Get Your Romney Campaign Strategy Here

I've been meaning to write a post about this all day, but kept putting it off. Romney's campaign appears to have suffered another "leak" of some sort. The Politico had an interesting article yesterday that discussed Romney's campaign strategy for the next few months. A number of the points it makes, however, seem somewhat obvious. Briefly, he plans to:

• "Game the system. Romney intends to take advantage of the various and complicated rules governing the primaries." (e.g., target specific districts in California's new "winner-take-all by congressional district" system

• "Feel the burn. While Romney expects to raise significant amounts of money, his "burn rate," or expenses, will be high.... Romney says he'll spend his money wisely."
  

• "Make clear both explicitly and implicitly the differences between himself, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, whether on issues or on lifestyle.... Romney intends to exploit what he perceives as two of McCain's great vulnerabilities in the Republican primaries: the McCain-Feingold law, which restricts campaign contributions, and the McCain-Kennedy bill, which would change immigration laws and allow for a guest-worker program. And while Romney disagrees explicitly with Giuliani on issues such as abortion, gun control and gay rights, he implicitly draws distinctions between Giuliani's rather turbulent personal life -- he has been married three times -- and Romney's own marriage of nearly 38 years."

• "Make a splash. Romney intends to make a big effort at the splashiest event on the primary calendar: the straw poll in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 11. The straw poll is the "American Idol" of political events".... Failure at Ames can end candidacies, because campaign contributions can dry up for those who do not do well.

• "Encourage the media to look into the background of his opponents."

• "Minimize his own negatives. Romney is vulnerable to accusations of being a flip-flopper -- he admits he was not pro-life until just a few years ago, and he joined the National Rifle Association just last August -- but his biggest negative, according to the polls, is his Mormon religion."

• "Mend a fence. Romney formally announced for president last month in Dearborn, Mich., at the Henry Ford Museum. Aside from being an inventor and a highly successful businessman, however, Ford was a notorious anti-Semite."

• "Be funny, even if he has to borrow the jokes."

Both Ankle Biting Pundits and the NRO have reviews of the strategy and dispense their own campaign advice. Even if some of the plans are pretty expected, I wonder how good it is for Romney to have some of his detailed plans circulating about.