Mitt Romney’s journey in seeking the GOP nomination for 2012 has had – to put it mildly – more than a few twists and turns. But now, even with Newt Gingrich surging in the polls, he’s getting close to the finish line when voting begins in January. This would be the ideal time to jump out there and try to light a fire under the conservative wing of the new media, as I’m sure his campaign knows. So it was a perfect time to schedule a conference call and take questions from some of the heavy hitters on the starboard side of the political ship. Right, Mitt? Right? Matt Lewis reports:

As you probably heard, some Mitt Romney surrogates hosted a conference call today to attack Newt Gingrich. Because Romney is attempting to win a Republican primary — and cast Newt Gingrich as unacceptable to conservatives — you probably assume that center-right journalists or conservative bloggers got to ask some questions, right?

Wrong. Here’s the list of reporters and media outlets who were permitted to ask questions:

JOHN DICKERSON, CBS NEWS
MARK HALPERIN, TIME
LLOYD GROVE, THE DAILY BEAST
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, TPM
DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES
PHIL RUCKER, WASHINGTON POST

Were there any questions for Hot Gas? Sadly… no. But this isn’t just sour grapes, as Lewis notes. This is simply mind boggling, bad judgement. Da Tech Guy hones in on the problem.

Stupid isn’t the word here. You are trying to make the case you are more conservative than Newt Gingrich and you not only exclude Conservatives from questions but you take questions from flipping Mother Jones and Talking Points Memo? This is an insult to every conservative news outlet, new media site and blogger out there.

And people complained about the way Herman Cain treated friends, but perhaps the Romney Campaign doesn’t consider conservatives friends.

There’s a word here I’m struggling for. It’s along the lines of “outreach.” If you want us to take you seriously, you might field some of our questions. Then again, maybe Mitt thinks Mother Jones and Talking Points Memo will give him the key endorsements he needs to win big in the GOP primary.

For you Tweeters… insert the #headdesk hashtag here.

UPDATE: The Romney campaign responded to Hot Air with the following:

The Daily Caller piece you cite in your post is wrong.

Tonight (as we do with every call) we sent out a media advisory to our regular press inviting members of the media to join the call. We use a phone conferencing system to manage these calls.

Participants who join the call are then invited to ask a question after the opening comments by pressing “1” on their phones. Question are fielded on a first come, first serve basis. We do not screen out any media organization. Whoever notifies the operator by pressing ”1” first gets to ask their question first.

On tonight’s call we answered a every single question in the queue. Every reporter – conservative, liberal or nonpartisan – who wanted to ask a question got to ask one. Organizations that were not called on either didn’t press the number “1” or never joined the call in the first place.