobbying special interests, got into a verbal duel with a reporter in South Carolina about whether lobbyists ran, or merely advised, his campaign. Romney claimed the latter while the reporter suggested the former was a more accurate description given the importance of one Ron Kaufman to his campaign.
Having abruptly ended the press conference, the candidate and his press director evidently couldn't let the matter lie: instead of walking away, they took the bizarre decision to continue the spat with the journalist. Of course, the cameras were still running, and Fox's Embed blog has the full story and video here.
While not quite on the scale of John Prescott's famous punch and wrestling match during the 2001 British general election campaign, you have to wonder whether the pressure is getting too much for Mitt to handle. There is little evidence that his Michigan primary win has given him any bounce elsewhere, and he has now quit South Carolina to concentrate on Nevada and Florida. At the very least, the whole episode has made him look extremely petty.
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