Viva Mitt

Here's a sure way to lose the Republican nomination: associate your campaign with the President of Cuba.

People chuckled when presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon raised in Michigan and elected in Massachusetts, bungled the names of Cuban-American politicians during a recent speech in Miami.

But when he mistakenly associated Fidel Castro's trademark speech-ending slogan -- Patria o muerte, venceremos! -- with a free Cuba, listeners didn't laugh. They winced.

Castro has closed his speeches with the phrase -- in English, ''Fatherland or death, we shall overcome'' -- for decades.

''Clearly, that's something he was ill-advised on or didn't do his homework on,'' said Hialeah City Council President Esteban Bovo. "When you get cute with slogans, you get yourself into a trap.''

This is one of those superficial things that always annoys me with modern campaigns - that moment when the white guy has to start talking in a language he doesn't know or understand to vote-pander. It doesn't impress anyone anymore, and it inevitably leads to awkwardness like this. This is like saying "white power!" at an NAACP meeting, I would imagine.

But that's not the only recent Romney item that raised an eyebrow:

The primary funder of an independent group that raised questions about the résumé of Sen. John F. Kerry during the 2004 presidential election has signed on to raise money for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's GOP presidential campaign.

Bob Perry, a Houston home builder, is named as a member of Romney's Texas Leadership Team in an invite for a fundraising event in Dallas on March 26.

Perry has earned a reputation for his willingness to finance "527" groups. He gained notoriety for the $4.5 million he donated to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of Vietnam War veterans who questioned Kerry's military credentials. He funded similar pro-GOP groups in 2006, including the Economic Freedom Fund, which ran ads attacking Democrats in Georgia, Iowa and West Virginia, and A Stronger America, which financed ads attacking Democrat Mike Hatch in his Minnesota gubernatorial bid last year.

In 2006, Perry was the largest political donor in Texas, doling out nearly $400,000 to GOP Gov. Rick Perry's campaign alone (the two are not related).

I guess Mitt's going for an Administration filled with honesty, right?

One thing that has come out of 2004 is that anyone associated with the Swift Boaters is immediately demonized by a substantial segment of the population. Votes are hard enough to come by without something like this anchoring you down. Good job, Mitt: Tone deaf on multiple counts!