Romney's warm reception at the Pennsylvania Wawa

Selena Zito:

Standing behind the cash register of a Wawa store, a young man handing change to a customer was distracted by Mitt Romney’s “Believe in America — Every Town Counts” campaign bus arriving outside.

“He’s here! He came here!” the young man shouted, grinning from ear to ear.

 Customers who happened to be gassing up their vehicles at the attached service station, and those who happened to be shopping at a nearby mall, gathered as close as the Secret Service would allow, to catch a glimpse of or to shake hands with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. 

Most news reports that day led with the charge that Romney “dodged” (a term coined in endless tweets by a frustrated Obama campaign staffer) a visit by former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell to Romney’s original destination. 

What those reports missed was that Romney pulled off a spontaneous visit to a location lacking any staged comforts. 

Except for a handful of supporters who learned of the venue change, Romney was on his own: No handmade signs from devoted fans. No local elected officials to ease his transition or to crack jokes. No balloons. No perfectly timed advance movements. 

It was the sort of unstructured event that causes campaign staffers to prematurely gray. 

Despite a reputation for being awkward among regular folks, Romney proved to be capable of acting on the fly. He found a way to take a potential confrontation with Rendell (and a parking lot full of paid hecklers) and turn it into a sharp learning curve for himself and his staff.In a postcard setting of the type of town that he accuses President Obama of leaving behind, Romney found a way to connect with people....Back in his campaign bus, Romney was clearly comfortable with what transpired at the Wawa. 

“I love meeting people that way,” he said. 

“I sat with a roundtable of small-business people from Pennsylvania earlier today and asked them to give me their perspective … they said that they are frustrated because they feel as though the government sees them as the enemy.”......

The Romney campaign is showing unexpected agility in countering the Obama campaign and its surrogates.  In the process Romney is connected with voters and it appears he has a real chance of winning in a state like Pennsylvania.  The state saw many people failed to vote for Obama in the Democrat primary and the parts of the state where gas wells are being drilled looks like a favorable area for Romney.

Zito also discussed Obama's recent visit to the area to tout a wind farm where stimulus money was spent on foreign windmills.  It was not been a successful operation and it has canceled new construction.