Ask him anything

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Mitt Romney works on a speech on a jet in 2007.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Romney addresses a town hall in New Hampshire in 2007. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Romney spends the Fourth of July 2007 in Iowa. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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“Wow! Is that guy going to be the president?” That’s what one of these Iowa high school girls asked when Mitt Romney visited their hometown of Waukee during a Fourth of July burst of campaigning.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Fourth of July in Iowa, 2007. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Candidates can count on questions lots of them from the media. Here, Romney meets the press after speaking to the Republican National Hispanic Assembly’s convention, where immigration was on the agenda. Romney, who has frequently criticized his GOP competitors as soft on illegal immigration, fired a landscaping company in December after learning that it had not heeded his request to bar illegal immigrants from working on his property. He took the action after reporters questioned him about the company. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

7/12

Before speaking in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney practices a one-liner on his wife, Ann, who gets the joke. He delivered one of his most memorable quips of the campaign season in October when Fred Thompson made his first appearance at a debate. Romney compared the contest for the nomination to the television drama “Law & Order,” in which Thompson portrayed a district attorney: “It has a huge cast, the series seems to go on forever, and Fred Thompson shows up at the end.”

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

8/12

Mitt Romney can count on strong family support in his bid for the White House. Josh, one of Romney’s five adult sons, has visited all 99 counties in Iowa on behalf of his father. Wife Jen and their three children, Wyatt, Grace and Owen, join him here in Forest City.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Romney takes a break from strategizing at his nearby estate in New Hampshire to get some fresh air on Lake Winnipesaukee with staffers Matt Rhoades, Eric Fehrnstrom and Mike Greenwald. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Mitt Romney lends a hand as wife Ann fishes for her sunglasses after their arrival in Iowa for a full day of campaigning. Romney says the onetime high school sweethearts have never had a serious argument in their 38 years of marriage. That doesn’t mean the marriage has been problem-free. Nine years ago Ann learned she has multiple sclerosis. “As time has passed and I’ve come to terms with living with multiple sclerosis, I’ve realized ... how much strength you can gain through others,” she says on her husband’s campaign website. The disease is in remission.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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The Fourth of July parade in Clear Lake, Iowa, gave the Romneys and the Clintons a chance for an impromptu meeting. “They were very friendly and enthusiastically agreed that we would be seeing a lot more of them,” said Josh Romney, center, on the Romney sons’ “Five Brothers” campaign blog. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Mitt Romney spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours in Iowa for the 2008 campaign.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Dec. 30, 2007 12 AM PT

Racing around Iowa, New Hampshire and other states, Mitt Romney keeps a frenetic pace in his campaign for the presidency.

He dashes along parade routes, gives speeches in hotel ballrooms, mingles at receptions to raise money.

If the former Massachusetts governor and investment executive fails to capture the Republican nomination, it will not be for lack of gusto. All told, he has fielded questions from voters at more than 130 “Ask Mitt Anything” forums in states with nominating contests in January and February.

His demeanor sunny, his manner polite, Romney has given the same responses to familiar questions hundreds of times over, each day with as much pep as the day before. He rarely stops smiling, even as he fends off frequent queries about whether his switches to more conservative stands on issues such as abortion were driven by conviction or expediency.

His wife, Ann, and one or more of their five grown sons often campaign alongside Romney, their presence a reminder that he hopes to be seen as a paragon of family values. At most stops, he vows to stand up for tax cuts and a robust military.

In the end, Romney is banking that Republicans will judge him to be their party’s most conservative and most viable White House contender. -- Michael Finnegan

Ask him anything

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