Democrats seek data on Romney

Nearly three years before the 2008 presidential election, the Democratic National Committee is already digging for dirt on one potential candidate in the race: Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

Earlier this month, virtually every agency in state government received public records requests for ''any and all records of communication" involving Willard [Mitt] Romney dating to 1947, the year of his birth. The letters, each dated Dec. 7, are signed by Shauna Daly, who only provided a post office box in Washington, D.C., as her address.

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee confirmed yesterday that Daly is employed as its deputy research director. Prior to that, she worked as a campaign staff member for presidential candidate John Edwards, the former Democratic senator from North Carolina. She also worked on other races since graduating from Smith College in 2001, including a US Senate race in Florida.

The spokesman, Luis Miranda, said the Democrats are seeking information on 11 potential presidential candidates, including Romney.

''He's a Republican with well-known presidential ambitions, and these days, that's not that special," Miranda said. ''This is just real standard operating procedure. Romney can show his commitment to transparency in government by complying with the Freedom Of Information Act requests in a timely manner. We're looking to be ready. There's something to be said for the Democratic Party doing this this far out."

Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's communications director, said fulfilling the public records requests will conservatively cost ''tens of thousands of dollars in staff time and legal review."

''Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for the Democratic National Committee to put its dirty tricks attack squad to work against Mitt Romney, and so we'll bill them for it," Fehrnstrom said. ''I don't know what the Democrats think they'll find, but the bottom line is Mitt Romney came into office and cleaned up a $3 billion budget mess without raising taxes. To paraphrase William Butler Yeats, that's all ye know on earth, and all ye ever need to know."

Dan Schnur, who served as communications director for US Senator John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, said the records request demonstrates that the Democratic establishment considers Romney a serious contender in 2008.

''If the Democratic opposition researchers are paying this much attention to Mitt Romney, that means they're worried, and, at the least, they want to be prepared and are taking him seriously," said Schnur, a Republican consultant based in California. ''If Romney's advisers are smart, the Democrats won't find anything that his own people didn't find a long time ago. Nobody has an absolutely pristine record, but the smart ones know all the problems before their opponents."

Romney announced Dec. 14 that he would not seek reelection, fueling speculation that he would devote considerable energy to a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. His announcement was long expected by many political observers.

Romney has yet to say whether he will run for the GOP nomination, but is widely considered as a viable potential candidate, along with McCain of Arizona, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, US Senator George Allen of Virginia, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.

The letters from the Democratic National Committee arrived by the dozen in Massachusetts on Dec. 15, according to stamps on the letters, several of which were obtained by the Globe. In each, Daly appears to have used a form letter with a different agency name at the top. Agencies that received the letters include the Board of Registration in Medicine, Office of the Comptroller, the Department of Social Services, Department of Workforce Development, the Governor's Commission of Mental Retardation, the Department of Correction, the Division of Banks, the Secretary of State's office, the Treasurer's office, the Division of Insurance, the Division of Standards, the Office of Consumer Affairs, the state Commission for the Blind, the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Commission on Indian Affairs, and the Commonwealth Corporation, a quasi-public entity.

The letters demand all records of communication ''including but not limited to letters, written requests, reports, telephone records, electronic communications, complaints, investigations, violation [sic] and memos" between the agency receiving the letter and Romney. The letters also demand all similar requests for documents filed since Jan. 1, 2002, the year Romney ran for election.

Daly asks that the information be provided on computer disk or CD-ROM within 20 business days and requests that any fees associated with fulfilling the request be waived. She provides a Washington telephone number. Calls placed to that number were not answered yesterday.

Opposition research is a key element in political campaigns, as candidates or parties attempt to find controversial, embarrassing, or previously undisclosed information about a politician's past.

US Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts hired detectives to scrutinize Romney's past during the 1994 Senate race, in which Romney, a former venture capitalist, gave Kennedy his most vigorous challenge in his long career in Washington. The effort unearthed information that badly damaged Romney during the campaign: namely, that his venture capital firm had acquired an Indiana paper goods factory called Ampad Corp., fired more than 250 workers, and then rehired them at lower wages, leading to charges from the Kennedy camp that Romney was antilabor.

Will Keyser -- a former Kennedy spokesman who is now senior vice president at the advertising firm Hill, Holliday -- said such research is ''standard operating procedure in modern campaigns."

''I would imagine that the Republicans would be doing the same thing, which is that they will be taking a good, hard look and beginning the process of compiling research on any of the possible presidential candidates," Keyser said. ''The Republicans did a remarkable workup on John Kerry [in the 2004 presidential race], and a lot of it was disgraceful stuff, but he lost and they won."