GOP speakers share views, differ on style

He’s a moderate Republican with a business background, a former governor, a former presidential candidate, and an undeclared candidate in the 2012 presidential race.

She’s a firebrand conservative syndicated columnist and contributor to Fox News.

Both Mitt Romney and Michelle Malkin are speaking at this week’s Washington Republican Party State Convention in Vancouver.

Both have written books taking President Barack Obama’s administration to task.

But there the similarities end.

Consider the titles of their books.

Romney: “No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.”

Malkin: “Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies.”

Talk about mixed messages.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney’s speaking gig in Vancouver is timely, because the unsuccessful 2008 presidential candidate shows every sign that he still considers himself a player on the national political stage.

His Boston-based political action committee, Free and Strong PAC, is endorsing candidates in statewide races across the nation. On Wednesday, he congratulated California Republicans Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina for their victories in the GOP primaries for governor and U.S. senator, respectively.

In May, his PAC raised $1.5 million for GOP candidates at a posh New York event where Romney was the headline speaker.

Romney has kept his 2008 campaign advisers close and has carefully picked the issues on which he has weighed in on — issues such as health reform and the plight of the U.S. auto industry, where he can claim firsthand ence.

His book, which hit the stands earlier this year, makes a case for a strong America. It criticizes President Obama for apologizing for “American misdeeds, real and imagined” on foreign trips early in his administration.

“There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe. President Obama’s words are like kindling to them,” Romney wrote.

Still, most of the book is for policy wonks.

“Romney has penned a sober substantive tome that traces the decline of the Ottoman Empire and includes graphs of housing prices,” Time magazine wrote.

Pundits say the nation’s continuing economic crisis plays to Romney’s strengths in a way that could make him the right candidate for the times in 2012.

“Following a (2008) primary spent trying to navigate the politics of Iraq and a vigorous — and sometimes cringe-inducing — courtship of social conservatives, the issue matrix now favors Romney’s background as a ‘turnaround specialist,’” Politico’s Jonathan Martin wrote last June.

Romney, who enjoyed strong support in Clark County, dropped out of the 2008 Republican primary campaign in February 2008 and endorsed Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Michelle Malkin was born in Philadelphia and is currently a resident of Colorado. She was an editorial writer at the Seattle Times before becoming a syndicated columnist. She is the founder of two of the Internet’s top conservative blogs, MichelleMalkin.com and HotAir.com.

She began her career in daily newspaper journalism in 1992, has written a nationally syndicated column for Creators Syndicate since 1999, and has served as a FOX News Channel contributor since 2001.

Her latest book, which zoomed to the top of the New York Times best-seller list, charts the career of Barack Obama from his days as a community organizer in Chicago and an ambitious state senator.

In a June 4 column in the National Review, she wrote, “Obama sold America a Chicago-tainted bill of goods. A nation of slow learners is finally figuring it out.”

“In Chicago politics, there’s an old term for the publicly subsidized payoffs and positions meted out to the corruptocrats’ friends and special interests: boodle,” she wrote. “In the age of Obama, Hope and Change is all about the boodle. So it was with the stimulus. and the massive national-service expansion. And the health care bill. And the financial reform bill. And the blossoming job-trading scandals engulfing the White House.”

Malkin will speak to convention delegates following Friday night’s banquet at the Hilton Vancouver Washington.

Romney is scheduled to speak at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Hilton, during the convention’s business meeting.

Democrats will get their say when they hold their state convention in Vancouver June 25-26. National Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine will be the keynote speaker.

Guest passes and banquet tickets for the GOP convention are available through the state Republican Party’s website, www.wsrp.org.