This article is from the archive of our partner .
The Romney campaign's new effort to woo reporters -- sometimes with booze -- might be coming a bit too late. On Friday The New York Times explores the striking similarity between Mitt Romney and George H. W. Bush, while Politico notes how much Romney has in common with Bob Dole. What do Dole and Bush have in common? The press thought they were losers. (And then they lost.)
Romney "has the worst relationship of all with the press," Politico's Reid J. Epstein reports. "But as Romney seeks to nail down the GOP nomination and cement the narrative that the delegate math makes it nearly impossible for his remaining rivals to surpass him, his campaign has launched what passes for a media charm offensive." As part of that effort, Epstein reports, there's been a whole week of friendliness: dinner for reporters with a senior strategist last Thursday in Washington, a bar get together with a dozen reporters and two aides in Cleveland the next day, dinner with a senior aide and TV reporters in Ohio Monday, a visit by Romney himself to the back of the plane where reporters sit on Tuesday, a happy hour with the traveling press Wednesday in Boston. Also, fewer mean emails the morning after Super Tuesday, even though there were so many stories about Romney failing to lock down the nomination.