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The Six Million Dollar Morman

By fitsnews • on October 16, 2007

HARPER’S MAGAZINE WRITES THE BOOK ON ROMNEY’S RECONSTRUCTION

FITSNews - October 16, 2007 - “Gentleman, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.”

We’ll admit it … we got a little jealous reading “Making Mitt Romney: How To Fabricate A Conservative,” the monumental treatise by Ken Silverstein of Harper’s Magazine that’s sure to emerge as the defining journalistic narrative of the former Massachusetts governor’s presidential campaign.

It’s not just that Silverstein is ‘that good,’ he’s also ‘that fair,’ walking the Romney reconstruction of 2008 through its paces with a wit, eloquence, perspective and striking objectivity that almost pissed us off it was so well-done.

Of course that’s why he writes for Harper’s and we write for … yeah … nevermind.

Anyway, Silverstein’s opus actually focuses less on Romney’s flip-flops than its title would suggest, choosing instead to zero in on the consultants (and the cash) trying to sell those flip-flops to the American people … us early-votin’ South Carolinians in particular.

According to Silverstein’s article, the Romney campaign has “employed more than a hundred different consultants, making combined payments to them of at least $11 million.” Further on in the story, he breaks down the thousands of dollars Romney’s Commonwealth PAC dumped into South Carolina in the months leading up to his official announcement for president, as well as the $3 million Romney spent to purchase, er … win the votes of roughly 4,000 Iowans in a recent straw poll.

Interspersed throughout Silverstein’s story - in addition to an interview with one of Romney’s make-up artists - are conversations with prominent South Carolina politicos including Lee Bandy, Cyndi Mosteller, Drew McKissick, even our own Sic Willie.

And for a wiry Yankee, Silverstein actually nailed the dirty nuances of Palmetto politics remarkably well, not only making accurate observations about the lay of the ever-volatile political land down here but also drawing intelligent, thought-provoking conclusions from those observations.

Most impressively, he’s also got an exclusive interview with Romney S.C. Campaign Manager Terry Sullivan in the story … which in case you didn’t know is like getting an audience with Moses, Ric Flair and Charlemagne, all rolled into one.

Anyway, for those of you regular FITS readers who don’t already have a Harper’s subscription (editor’s note: all ya’ll), Silverstein’s piece is definitely worth coughing up the $16.97 to read in its entirety. Plus, they’ll even deliver 12 print issues of the magazine straight to your door in addition to granting you instant online access. And who knows? There may even be some National Geographic-style porn in one of those magazines … if you’re lucky, anyway.

Oh, and for the record, like Silverstein’s article itself our review title was also a little bit misleading. We could care less that Romney’s a Mormon (as we wrote here), we just thought the whole “Six Million Dollar Morman” expression sounded kind of cool.