Four days after Mitt Romney's Jet Ski outing on Lake Winnipesaukee, it is still press fodder. The Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi weighs in with a column describing it as a "John Kerry moment," and the Wall Street Journal has an editorial observing, "the Obama campaign is assailing Mr. Romney as an out-of-touch rich man, and the rich man obliged by vacationing this week at his lake-side home with a jet-ski cameo."
Some thoughts on the Jet Ski photo (actually, it's not clear what brand of personal watercraft is pictured. It might be a Sea Doo, or a Kawasaki.) You can check out the photo at the Globe column link above.
First, his wife is driving. That's not something one sees all that often.
Second, a lot of Americans who don't own Jet Skis hate the darned things. They make a lot of noise. Maybe the people who would prefer to see Mr. Romney in a canoe, or a kayak, a small sailboat, or even a waterski boat, are the sort of people who are going to vote for Obama anyway. But maybe not.
Third, if Mr. Romney actually went Jet Ski riding with his wife not because of some focus-group or poll-driven effort to lure women voters or suburban independent environmentalists but because he actually enjoys it and wants to spend his vacation doing what he wants rather than what some political consultant tells him to do, there's something a little bit refreshing about that, too.
The Journal suggests the press focuses on this sort of thing in part because the Romney campaign hasn't provided much else in terms of a substantive policy agenda. There's probably some truth in that, though the Romney folk may be of the mind that if they put that agenda out now it will be considered old news by the fall, when swing voters start paying closer attention to presidential politics.