You knew his family was picturesque.
Ari MelberMitt Romney’s presidential campaign just sent out a Christmas card featuring the entire Romney Family, and they are as picturesque as ever.
The front of the card features the entire Romney clan in coordinated outfits. There are blue checkered shirts for the boys and orange and yellow polka dots for the girls, while Ann Romney stands out in bright red. Mitt keeps it casual, naturally, in blue jeans:
The card opens to a larger and even more idyllic family scene, if that’s possible:
The cards were paid for by Romney’s presidential campaign and contain the standard disclosures required for campaign materials under FEC law. (The Nation obtained a copy from a Romney donor, who just received the card in the mail.)
Presidential campaigns often use the holiday season as a theme for voter outreach, although it’s a delicate line. The pivotal Iowa caucus lands just a week after Christmas, so the holidays present a homestretch of fevered campaign activity, but it’s also a challenge for candidates to stay on voters’ minds without interfering with the season. Christmas cards are an easy way to thank supporters and drop direct mail. Last cycle, the Christmas politicking in Iowa was quite overt, with several top candidates cutting television ads that fused Christmas greetings with their campaign appeals. But I don’t think any of this year’s candidates can compete with the sweater-clad chutzpah of Mike Huckabee, who ran a very popular Christmas political ad decrying political ads.
PS: Here is Romney’s card from last year, also very adorable.
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.