Romney Takes Small-Town Road Trip

Mitt Romney sets off on his first campaign bus tour of the election today, in a trip that will pointedly avoid big cities and focus instead on 14 smaller cities and towns that his advisers say are the kind of places Barack Obama has forgotten. They're calling it the "Every Town Counts" tour, and it'll focus on the economic problems of those towns, the AP reports, noting that the trip represents the kind of public, retail politicking that Romney has largely avoided in recent months.

The trip will start in New Hampshire and continue on to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. Daily Intel notes that he's pointedly not stopping in Massachusetts, even though he'll be just twelve miles from the state line—the "breakup is getting awkward" between Romney and the only state he's held office in, Margaret Hartmann's headline quips. The states Romney is stopping in should be on notice though, because Romney + bus may be a recipe for hijinks. (More Mitt Romney stories.)