In Romney Residency Challenge, Have Democrats Already Won?

BOSTON -- The state Ballot Law Commission plans to rule this week whether Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney is kicked off the ballot, though many who have followed the case think the Democrats' challenge doesn't have a chance.

The thinking is the commission will reject Democrats' claim that Romney doesn't meet the state's seven-year residency requirement, and then voters will support Romney to protest the Democrats' political ploy.

But some say it doesn't matter what the Ballot Law Commission rules -- the Democrats have already won.

Romney, the telegenic former Salt Lake Olympic chief who returned to Massachusetts on a wave of Olympic-inspired glory, has been reduced to talking about his three homes, the three boats he keeps in New Hampshire, and the Wellesley Hills bookkeeper who pays his bills.

Then there are the questions about Romney's honesty, which came up after he said he had filed Massachusetts resident income taxes in 1999 and 2000, admitting only later that he had first filed as a Utah resident then changed to Massachusetts after deciding to run for governor.

"He came here as the shining knight on a white horse, and he's fallen off the horse," said Dan Payne, a Democratic political consultant.

True to the old political axiom, "A candidate is never more popular than on the day before he announces his candidacy," Romney was wildly popular when he returned to Massachusetts in March after the Olympics.

Polls showed him easily beating incumbent acting Gov. Jane Swift, also a Republican, and all five Democratic candidates.

One pollster gushed at the time, "He is the profile for everything voters are looking for right now."

Now, after two weeks of Romney residency coverage, those who hear about Romney's time in Utah are as likely to think of the tax discount he received for his $3.8 million Utah home as they are of his success leading the Olympics.

"The Democratic Party has already got out of it what the party intended," said former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a Democratic candidate.

If Romney has been tainted -- forced to defend his tax records for two weeks instead of touting his stands on issues -- so too has the Democratic Party been tainted, said Jeffrey Sedgwick, political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Voters may remember into the fall election season that the Democrats tried to force Romney off the ballot on a technicality and take away their choice, Sedgwick said.

A Boston Herald poll conducted on Wednesday and Thursday found that one-third of respondents viewed the Democratic Party more negatively because of its challenge to Romney's residency.

Romney has tried to capitalize on those negative sentiments with television and radio ads that blame Democratic opponents Shannon O'Brien and Tom Birmingham for the challenge.

The state Constitution requires a governor to live in Massachusetts for the seven years prior to election. Democrats say Romney is ineligible because he moved to Utah from 1999 to 2002 to run the Olympics.

Sedgwick, the UMass professor, said the fact that the campaign has gotten so bitter so early, still four and a half months before the general election, indicates a "scorched issue" race.

Already, Romney's lawyer brought up Romney's wife's multiple sclerosis during the Ballot Law Commission hearings, and Sedgwick said he wouldn't be surprised if the Democrats play up Romney's wealth and his Mormon religion as the campaign progresses.

"I don't think it's going to be a highroad campaign," he said. (AP)