"The rap against Mitt Romney has always been that he is just a pleasant, well-meaning banker who'll
do whatever it takes to close the deal.  This allegedly explains his rather dramatic flip-flops on social
issues, his conversion to supply-side economics, and his recent emphasis on the family as a rhetorical
trope.

The question of authenticity is, in the final analysis, very difficult of resolution and may well be something
which is primarily between the candidate and his god.  Romney is an obscenely youthful looking 60,
his visage not even marked by laugh-hyphen lines.  Many of us in his generational cohort wish we had
looked half-so-good two decades ago. 

All of which is merely a way of suggesting that the real problem facing Romney is a perceived lack of what
the Brits call "bottom" - the gravitas and air of effortless competence which enables strangers to perceive
that "There is in thy face that which I would feign call master: authority".

But merely looking like someone born to command isn't enough and here discourse plays a crucial role.
None of the Republican candidates has so far exhibited the majesty of English prose half so well as the
liberal Democrat, Barack Obama.  Partly, this is a matter of competing marketing strategies with the GOP
(and the Lady Macbeth of West Chester County) opting for a laundry list of technical minutiae of interest
only to the driest and most desperate of policy wonks.

To set himself apart and to stop a frightened Republican Establishment's stampede to semi-RINO John
McCain, Mitt Romney must somehow channel the doughty Torie warrior Churchill and must understand that what he is waging is truly a war and that the prize for his efforts is nothing less than the soul of the party.

There are manifest excellences in Senator McCain's backround. I have no doubt he would make a superb
Secretary of Defense or National Security Advisor.  Crusty, rock-ribbed reactionary that I am,
I take great delight in the contempt with which he views the shills for corporate welfare whose K Street
PACS  seemingly own a party once officially committed to low taxes, smaller government, and free enterprise.

But in so many other areas McCain severely disappoints the Right.  His obvious delight in breaching party
discipline; his preachy, smug certitude that he alone is pure and disinterested; his refusal to carry the fight
for controversial nominees into the enemy's camp - all these add up to someone who is, sadly, less than the
sum of his parts.

In order to win, Romney must give a stemwinder of a speech at every stop beginning with breakfast Wednesday morning through his last appearance next Tuesday, he needs to take McCain on directly on three issues:
Calling him out on his flagrant lie regarding withdrawl from Mesopotamia, defending America's borders and
ridding outselves of the twenty-to-thirty million criminal invaders intent on occupying large swaths of our landmass, and making it plain that the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee will be committed to strategic
tax cuts aimed at reducing the Federal role in our economy.

As to the first of these, Romney should treat McCain's comments with good-humored ridicule, something Reagan understood instinctively, one possible tactic might be to mock McCain's quip that he might keep
troops in Iraq for "100,000 years".  Mitt could feign indignation and say, "John, you know I'm as committed as you are to giving our service men and women all the time and all the tools they need to destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban but I frankly think that a hundred thousand years should be more than enough time to meet that goal and I am willing to commit to that in writing."

The immigration issue is crucial precisely because it's a way of showing the proverbial "fire in the belly".
It enables Romney to tie McCain to Teddy Kennedy, the second greatest bete-noir of Conservatives and
is the issue McCain can't explain away:  Left-wing apostasy which directly endangers the national security
which McCain views as his hole-card.  The intensity of the disconnect between the real America and the
alternative-universe inside the Beltway makes this an issue which by itself can fatally wound McCain's candidacy and which, if permitted to become the official Platform position would doom the GOP in the Fall.
Intriguingly, the economic impact of the illegals is dramatic and most deliterious to native-born Blacks,
whose long bondage to the Democrats may be loosening as a result of the appallingly contemptuous way
that the Clintonae (and especially Bill) have played the race card during the last two weeks.  I probably
would not vote for Barack Obama for township auditor, even if he were the last other person on earth.  But
the sliming he has endured from those self-proclaimed "Progressives" has been scurrilous and in accord
with the finest traditions of such Illuminati as Theodore Bilbo and "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman and must never be
countenanced in any society with any claim to moral decency.

The third issue, Tax Cuts, always works for us (If you don't believe me about its potency, just ask Poppy Bush
who may well have managed to forgive Dick Darman by the time he died last weekend.).  Romney could
make it a point in every major state to visit either (a) a business which has expanded because of the Bush tax cuts or (b) a company where Bain financed an LBO which resulted in saving the business and adding jobs.
This would also differentiate him from Mike Huckabee with whom he is competing for the so-called "values voters".

Romney has very little time to go on the offensive.  If he does, he may well "find his voice" and, in the process,
find a powerful rationale for his candidacy.  Basically, he, his CM, media director, and pollster must be prepared to stay up all night if need be in order to have a persuasive "Vision" running about fifteen to twenty minutes long in place for the first events Wednesday.  It is, to be sure, a tall order but if the candidate and his team are incapable of accomplishing it the country has a right to know.  Friends of mine who've earned their MBAs at Harvard, as MItt did, proudly refer to it as "The West Point of Capitalism".  The cadets along the Hudson are taught to so organize their time, and  so discipline their bodies and minds that all-nighters are, in theory at least, never necessary.  The real world tends to be just a tad less precise.  It is 11:03 PM EST as I finish writing this.  By my reckoning, that gives them 8 hours - one standard working day -  to do something that probably should have essentially been done six months ago.  George Romney knew how to make small, safe, fuel-efficient cars while still treating his workers decently and making a comfortable profit, as well.  There was a time when things like that were a tangible expression of the American identity.  If Mitt Romney can achieve the tasks I've outlined, he'll have vindicated National Review's editors in their endorsement.  If not, prepare for a really long, extraordinarily depressing general election.  And don't say I didn't warn you."

Roger B. Campbell is a recovering Republican political consultant who would prefer to think that his activities
on behalf of the Party have not necessarily damned him to hell forever but is not entirely certain of that fact.