Romney: 'The Republican Party got lost'

by Jill Zuckman

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has a message for GOP voters, and it comes without any sugarcoating.

"I think the Republican Party got lost," he said in an interview during a day of fundraising from Champaign to Chicago.

"I think we're seen as not being as fiscally conservative as we should have been. We're seen as spending too much and borrowing too much," Romney said Friday. "I think people expect us to be a very tightly managed party, and we did not demonstrate that. And I think people expect us to abide by the highest ethical standards."

As the race for the presidential nomination enters the furious fall stretch, Romney plans to "double down," as one adviser put it, on the notion that he is the answer that Republicans need to repair a political brand badly damaged after years of GOP governance.

His sharper tone appears to reflect a careful decision that he needs to start distancing himself more clearly from his party and its leadership in Congress, in an appeal to rank-and-file Republicans turned off by scandal and the GOP leadership in Washington.

See the rest of the story in today's Tribune:

See Romney's new ad, "Change Begins With Us," which he plans to air nationally. And read the text below:

It is unusual for a candidate to speak so bluntly about the performance of his party leaders in power. But with Democrats leading in enthusiasm and fundraising, Romney's newly honed rhetoric reflects the line he and other Republican hopefuls must walk between party loyalty and expressing the frustrations of so many activist Republicans.

The shift also may reflect the recent entry into the race of former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who is promoting himself, in part, as an old-fashioned, conservative Republican untainted by the mistakes of the current GOP regime.

Romney's push includes a new television commercial appearing in steady rotation in Iowa and New Hampshire in which he calls for Republicans to start acting like Republicans.

"We can't have ethical standards that are a punch line for Jay Leno," he says in the ad, a not-so-subtle reference to the plethora of scandals that have embarrassed the GOP, including Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's arrest in a bathroom sex-sting operation.

In a brief news conference in Chicago, Romney declined to identify those Republicans who have been ethically challenged. He said that in the "last 15 to 20 years in Washington, you have seen a pattern of people standing before microphones saying that everyone makes mistakes. ... But we expect elected officials in the House, in the Senate and in the White House to abide by a higher ethical standard."

He also declined to say whether Craig, who was the Romney campaign's liaison to the Senate, should resign from office.

In an open letter to Republicans that will run as a full-page newspaper ad Sunday in New Hampshire's Manchester Union-Leader and Monday in Capitol Hill's Roll Call, Romney writes that Republicans can't be "Big Government Republicans," or "Washington Republicans." The party has to be about changing Washington, he says.

But first, writes Romney, "If we're going to change Washington, Republicans have to put our own house in order."

Yet he is skittish about getting specific about whose fault it is that federal spending has increased at a furious pace, that earmarks for pork-barrel projects mushroomed under Republican control of Congress and that the government's competence has been repeatedly called into question.

"I'm not going to characterize the management style of the president," Romney said in his interview with the Tribune. "He has great strengths, he's brought dignity and respect back to the White House, and he's kept us safe these last six years."

He added, "There are places where success has eluded him."

A prime example is the war in Iraq, a place where many candidates are looking to separate themselves from President Bush. Another is the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

To be sure, Romney does not just reserve his slings for his own party. He is disparaging of the Democrats as he plays to the Republican base, which will determine the party's nominee.

"When Republicans act like Democrats, America loses," Romney says in both his ad and his letter, characterizing Democrats as even bigger spenders than Republicans and as poor stewards of the border.

Romney, whose conservative credentials have been questioned by those who recall his moderate Republican past and his Mormon religion, won praise Friday from Richard Viguerie, a longtime conservative political strategist.

Viguerie applauded Romney's distancing himself from the GOP under the leadership of Viguerie applauded Romney's distancing himself from the GOP under the leadership of Bush: "At last, a top-tier presidential candidate is paying attention to the discouraged, disheartened and disillusioned base of the Republican Party."

Tribune national correspondent Tim Jones contributed to this report.

This is the text of Romney's new national campaign ad:

"If we're going to change Washington, Republicans have to put our own house in order.

"We can't be like Democrats – a party of big spending.

"We can't pretend our borders are secure from illegal immigration.

"We can't have ethical standards that are a punch line for Jay Leno.

"When Republicans act like Democrats, America loses.

"It's time for Republicans to start acting like Republicans.

"It's time for a change and change begins with us.

"I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message."