Romney to allow press at some fundraisers

Now that he has the Republican presidential nomination all but locked up, Mitt Romney is loosening restrictions on press coverage of some of his fundraisers, a move he has resisted up until now.

Speaking with reporters on a conference call Tuesday afternoon, a Romney senior adviser said the campaign will begin granting "access to the governor's large fundraisers" starting as early as next week. Up to this point, the fundraisers have been closed to the press and the campaign has kept information about them close to the vest, declining to publicize their times and locations.

But as Romney has moved closer to clinching his party's nomination, members of the media have begun traveling to the locations of known fundraisers and staking them out. At one such event at a private home in Palm Beach, Fla., reporters from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal were able to overhear Romney's remarks from a public sidewalk outside. Their reports on his comments about his desire to cut or possibly eliminate the departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development were widely reported and sent the campaign into overdrive explaining what the candidate meant to say.

The campaign has not released details of what it considers a "large fundraiser" or whether reporters will continue to be kept out of smaller events with high-dollar donors. TV cameras have not been allowed into the room in either case. The senior adviser spoke on background, declining to allow his name to be used.