I think it is correct to say, at this stage, that Mitt Romney is already in the race. Given the recent article from the Boston Globe, and now this one from Politico…. you draw your own conclusions.

By Johnathan Martin

Mitt Romney’s Opening Moves This Fall

While he remains publicly coy about the possibility of another White House bid, Mitt Romney has a calendar that tells a very different story.

From returning to a key early primary state to delivering an address before a social conservative conference and reuniting with members of his campaign-in-waiting, Romney is scheduled to spend a good deal of his September in a fashion befitting a man very much interested in running for president.

Romney has been careful to avoid being overexposed this year, instead picking his spots to weigh in with an op-ed or talk show appearance when the national debate turns to health care, the auto industry

or some other issue on which he’s well-versed.

But despite the relatively low media exposure, Romney has not ignored the importance of building and keeping his political contacts, especially in Washington.

To this end, the former Massachusetts governor will spend much of the middle of this month in and around the capital for a series of events aimed at retaining or building support with a number of valuable constituencies in a Republican primary.

On Saturday, Sept. 19, Romney will speak at the Values Voters Summit, an annual conference in the capital, put on by the Family Research Council, that frequently draws GOP presidential hopefuls.

Before the conference, Romney is holding a pair of events for his political action committee, Free and Strong America, that will bring him back together with some of his most loyal supporters and a few new faces.

First, on Thursday night, Romney is holding a $1,000-per-person fundraiser at a trendy Washington restaurant. Co-hosts include a number of Romney stalwarts such as former campaign counsel Ben Ginsberg and high-powered lobbyists Ron Kaufman, Drew Maloney, Al Cardenas and Jack Gerard.

Also on the host list are two of John McCain’s top donors from the 2008 campaign, Wayne Berman and Fred Malek. Both are veteran GOP fundraising dynamos who would be significant assets to a 2012 Romney presidential run. Contacted by POLITICO, Berman and Malek each praised the former governor but indicated it was too early to make presidential commitments.

Later that night, Romney is scheduled to rejoin scores of his former campaign aides for a low-dollar Sundaes With Mitt event, at which he’s expected to dish out ice cream alongside some “special guest scoopers.”

“In 2008, Mitt did events for 33 federal candidates running for office and 37 surrogate events for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin,” Charlie Spies, Romney’s former campaign CFO, wrote in an e-mail last week about the event. “In addition, the Free and Strong America PAC made contributions to over 150 contests at the federal and state level.”

Spies and his wife, Lisa, are hosting the dairy-themed Romney reunion at their downtown Washington condo, where there also may be some former aides to other 2008 GOP candidates in attendance.

On Friday, Romney heads across the Potomac to Alexandria for a breakfast fundraiser benefiting the reelection campaign of Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, an early supporter and state chairman of the former governor’s 2008 bid.

The day after the Values Voters event, Romney is keynoting a $500-per-person afternoon reception at the Great Falls, Va., home of former solicitor general Ted Olson for Barbara Comstock, a Romney adviser now running for state delegate.

On that Monday, Romney will deliver a foreign policy address at a Washington conference put on by the hawkish Foreign Policy Initiative. Romney’s speech will come at a luncheon during what the group is billing as an event in support of “advancing and defending democracy.”

At night, he will raise money for Bob McDonnell, the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, at an evening reception in Washington.

But Romney’s not just tending to old relationships and building new ones inside the Beltway.

On Sept. 22, he’ll head to Atlanta – a major Republican fundraising hub – to raise money for Georgia’s House Republican caucus.

And that weekend, the son of a former Michigan governor will return to his childhood state to keynote the annual Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, a heavily attended activist event on a picturesque island near the Upper Peninsula. In 2007, Romney used the same conference to offer a critical assessment of his own party and won the straw poll. He later carried the state during the GOP primary.

Asked about the flurry of political activity by Romney — who is also writing a future-oriented book titled “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness” — spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom suggested the fast pace wouldn’t be limited to September.

“Summer’s over,” Fehrnstrom said. “With 2010 right around the corner, there’s a lot of work to do, which means more travel, more fundraising and more campaigning.”

All of which, of course, could redound to Romney’s benefit should he run again for president in 2012.

Original article can be found at Politico.com

In his piece in the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib articulates what I have been trying to explain to fellow Republicans for months now.  The thing that is great about Mitt’s public opinion polling is that he is always progressing.

By Gerald Seib

Most Republicans have just finished what might be called the spring of their discontent. Not much went right in the first half of the year; not much to cheer about.

But not Mitt Romney. For this unsuccessful 2008 Republican presidential contender, it is hard to imagine how events could be moving more decisively in his favor in 2009. One can almost hear him wondering: Why didn’t things break this way last year?

Let us count the ways that the world has conspired to help Mr. Romney. At a time when the Republican Party is straining to find new leaders, other prominent party members who aspire to that role — Govs. Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal and Mark Sanford, and Sen. John Ensign — have stumbled or, in the case of Gov. Sanford, flamed out in spectacular fashion. Mitt Romney now looks by comparison like the serious adult in the room.

Beyond that, the national agenda is squarely focused on the economy — which plays to Mr. Romney’s strength as a successful businessman –

And beyond the economy, what are the other big items on the agenda? Well, one is the auto industry, which happens to play nicely to the Romney background as a Michigander and son of an auto-company executive. The other is health care, which tees up Mr. Romney to talk about the health overhaul he led in Massachusetts while that state’s governor. All this leads, inevitably enough, to talk of Mr. Romney already emerging as a leading contender for the party’s next presidential nomination.

“He’s very genuine when he says he hasn’t made a decision about 2012,” says Kevin Madden, a close aide during the presidential campaign and part of a small team of informal advisers. “I know him well enough to know that when he makes a decision he goes 100 miles an hour. Right now it’s in a lower gear.”

In fact, one of the questions Mr. Romney’s advisers are wrestling with is how to avoid over-exposure. But more exposure seems certain as the health-care debate heats up in Congress, and Mr. Romney is called upon to compare his health overhaul in Massachusetts to the one Democrats are proposing. He is able to say that his plan incorporated some aspects of overhaul that Democrats embrace — a mandate that every citizen acquire some form of coverage, for example — while avoiding the element that Republicans really despise, a government-sponsored insurance plan to compete with the offers of the private sector.

More broadly, Mr. Romney has developed a well-modulated critique of President Barack Obama, one that is tough without sounding harsh.

Besides, talk of a presidential candidacy misses the more relevant point. Republicans are looking for a voice to speak for the party in exile, and Mr. Romney is starting fill the role quite nicely.

Yet the most important thing Mr. Romney is doing may lie elsewhere, in the air miles and shoe leather he is investing to help fellow Republicans.

Last year, Mr. Romney’s political action committee endorsed 84 Republican candidates for federal office and passed out more than $400,000 in contributions, while Mr. Romney appeared at 34 campaign events for Republican congressional candidates.