Conda Joins Romney

Published Nov 29 2006, 07:39 PM by Adam Reilly

In the same article I referenced in my last post, I wrote that Romney is signing on supporters who mean little to the average voter but send strong signals to inside-the-beltway movement conservatives. Today we get another of those names: Cesar Conda.

Conda's support of Romney should not be a total shock to observant locals: Conda is currently with Mike Murphy's political consulting firm, DC Navigators, which has received more than $200,000 from Romney's gubernatorial campaign committee over the past 18 months or so.

Conda is also one of the major movers of the free-market capitalist-libertarian agenda on the Hill. He was Dick Cheney's top domestic-policy advisor, is a certified friend of Grover Norquist, is a senior fellow at Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, contributes regularly to the National Review... you get the idea. He's got major conservative cred, at least on the fiscal side.

His name also came up during the Jack Abramoff investigation, when it turned out that one of Abramoff's personal visits to Cheney's office, revealed in Secret Service logs, was to Conda.

Conda is the right wing's man on privatizing social security, deregulating industry (particularly telecom), and pretty much everything else the left hates. That's a very, very good person for Romney to get on his team.

[by David S. Bernstein]