Romney Goes Exploring

To the surprise of nobody, Willard Mitt Romney -- aka the Barnstormin' Mormon -- today opened a Presidential Exploratory Committee, which is kind of like becoming an official candidate except without actually disclosing all your donors.

As it happens, I've just been putting the wraps on a column about Romney for this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix. In it, I go looking for Romney's path to the nomination -- a remarkably elusive thing, for someone who starts as the presumptive frontrunner.

A couple of quick comments for now: As I speculated here on the blog, it looks like "Believe In America" -- the new subtitle for the paperback version of his book No Apology -- will be Romney's campaign slogan. Also, in his announcement video (filmed at UNH Durham campus) Romney is wearing the same casual plaid dress shirt he is wearing on the cover of that book. I can't help thinking that he bought a drawerful of the same shirt after some focus group approved it.