‘Etch-A-Sketch’: Romney Aide Suggests Campaign Reset After Primary

Mitt Romney’s rivals have seized on comments made by his communications director Eric Fehrnstromon
CNN this morning suggesting Romney’s rightward shift during the primary
might be “reset” during the general election campaign. Here’s the
exchange:

JOHN FUGELSANG (CNN): “Is there a concern that [Rick]
Santorum and [Newt] Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to
the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general
election?”

FEHRNSTROM: “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall
campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can
kind of shake it up and restart all of over again. But I will say, if
you look at the exit polling data in Illinois, you’ll see that Mitt
Romney is broadly acceptable to most of the factions in the party. You
have to do that in order to become the nominee…”

There is no doubt that the tone and issues most on display during the
general election will differ from those that were the focus during the
GOP primary. And there is no doubt that Romney or whoever is the
eventual nominee GOP nominee will have to “pivot” to face president
Obama. But Fehrnstrom’s analogy immediately struck a nerve among
Democrats and Obama campaign aides on Twitter, who tried to make it
sound like Romney would change his positions if he can clinch the
nomination.

” One of Governor Romney’s aides today on television said that Gov
Romney, after he wins the primaries, will be like an Etch-a-Sketch, You
take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone and
he’s going to draw a whole new picture for the general election. Well
that should be comforting to all of you who are voting in this
primary,” said Rick Santorum in an interview on Fox News Channel later
Wednesday morning. “That whoever you are going to vote for is going to
be a completely remove all trace of any kind of marks and be able to
draw a new picture. Maybe a picture sort of like when he ran for
governor of Massachusets, not as a conservative. One thing you can
say—even my staunchest critics will say—is what you see is what you get.
”

President Obama’s top campaign strategists assailed Fehrnstrom on
Twitter, casting the remark as further evidence that Gov. Romney is
unprincipled and “without a core.”

“@ericfehrn says on CNN that Romney will erase his hard right
positions in general election like an etch-a-sketch. Yeah, don’t think
so,” tweeted deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter.

“Day after winning IL primary, @MittRomney campaign tells GOP voters
that his platform was all just an etch-a-sketch,” she added later.

Senior Obama strategist David Axelrod: “Forget everything you know. Forget everything you’ve seen. Coming soon. Mitt 5.0!”

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina posted to Twitter, “Romney’s guy
just said on CNN he will erase his hard-right positions in the general
election “Like An Etch-A-Sketch”. #IDONTTHINKSO”

And, within seconds of his peers, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt
joined the wray, including a link to the video of the Fehrnstrom
interview segment. “WATCH: Top Romney advisor says Romney will reinvent
himself, his positions during general election. Principled. http://t.co/teMSLGSJ,” he said.

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