Romney seeks inquiry into negative calls

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff

Mitt Romney's campaign, which was hit last month by negative phone calls in New Hampshire and Iowa, asked the Iowa attorney general today to investigate whether a new set of phone calls made by a group supporting Mike Huckabee violated state law.

In a letter to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, the Romney campaign said the calls to Iowa voters from Delaware-based Common Sense Issues Inc. appeared to violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, which requires political callers to disclose their identity or face a fine of $500 per call.

"It is particularly offensive that a Mike Huckabee advocacy group would resort to a shadow effort using large sums of unregulated soft money to attack candidates by name with these reprehensible calls," Romney spokesman Matt Rhoades said in a statement. "Governor Huckabee cannot just stand by and feign outrage as these coordinated attacks are made in his name and for his benefit.”

Huckabee, who is trying to set an upbeat tone for his campaign and who now leads Romney in some polls in Iowa, said Monday the calls should stop.

"Our campaign has nothing to do with the push-polling and I wish they would stop," he said while campaigning in Iowa. "We don't want this kind of campaigning because it violates the spirit of our campaign. I don't want to become president because I disabled the other candidates, I want to become president because I am the best candidate."

Patrick Davis, executive director of Common Sense Issues, could not be reached for comment today. He has described the calls as "personalized educational artificial intelligence," and said they were meant to promote Huckabee. He has said the group did not coordinate with the Huckabee campaign.

Rhoades said the group does have ties to Huckabee.

"The money men and organizers behind this effort headed a major Huckabee fund-raiser less than one month ago and the executive director is a former associate of Huckabee's campaign manager," Rhoades said. "Relying on the resources of an out-of-state soft money organization to run your ground game is awful politics and voters are right to be annoyed by this kind of conduct."

Last month, Romney and his Republican rival John McCain asked the New Hampshire attorney general to investigate mysterious phone calls to New Hampshire and Iowa voters that harshly questioned Romney’s Mormonism and spread positive information about McCain's military service.

The calls were linked to a Utah marketing firm called Western Wats, but the firm's employees said they could not disclose their clients. James Kennedy, a New Hampshire assistant attorney general, said yesterday that the investigation was progressing and would take several more weeks.