Mitt Romney's clear Gordon Bowen connection

There's a big feature today in The New York Times today about presidential candidate Mitt Romney's advertising strategy—of spending a lot of money early so that his national reputation can catch up (and in some cases surpass) those of his better known rivals. What the story doesn't mention is that one person allegedly working on the campaign is Gordon Bowen, now, of course, of mcgarrybowen, but probably better known for working on the Coke business at McCann-Erickson in the 1990s when the brand had its bizarre flirtation with Michael Ovitz and CAA. Note I said allegedly there, but even though my reporting on this is limited to a few reliable sources and some strategic searching this morning, I'd put some money on Bowen being part of Team Romney. (And, no, it's not just because Mormons—which both Bowen and Romney are—are known for sticking together.) Exhibit A: Bowen and Romney worked together on the Salt Lake City Olympics back in 2000, when Romney was president of the Games' organizing committee. In Googling Mitt Romney and Bowen, I somehow got to a post by Craig Romney on Five Brothers, the group blog of all five Romney boys, in which someone commented how he'd met Craig back in 1993 at a fundraiser at Gordon Bowen's house in SLC. It also turns out young Craig works at a New York ad agency as a music producer, but his blog doesn't say which. His MySpace page, however, does, and you guessed it—he works at mcgarrybowen.