presidential brace and spending by the campaigns is approaching $1 billion according to nbc news. 958 million has been spent so far. now back to "hardball." i fought against long odds in a deep blue state, but i was a severely conservative republican governor. >> strange wording, severely conservative. he's the only one ever to use it. that was mitt back in february trying to convince the hard right audience that doubted his conservative credentials that even though he had been governor of the state of massachusetts, make no mistake, he was severely conservative. fast forward about seven months and now mitt romney is out there using his experience as massachusetts governor to convince voters he's actually bipartisan. he's a man of the middle. take a look at this ad. brand new mitt here.