Santorum Peruses Romney’s Policies on Etch A Sketch

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Looks like Mitt Romney’s senior campaign adviser could have used some serious media training before he commented on CNN that the campaign will “hit a reset button” to take on President Barack Obama in the fall if Romney wins the GOP nomination. Adding “it’s almost like an Etch A Sketch — you can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.”

Of course, top conservative Republican rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich quickly seized this opportunity to attack Romney over his shifting stances. Santorum’s campaign posted this picture on Twitter of him using an Etch a Sketch to “study up on (Romney’s) policy positions.” While Gingrich declared, “You could not have found a more perfect illustration of why people distrust Romney.”

The caricature of Romney as a politically motivated flip-flopper extended far beyond the campaign and right-wing blogosphere. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) joked about Romney at a dinner Wednesday night honoring fellow former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Howard Baker for their legacies of bipartisanship: “Tonight we are here to honor two distinct, different Republicans — and no, I’m not talking about Mitt Romney,” Daschle said.

Word pictures are powerful and often encouraged in our LA media coaching, but they can backfire. Had this senior campaign adviser tested his word picture in on camera practice, he would have had the second opinions of former journalists to advise him.