http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57494184/man-in-the-bubble-is-it-possible-to-know-the-real-mitt-romney/?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody
(CBS News) Last week, Mitt Romney decided to go to the hardware store.
No big deal, right? Well, maybe for you or me. But when you're a major party's presumptive presidential nominee, the press corps wants as much access to you as it can get.Which is why when Romney emerged from the store, reporters were there waiting to shout out questions about what he had purchased. Romney's response? "Hardware stuff."Those two words conveyed a not-so-subtle message: Hey, you can follow me around if you want - but I'm not going to let you get too close.The exchange came on the first day in which Romney was being followed by the "protective press pool." The protective pool is a small group of reporters assigned to follow the candidate wherever he goes. White House hopefuls grudgingly submit to such coverage under the theory that if you've got a serious chance of being president, the American people have a right to know what you're up to -- even if you're just slipping out for a little hardware stuff.The primary purpose of a protective pool is to keep tabs on a candidate. Now that he is being followed everywhere he goes, for example, Romney can no longer slip off to a fundraiser without the media knowing about it. But a secondary purpose is to give Americans a sense of who the candidate is as a person - to help us understand the daily life of the person who wants to occupy the Oval Office.
IMO voting for them is tantamount to buying two pigs in one poke.
"The only way to gain that trust is to develop an emotional connection with the voters, and the only way to develop that emotional connection is to open yourself up," he said. "It's clearly something that he's not all that comfortable doing, but it's something that he's going to have to do anyway if he wants voters to put their trust in them."
does this mean his stragey is doomed to fail?
