Keller @ Large

When Bad Attacks Go Bad: Romney vs. Craig

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is lashing out at Mitt Romney. His complaint: that the former governor was disloyal when he broke off their political alliance after Craig was caught in an airport bathroom sex sting.

And while Craig plans to vent his anger at Romney in a televised interview, it appears the Romney campaign isn't upset about that. In fact, you could say they're actually glad to be under fire from their former campaign supporter.

Why not? Sen. Craig is not very popular among Republicans right now, as much for his refusal to step aside and end the unwanted publicity as for his entanglement in a sex scandal. And his complaint that Romney "threw me under the bus" is looking like yet another case of a political attack that's actually welcomed by the victim.

Vilified by a GOP villain? Mitt Romney will take it all the way to the bank, and he's far from the first to benefit from a backfiring attack.

"I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was."

John Kerry apparently thought he might damage the Bush/Cheney ticket by bringing that up in a 2004 debate, but instead, he made W. and company very happy.

Cheney and his wife pushed back, hard. Voters were not amused at the crude attempt to pit daughter against father. Whoops.

"If anyone you knew actually praised a convicted rapist, what would you think? Deval Patrick did."

Remember this one from just one year ago? A Kerry Healey ad painting Patrick as something less than anti-rape. After a few weeks of backlash against this over-the-top attack, Patrick was inaugurated as governor as Healey's attack bounced right off a candidate people liked and muddied her campaign instead.

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

And who can forget the granddaddy of modern-day political attacks the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, a case where the target did grab a load of trouble, but came out way ahead of an overzealous prosecutor and his GOP cheering squad in the court of public opinion.

In the end, Clinton walked, and may soon be walking right back into the white house with you-know-who.

So if you go by Romney headquarters in the North End Tuesday morning, you may not find champagne bottles in the trash, but there may well be some leftover confetti from the celebration over getting heat from one of America's least popular political celebrities.

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