IA would never have guessed that GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney was a ’60s protester.

But he was — and at Stanford of all places.

Actually, he was a counterprotester, protesting a protest. Yes, those were confusing times.

It was 1966, when Romney was a 19-year-old Stanford freshman. Romney and his friends were unhappy that 15 anti-war students had occupied the reception area of the university president’s office to protest new Selective Service requirements that affected students’ draft deferments.

So the young Romney rallied to the administration’s defense, joining the crowd with a sign saying, “Speak Out! Don’t Sit In!”

IA found that logic a bit fuzzy. Isn’t sitting in, well, speaking out? But, hey, the kid was only 19. We’ll give him a break.

In any case, it turns out Romney wasn’t exactly an opponent of deferments. He got one himself.

As a Mormon missionary, he took a “ministerial deferment” from the draft — and served his time, not in Vietnam, but in France.

In this council race, it’s just politics as usual

Ah, elections. It’s still early, but candidates are greeting one another with helmets, cleats and the occasional pickax. In the race to replace termed-out Councilwoman Nancy Pyle in San Jose’s District 10 in Almaden Valley, candidate Johnny Khamis has filed a complaint with the city’s elections commission against another candidate, San Jose Unified school trustee Leslie Reynolds.

Our sources tell us that Khamis, a Republican business executive, complained that Reynolds, a member of the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women, jumped the gun in soliciting contributions. By city rules, a candidate was barred from seeking or accepting contributions before Dec. 9, 2011, 180 days before the June election.

The GOP women held a fundraiser on Dec. 10, which produced checks for Reynolds and other Republicans.

So what’s the problem?

Khamis alleges that the group broke the rules by sending out a notice before the deadline, asking attendees to write a check to their favorite candidate.

Reynolds told IA that City Clerk Dennis Hawkins had asked her not to talk to the media. But those close to her say she took pains to comply with city rules. They insist that the notice from the Republican women’s group was separate from her campaign.

Meanwhile, the group, which is also a target of the Khamis complaint, has endorsed Reynolds. That led one board member of the organization, Jan Soule, to tell us: “Obviously we had no intention of doing anything wrong. It was innocent on our part. We wouldn’t be here if we had endorsed Johnny over Leslie.”

The complaint might seem like splitting hairs, but then, this is a tough race: Among the others who have pulled papers are TV broadcaster Robert Braunstein and labor leader Brian O’Neill. Denelle Fedor, an aide to Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio, also is weighing a run.

Rosen backtracks, but only a half step

Confronted with the harsh realities of governing, few politicians wind up living up to the spirit of every single campaign promise. So IA wasn’t surprised to learn recently that Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen is arguably taking a step back from one of his.

He’s going to appoint a media coordinator to juggle press inquiries and organize news conferences.

As IA readers might remember, as a candidate for office in the June 2010 primary election, Rosen criticized then-District Attorney Dolores Carr for hiring two public information officers, even as she cut the far more essential conviction-integrity and cold-case units. What made the expenditure worse was that Carr tended to use her two PIOs to shield herself from the media’s tough questions.

But Rosen tells IA what he promised was to restore both units — which indeed he has done. He also says he pledged not to have a PIO speak for him — and the media coordinator apparently won’t. But, he says, he never pledged not to have someone behind the scenes organizing media events and hooking up reporters with prosecutors on big cases.

Perhaps that’s splitting hairs. At the same time, though, IA can’t help but acknowledge Rosen’s willingness to explain most of his decisions in great detail to the public through the press. There’s also little doubt that having a media coordinator will make the job of journalists easier.

Could Yew be in line for the next step up?

Add another intriguing candidate for one of two openings on an influential San Jose-based state appeals court: Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Erica Yew.

Gov. Jerry Brown has forwarded Yew’s name for the 6th District Court of Appeal to a statewide commission that screens California’s judicial candidates, often a prelude to an appointment to the bench.

The commission recently circulated a questionnaire on Yew in the local legal community, seeking responses by this coming week, according to a copy reviewed by IA.

Barring a bad review from the commission, Yew may well be in line for the governor’s appointment, which would make her the first Asian-American woman to serve on the 6th District bench. Yew was the first Asian-American woman judge in Santa Clara County when former Gov. Gray Davis appointed her to the trial bench in 2002.

Yew, 51, was a specialist in civil law as an attorney, and she has handled civil cases and domestic violence matters as a judge. She shared a compelling story with the Mercury News six years ago about her own experiences with domestic violence in a past relationship.

In addition to Yew, other leading contenders for the 6th District include fellow Santa Clara County judges Brian Walsh and Patricia Lucas, Santa Clara County Counsel Miguel Marquez and Monterey County Superior Court Judge Adrienne Grover.

Internal Affairs is an offbeat look at state and local politics. This week’s items were written by Lisa M. Krieger, Scott Herhold, Tracey Kaplan and Howard Mintz. Send tips to internalaffairs@mercurynews.com, or call 408-920-5552.