Romney faces 'Etch A Sketch' fallout

Mitt Romney headed to the nation's basic Thursday to accession money for his front-running Republican presidential campaign, buoyed by contempo primary wins and a key endorsement but additionally adverse fallout from a top adviser's gaffe.

A Wednesday animadversion on CNN by Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's chief advance adviser, provided top rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich with new armament to advance the aloft Massachusetts governor over alive stances on issues such as bloom affliction and aborticide during his career.

Fehrnstrom said the advance will "hit a displace button" to booty on Admiral Barack Obama in the abatement if Romney wins the GOP nomination, abacus "it's about like an Etch A Sketch -- you can affectionate of agitate it up, and we alpha all over again."

The comment, in acknowledgment to a catechism about whether Romney had to accept bourgeois stances in the Republican advance that could aching him with moderates in November, brought actual attacks from Romney's two capital bourgeois rivals.

A new website apparent Thursday by the Gingrich advance appearance the Fehrnstrom adduce aloft an Etch A Sketch that highlights Romney's action accouterment aback admirers hit a alert labeled "shake." Written on the cartoon toy is "Mitt's Etch A Sketch Principles."

"You could not accept begin a added absolute analogy of why bodies disbelief Romney than to accept his (adviser) say that the Etch A Sketch allows you to abolish aggregate in the accepted election," Gingrich said Wednesday. "You accept to apprehend the guy's adduce to apprehend -- if he had set out to highlight for everybody why we disbelief Romney, I anticipate he couldn't accept done a bigger job."

Santorum additionally jumped at the opportunity. His advance acquaint a photo on Twitter of the applicant application an Etch A Sketch, adage it showed him "studying up on (Romney's) action positions."

"You can accord all the speeches you demand ... about abandon but you've got to accept your behavior bout your rhetoric," Santorum said in an account Thursday morning on WWL radio in New Orleans advanced of the abutting Republican primary on Saturday in Louisiana.

On the Tea Affair Nation website, blogger Judson Phillips wrote Thursday that the Etch A Sketch angel "is what conservatives accept been admonishing about for months with Romney."

"He is a liberal. He has no amount aesthetics and as anon as he becomes the nominee, he will move far to the left," Phillips continued.

The burlesque of Romney as a politically motivated flip-flopper extends far above the advance and bourgeois blogosphere. Aloft Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle joked about Romney at a banquet Wednesday night ceremony adolescent aloft Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Howard Baker for their legacies of bipartisanship.

"Tonight we are actuality to account two distinct, altered Republicans -- and no, I'm not talking about Mitt Romney," Daschle said.

Romney had no accessible contest appointed Thursday while he abounding fundraising contest in the Washington, D.C., breadth afterwards what should accept been a boastful Wednesday -- his 43rd bells ceremony -- in which he best up the admired endorsement of aloft Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and acclaimed his solid achievement in the Illinois primary the night before.

Instead, he had to try accident ascendancy over Fehrnstrom's animadversion by demography one catechism from reporters about the Etch A Sketch snafu.

"Organizationally, a accepted acclamation advance takes on a altered profile," Romney said. "The issues I am active on will be absolutely the same. I am active as a bourgeois Republican. I was a bourgeois Republican governor. I will be active as a bourgeois Republican nominee, at that point hopefully, for president. The behavior and positions are the same."

In a new advance ad in Wisconsin, which holds its primary on April 3, Romney angry his focus to the anytime accretion federal deficit.

The ad highlights Romney's administration as governor of Massachusetts, authoritative the case his accomplishments as a accumulated controlling able him to run a fiscally complete government.

Romney's bulletin of acid deficits comes afterwards the applicant accustomed an abridgement on the rebound, cogent a army in Illinois this anniversary that "I accept the abridgement is advancing back, by the way. We'll see what happens, it's had ups and downs. I anticipate it's assuredly advancing back."

Gingrich campaigned Thursday in Louisiana, while Santorum headed to Texas to allocution about bloom affliction at an allowance company. Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the autonomous best active able-bodied behind, had no advance contest scheduled.

Both Gingrich and Santorum scoffed abroad the Jeb Bush endorsement for Romney, adage the son of one Republican admiral and brother of addition represents the GOP enactment rather than the bourgeois body of the party.
Romney captures key Illinois areas to win
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"It's a achievement of the enactment trifecta," Gingrich agent R.C. Hammond said in advertence to endorsements for Romney by aloft Admiral George H.W. Bush, aloft Sen. Bob Dole and now Jeb Bush.

After Romney's achievement in the Illinois primary, analysts articulate like the Republican advance was about over.

"The writing's on the wall" for the blow of the field, said CNN analyst Erick Erickson, a longtime Romney critic.

"This comes bottomward to Mitt Romney," Erickson said. "Not alone is he the beloved but the nominee. This is a bright win for Mitt Romney tonight in a accompaniment with blue-collar voters, with automated voters and burghal voters."

The Illinois aftereffect gave Romney at atomic 41 of the 54 assembly at pale in the primary, accretion his absolute to 562, according to CNN's estimate. Santorum is additional with 249, Gingrich third with 137 and Paul aftermost with 69.

A absolute of 1,144 assembly is bare to assure the GOP nomination.

Santorum said he expects to do bigger in advancing primaries and caucuses, adding: "We are activity very, actual acceptable about acceptable Louisiana on Saturday."

The aloft Pennsylvania agent has fabricated a able assuming in commonly bourgeois Southern states, acceptable Alabama and Mississippi a anniversary ago while Romney accomplished third.

"This is the aftermost chance, in a sense, for the bourgeois breadth of the country to bulb their flag, and we acquainted actual acceptable about what Alabama and Mississippi did," Santorum said in the Thursday radio interview. "They restarted this chase again."

Another Santorum achievement in Louisiana would abide the arrangement of the race, while a Romney win would arresting growing abutment from the bourgeois abject that he needs to accomplishment off his rivals.

Gingrich, who appears more absurd to arise addition improvement afterwards two antecedent advance surges, said Thursday he is acclimated to angry from behind.

"Almost everywhere I've campaigned, because of the way of the money, we alpha abaft and again we accretion ground," Gingrich told about 100 supporters in Lafayette, Louisiana..Copy your commodity here.