The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

March 22, 2012 | 2 min read

It has to be the clanger of the year! And presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's rivals were fast to take advantage of it with mocking campaign ads yesterday.

Asked on CNN if the primary elections had forced Romney to move too far to the right to be a middle of the road presidential candidate, one of his top aides said, “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign.

"Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

The blunder came from senior Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom, who has been with Romney for years. All along Romney has been accused of being a flip-flopper and pretending to be a right-winger. And this seemed to confirm it!

The Boston Herald said the boob had managed to magically erase much of the momentum from Romney's big Illinois victory and the coup of getting an endorsement from Jeb Bush .

Rivasl Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich quickly bought Etch A Sketches and passed them out at campaign stops.

Santorum waved the toy in the air . “We’re not looking for someone who is the Etch a Sketch candidate.

“We’re looking for someone who writes what they believe in in stone and stands true to what they say.’’

Wikipedia’s page for Etch A Sketch was updated with a photo of Romney at the top. The company making the toy, Ohio Art, issued a statement saying it was pleased to be “shaking up the national debate.’’

Within hours, the Democratic National Committee had a Web ad out ridiculing

Romney.

“We’ve been saying for months that Mitt Romney will say or do anything to get elected - absolutely anything,’’ said a Democratic spokesman.

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