Fifteen Shades of Romney: Did Mitt Color His Skin for a Univision Interview?

In an attempt to relate to voters, politicians have no qualms putting on hard hats, blue shirts, safety vests, steel-toed boots and more. From blue ties to red ties to no ties to unbuttoned shirts, whatever it takes to be seen as a part of "Joe Public" has been given a shot.

GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, however, may have crossed the line. Progressive website Democratic Underground has posted a photo of Romney at a recent interview last Wednesday at Spanish language television station Univision, with the candidate suddenly looking a bit more, well, brown.

Of course, there would be nothing wrong with simply going outside and embracing the sunlight, or relaxing in a tanning bed, in order to look healthy. God knows spending one's days and nights in a campaign bus with heavily tinted windows can leave a candidate looking a bit washed out.

Democratic Underground, however, believes Romney took a somewhat more disturbing path to his short-term tint, accusing the candidate of temporarily coloring his skin in an attempt to look more 'Hispanic' to those viewing the interview.

So what is Romney's typical skin color, when hanging out with those who don't tune into Univision? Have a gander... I included the recent photo from Democratic Underground's site, on the right, for comparison's sake.

One thing that struck me in the image supplied by Democratic Underground, was the enormous difference between the color of the back of Romney's hands versus his face.

If Romney had indeed legitimately tanned in order to add the color, I'd expect the color to still be there for a few weeks after the Univision interview, which took place on September 19th. Here is a photo of Mitt Romney taken yesterday by the Associated Press. Is it just me, or did Mitt's new-found Latino tint magically disappear...?

Images courtesy Democratic Underground, Gawker, HuffPost, others.