The national media is starting to discover a new candidate for president, who is emerging more and more into the spotlight: Mitt Romney — the guy who until recently was the steady frontrunner for the nomination, but wasn’t anywhere near as visible as his various challengers who have come and gone.
As Ben Smith previously coined the phrase four months ago, Romney’s media strategy could be characterized as the “Mittness Protection Program,” with the candidate keeping a very low profile other than the national debates. This was compared to other candidates, who would readily sit down for national media interviews and hold press conferences.
In the time since then, there has been a boom-and-bust cycle of Romney opponents, one after another: Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and (the now withdrawn/suspended) Herman Cain. But now Newt Gingrich is jumping ahead in the polls, in ways that strike some observers as different and more stable than was the case with the previous Romney challengers.
And as the race is now in crunch time, with the Iowa caucuses less than a month away — and — Romney is popping up more on TV. Notably, he is also doing so especially on a very special venue: Fox News, the Republican-aligned channel that is watched by many voters.
A notable milestone came a week ago, when Romney did a sit-down interview with Bret Baier on Fox — but it didn’t go very well. However, he is getting right back on the bike.
For example, Romney is set to appear this weekend on Fox News Sunday — ending an 18-month absence from the Sunday talk show circuit.
And while Romney announced Tuesday that he will skip the Donald Trump debate, he made that very announcement on Fox News, in an interview with Neil Cavuto. During the same interview, Romney said: “I’ll be on Fox a lot, because you guys matter when it comes to early primary voters.”
Later that afternoon, Romney held a wider open-air press conference, open to various media outlets, which was carried live by CNN.
