Officially “exploring”

Mitt Romney today filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission announcing the formation of his presidential campaign exploratory committee. At the same time, his campaign launched its website, which can be found here.
As regular most Power Line readers probably know, I consider Romney a very attractive candidate, and prefer him to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. However, many conservatives don’t know much about Romney, while others (especially social conservatives) are suspicious of him. The success of his campaign will depend on his ability to overcome these problems.
Meanwhile, as we have noted, there’s still space in the race for a well known candidate with a longer and deeper conservative track record. With George Allen and Rick Santorum seemingly out of picture and Bill Frist not running, only Newt Gingrich comes to my mind. But Romney would likely be a more attractive candidate to the independents and moderate Republicans needed to win the general election.
By the way, it’s not just the Republican field that has open space. Later today, I’ll argue that the Dems also have some.
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