WASHINGTON - Republican Senate candidate Mitt Romney had a blunt message yesterday for right-wing special interest groups eyeing his race against Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: Stay out.
"I don't want special interest groups making this their campaign," he said. "I don't want their money. I don't want their help. This is my race."
Romney would be a likely recipient of contributions and support from an array of national servative groups long aligned against Kennedy, the Senate's leading liberal voice.
But the GOP nominee said he will take stands that put him at odds with some traditional ultra-conservative groups, and cited his support for the assault rifle ban and the Brady gun control law.
"That's not going to make me the hero of the NRA (National Rifle Association)," he said. "I don't line up with a lot of special interest groups."
Romney operatives have also said the candidate will turn down national Republican figures who want to stump for him because he wants to run as a Washington outsider.
In a wide-ranging interview on a flight to Washington, Romney also said he was "highly offended" at charges by Sen. Edward Kennedy's campaign that he's insensitive to women and minorities.
"It is highly offensive to have someone suggest that I'm a member of a `white boys club,"' said Romney. "That is just offensive to me and my wife - and it is so far from the truth."
U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Brighton) has criticized the venture capital firm Romney heads, Bain Capital, as "a white boys club" that has few minorities or women in senior posts.
There is one female senior executive at Bain Capital and two Asian-American minorities in the 40-person firm.
"It flies in the face of what got me in the race in the first place, which is, I believe that my skills and experience will enable me to help get all Americans back into the American system," he said. "The fact that we are leaving millions of Americans behind is a tragedy."
Romney cited his work as a lay leader in the Mormon church building and establishing four churches in Roslindale, Lynn and Cambridge dominated by minorities such as Hispanics, blacks, Cambodian-Americans and Portugese-Americans.
Romney, a political neophyte, claimed Kennedy's attacks are a sign of panic in the wake of polls showing the race is tight.
"You get in the kitchen and you know it's going to be hot, but you don't expect people to misrepresent the truth - that's offensive," said Romney. "The more desperate people get, the hotter it will get."
The Kennedy camp delivered a sharp retort.
"This guy would be a hell of a traveling salesman," said Kennedy spokesman Rick Gureghian. "He thinks he can sell distortions as the truth."
During the interview, Romney also:
Called on Kennedy to join him in at least two one-on-one debates to be televised statewide.
Praised Kennedy for his work on women's rights and civil rights: "Those are important accomplishments and I wouldn't want to take them from him."
Romney's remarks came as his campaign began airing a new TV ad scolding Kennedy, who broadcast the first negative TV ad of his 32-year Senate career as the opening salvo in his fall re-election effort, for making personal attacks against him.
The ad features a slightly irritated Romney staring directly into the camera.
"Ted Kennedy's distorted, negative attacks on me are wrong - and more than anything else these cynical old style politics prove he's been in Washington too long," Romney says. "So how about it Ted, you talk about your plans and I'll talk about mine."
Romney's ad is in response to a Kennedy ad that accuses him of being a hypocritical millionaire who earned $11 million from his firm while denying health care to his workers.
The ad refers to Staples, the office supply firm that is affiliated with Bain Capital, Romney's venture capital business.
"Eleven million for himself...No health insurance for American workers," a narrator intones.
The ad appears to be misleading because it does not mention that Staples, which earned $36 million in profits last year, provides coverage to all of its full-time employees.
About 60 percent of Staples employees are part-timers.
The firms that Romney has headed, Bain & Co. and Bain Capital, provide health care for part-time and full-time employees.
[Romney] cited his work as a lay leader in the Mormon church building and establishing four churches in Roslindale, Lynn and Cambridge dominated by minorities such as Hispanics, blacks, Cambodian-Americans and Portugese-Americans.
Romney's remarks came as his campaign began airing a new TV ad scolding Kennedy, who broadcast the first negative TV ad of his 32-year Senate career as the opening salvo in his fall re-election effort, for making personal attacks against him.
Romney's ad is in response to a Kennedy ad that accuses him of being a hypocritical millionaire who earned $11 million from his firm while denying health care to his workers.
