By John Dickerson
from Slate

Mitt Romney has been increasing his assault on the Democratic front-runners recently. During a recent campaign swing, he returned to a theme found in his earliest speeches: “The Democratic candidates want to run the largest enterprise in the world-the government of the United States-and yet have never run a corner store.” To make sure reporters get the point, Romney’s campaign has sent e-mails highlighting this attack and links to local wire stories featuring it.

Republican voters usually like to hear their candidates beat up the opposition, so the broad attack helps Romney in his effort to look like the party front-runner. But according to Romney insiders, the former Massachusetts governor is not just aiming at Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. His other, perhaps more salient target, is fellow Republican Fred Thompson. Like the Democratic front-runners, Fred Thompson has also never run anything, though he has pretended to run all kinds of things in his many films. Romney is laying the groundwork against Thompson now and plans to make the charge explicitly when the actor gets into the race.

Meanwhile, lolling on the sidelines seems to be working nicely for Thompson. He’s second in national polls, in key early states like Iowa and South Carolina and in big states like Florida. As the dream candidate of conservatives who are disappointed with the current Republican field, Thompson threatens Romney’s efforts to cultivate social conservatives, so that’s why the former Massachusetts governor has been the most aggressive of the Republican candidates in going after him.

read more at SLATE