And now folks . . . here's Mitt
Romney doing Gridiron gig
He's no Henny Youngman, but Governor Mitt Romney hopes to have them rolling in the aisles tonight.
Romney is one of the featured speakers at the Gridiron Club's Winter Dinner in Washington, the confab of daily print journalists and political luminaries at which Democrats, Republicans, and reporters lampoon each other in a black-tie, off-the-record free-for-all.
Romney, invited to address the group at the Capital Hilton by Gridiron Club president and Wall Street Journal columnist Al Hunt, will represent the Republicans. The Democrats will be represented by Barack Obama, the US senator-elect from Illinois who brought the house down at the Democratic National Convention and is frequently cited as a rising star in national politics. Hunt said 180 people are coming, which is more than usually come to the Gridiron's winter dinner.
Hunt said he chose Romney because he wanted to find ''the most interesting Republican figure I can pick, and the first person I thought of was Governor Romney."
''He is an anomaly, a Republican governor of Massachusetts," Hunt said yesterday. ''And if you look ahead and talk about potential national Republicans, whether 2008 or another year, Governor Romney has to be on a short list, and all of that makes him an interesting figure."
Compared to Obama's barn-burner address last summer, Romney's prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention in New York fell flat. But it was part of a year full of signs that Romney's national star has been on the rise. He spent a couple of nights at the White House. He hosted a fund-raiser for President Bush and he campaigned for his reelection. He wrote a book about his time as head of the Salt Lake City Olympics, and was elected vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association last month.
But tonight is all about the yuks, said Romney communications director Eric Fehrnstrom, who believes his famously straight-laced boss to be something of a laugh-riot.
''The governor has a great sense of humor and he enjoys these opportunities to share it," Fehrnstrom said. ''He often starts meetings with a joke and he has a very easy way of laughing at himself, and he has a very relaxed and warm sense of humor. He's done it twice now at the St. Patrick's Day breakfast, and he has surprised people with his funny material, his sense of timing, and his delivery."
The governor has been working on his jokes since Hunt invited him to speak about six weeks ago. He has come up with a few of them, and staffers and family have helped out. The speeches at the Gridiron dinners -- and particularly at the bigger annual dinner, which is held in the spring -- are often full of withering jabs at the assembled pols. But the butt of most of Romney's jokes will be Romney himself, Fehrnstrom said.
Here, for example, is Romney's opener: ''Because I'm a governor and not from this town, let me tell you something about myself," Romney is expected to say. ''My name is Mitt Romney. I believe in two Americas. Unfortunately, I'm not known in either of them. I have my wild side. I've been known to go out in public without any hair gel."
And so it will go.
He will also deliver a song about the 2004 election, set to the tune of ''Charlie on the MTA." The Governor proved he can carry that tune, made famous by the Kingston Trio, at a press conference at the Government Center T Station last month in which he announced a new automated fare card called the Charlie. This time, he will be singing about Bush strategist Karl Rove, Senator John F. Kerry, and CBS news anchor Dan Rather, Fehrnstrom said.
Some Gridiron Club members of long standing -- veteran journalists like Jack Germond, Bob Novak and David Broder -- will come in for some ribbing, too: ''It's great to be here at the Gridiron Club, one of the older organizations in Washington. But let's be honest. The members look like a line for a flu shot."
Fehrnstrom said Romney's appearance at the dinner was no reflection of larger ambitions.
''This was an invitation that came from Al Hunt, and it would have been rude to turn it down," he said. ''The governor plans on running for reelection at the appropriate time. . . . But for now his focus is on heathcare reform and improving education and creating more jobs.
''But," Fehrnstrom added, ''this will be a fun little interlude." 