CIRCLEVILLE, OH & PENSACOLA, FL -- Voters in several key battleground states will find something unusual when they open their Sunday papers this week: a "Mittzine," a magazine all about Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
The insert, paid for by a pro-Romney superPAC , is a glossy, full-color 12-page publication that will be packaged into roughly 4.5 million newspapers in Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Florida.
The magazine was paid for by a super PAC called the "Ending Spending Action Fund," which was founded by conservative billionaire Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade and an owner along with his family of the Chicago Cubs. Originally focused on combating congressional earmarks, the group now espouses spending cuts and debt reduction as well, according to a profile compiled by the transparency-in-government website OpenSecrets.Org.
The super PAC spent just over $1 million on this advertisement.
“Who are the Romneys?” reads the front-page headline of the magazine, and a series of articles tell the Romney family biography. Another page has a chart comparing President Obama and Romney with the headline “Who should lead America for the next four years?” The insert also features light stories about Romney's running mate Paul Ryan, and even a crossword puzzle, with clues pulled from the candidate's life stories.
The clue for 1-down: “The burger company where Paul Ryan worked as a kid” and then for 17-across “Mitt's loving wife who showed her qualities at the RNC convention.”
The "Mittzine" will appear in several major papers Sunday including: The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Des Moines Register, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Richmond Times Dispatch.
