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Posted: June 15, 2007 2:20 PM
Polls Show Romney Leading GOP Fields in New Hampshire
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Recent polls in New Hampshire show former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — the only Republican candidate running TV advertisements — leading the GOP field for the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

A CNN/WMUR-TV survey released Wednesday had Romney on top of the GOP pack with 28 percent. The news followed Tuesday’s release of a Mason-Dixon poll of likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters that showed Romney leading with 27 percent.

On Wednesday, Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain’s campaign issued a press release attacking Romney for being a flip-flopper on abortion. The Romney camp fired back that its candidate is “firmly pro-life” and added that McCain’s “motives are obviously borne of desperation.”

Questioned about McCain’s attack on Michael Medved’s radio show, Romney said, “Well, you know, I guess politics can get a little testy if you’re having a difficult time yourself.”

Romney again defended his change on the abortion issue on Friday. In remarks to the National Right to Life Convention Forum in Kansas City, Mo., he said he was wrong when as Massachusetts governor he supported the law in place, which was “effectively the pro-choice position,” and he identified himself with “a long line of converts — George Herbert Walker Bush, Henry Hyde and Ronald Reagan.”

Also Friday, the New York Times published a story
about Romney’s “flip flop” on federal funding for stem cell research. The same day the governor wrote an opinion piece in the National Review Online in which he described how he “came to reject the idea that the exploration of stem cells had to come into conflict with America’s commitment to the dignity of human life,” and went on to promote scientific techniques, like recent experiments with skin cells in mice, that would not harm “developing human lives”.

The campaign announced this week that professors Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard University and Douglas Kmiec of Pepperdine University will lead a group of legal scholars and professionals in advising Romney on judicial matters, separation of powers and federalism issues.

Looking ahead, Romney will be campaigning all weekend in Iowa and then head to Florida and Michigan.