Establishment Candidate ...

or a man who could lead his party in from the wilderness it's been roaming in these past years?

WASHINGTON - Recognizing political change as the hot new commodity, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is launching a television ad this week in New Hampshire and Iowa casting himself as the Republican best able to reclaim a wayward party and lead it in a new direction.

Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, lays out a tough bill of particulars against his party, portraying Republicans as ethically challenged big spenders and delivering a veiled slap at President Bush and two of his main rivals on the subject of immigration.

"If we're going to change Washington, Republicans have to put our own house in order," Romney says, speaking directly to the camera. "We can't be like Democrats a party of big spending. We can't pretend our borders are secure from illegal immigration. We can't have ethical standards that are a punch line for Jay Leno."

With the Cheney daughter working for his campaign, and so many political pundits throwing him their support, Fred Thompson will be the "more of the same" Republican candidate, set to carry on the current administration's work. It appears he's been hand selected -- just drop the actor into the slot and hope the South goes for it...

Say what you will about Mitt Romney, he's his own man. And an honest conservative. He may be too flexible for many tastes, doing what it takes to get the job done, but nowadays, plenty of points just for that. Getting a job done, successfully: His business work. The Olympics. Running Massachusetts. Keeping a family together, over the long run.

If we have to have a Republican again, I'd take Romney. He might just be flexible enough to alter direction, to do the dirty work of what's necessary to get a job done. If he's wealthy enough on his own to make independent decisions not beholden to special interests, there's a good chance the man will act independently to achieve what's in our country's best interests.

Contrast Fred Thompson: more of the same. With a hawt wife (that seems to be an over proportionally discussed asset of Mr. Thompson -- the guys really dig his wife. Not a reason to nominate the man president though.)

Romney has been methodically using ads to build his case for voters, starting early this year with biographical sketches. He then promoted himself as a leader — the Republican who had governed the liberal state of Massachusetts, the skilled manager who fixed the financially troubled Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and the successful private entrepreneur.

With this new ad, titled "Change begins with us," Romney adds yet another layer to his message. He also seizes on a public hunger for change that Democrats like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have been eager to exploit.

Romney attempts to turn the tables on Democrats, however, while at the same time stressing that Republicans have lost their way. The message is likely to resonate with conservatives, who fault President Bush for a failure to control spending. The ad is all the more topical, coming in the wake of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's new book, which skewers Bush and the Republican Congress for increasing budget deficits.

His call for tougher borders not only distances him from President Bush who failed in his goal of overhauling immigration laws, it also serves to distinguish him from Republican presidential contenders John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, who hold more moderate views on the subject.

In citing ethics lapses, Romney confronts head on one of the main reasons voters gave last November for voting Republicans out of office and switching control of Congress to Democrats. Romney casts that behavior as an aberration more suited to Democrats.

"When Republicans act like Democrats, America loses," he says. "It's time for Republicans to start acting like Republicans. It's time for a change and change begins with us.

Why not elect a conservative after all these years, and put the scandals, secrecy and selfishness to rest here in America, even if it's just for 4 or 8 years. The country really could use a break from all this divisivness (so much for United We Stand), and who is better proven at leading a diverse constituency successfully?

He's not a lip conservative, he's a life conservative. If you don't like that, fine. But something tells me a lot of people out here do -- that family values meme has not fallen to the wayside just yet, and people are still eager to have mature leaders. Not cowboys with excuses as long as my arm for why nothing ever gets done properly around here anymore.