As Gingrich Reels From Attack Ads, Some Aides Suggest Fighting Back

nytimes.com ^ | 12/30/2011 | TRIP GABRIEL

[TBBT]

DES MOINES — Alarmed by Newt Gingrich’s decline in the polls in the face of a fusillade of negative advertisements, some senior aides and grass-roots supporters have suggested that he reverse course and fight fire with fire, fearing for the future of his candidacy if he does not.

Mr. Gingrich’s vow to stay positive draws applause at every stop of his winding Iowa bus tour, but polls raise questions about that strategy as attack ads against him from his opponents’ campaigns and independent groups have seeped into voters’ minds.

New polls of Iowa Republicans this week suggest that Mr. Gingrich has lost more than half his support, as he has fallen from the top of the field to a statistical tie with candidates he once was far ahead of, like former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas.

“How long can you take the beating before hitting back?” said Josh Byrnes, a state representative and the chairman of Mr. Gingrich’s campaign for Mitchell County, who added that he was “blown away” by how much damage the attack ads had done.

“Maybe someday you’ll look back and say, ‘Boy, he should have pulled the gloves off,’ ” Mr. Byrnes said.

Among the campaign’s senior staff, “there’s a small chorus of folks who have been urging him to respond in kind” to the blistering barrage on the airwaves, a top aide said.

Instead of the gauzy “Morning in America”-type ads that Mr. Gingrich prefers, some advisers discussed whether the campaign should run the kind of attack that the Democratic National Committee created last month aimed at Mitt Romney’s shifting stances, accusing him of being “two men trapped in one body.”

[TBBT]

Admirable. But, in my view, he ought to listen to his aides.

[Psalm 144]

Yes. This is akin Bush II’s submission to being a punching bag for year after year.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Nice guys finish last.

Speaker Gingrich, it is this poster’s honest opinion Mitt Romney is the one attacking you, and you are surrendering to him.

He’s doing exactly what the left once did to you before.

Don’t let it happen again.

FIGHT BACK.

Thank you.

[SkyDancer]

Republicans are nothing but a punching bag. No guts. Wimps.

[TexasFreeper2009]

I agree, Newt must fight back as if western civilization depended on it... because it just might.

never.. never.. never give up Newt!

[Farmer Dean]

Agreed,but Newt has so much bad baggage that he’s an easy target.

[TexasFreeper2009]

I have noticed something about Romney... he has a glass jaw. He has been attacked so little during the debates, if you weren’t watching closely you would of missed it. But I have seen Mitt several times come close to tears in debates when he was attacked even a little.

Gingrich could skewer him alive oratorically if he wanted, and he MUST if he wants to win. Newt MUST win.

[takenoprisoner]

He earned it. He made his bed. Now he must sleep in it. Nancy and Newt butter cups and couch potatoes

It is what it is, I don't make the rules.

[Diogenesis]

SSDD

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ROMNEY: "Obama was born in the United States"

ROMNEY: "Obama Doesn’t Need a Birth Certificate"

ROMNEY: "The citizenship test has been passed"

---

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Romney for Obama in 2008

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers…
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide…
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
"Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."

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The Palmetto Scoop reported: "One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was
the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
… aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw
that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.

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"These staffers are now out trying to finish her off ….hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."

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"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

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"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

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"A political party cannot be all things to all people.
It must represent certain fundamental beliefs
 which must not be compromised to political expediency
or simply to swell its numbers."
--  President Ronald Reagan

"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party
 over to the traitors in the battle just ended.
We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged
 to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support.
Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates
wouldn’t make any sense at all.""
--  President Ronald Reagan

[SkyDancer]

Any front runner will be bashed by the media and other Republicans. The whole political scene is just troubling.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Punch Back! Don’t play Mr. Nice Guy! If you do you don’t deserve to get the Nod. If you can’t face Mittens—how can you face Obama with his legions of supporters in the media, his army of goons from the Unions and his bags of gold for TV ads? Fight or die! Its all about whos got the guts. Ask yourself—What would George Patton Do?

[Mortrey]

Better Newt than a HOMOPOTUS or a mayonnaise sandwich on white bread (Mitt).

[Psalm 144]

“It is what it is, I don’t make the rules.”

And part of the ‘is what it is’ is that he is one of two candidates who actually moved significant conservative agendas forward, and he is the only one to do it at the federal level. Still, yapping dogs will yap. The smaller, the more rapid.

[Jim Robinson]

Nice guys finish last. Take the gloves OFF! Hit Romney HARD with the truth. His own words should be devastating!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7OQoBxZZPqU

Don’t even bother with the others.

[altura]

Newt has some carry-on baggage but Romney has twenty steamer trunks.

Newt should definitely fight back.

He’s not my favorite, but he’s my second favorite and I want him to hang in there.

[altura]

Yeah, Perry got to Romney a couple of times during the debates.

He does not like being challenged.

[takenoprisoner]

I understand you have no rebuttal. Since the sight of him and Nancy together, on a comfy couch is repulsive, and should mandate a barf alert. My apology for not announcing the barf alert.

It is what it is.

[Psalm 144]

Actually I made a rebuttal, which fact you are free to ignore. Invincible ignorance is invincible.

[takenoprisoner]

PS Hey, I don’t make the rules.

[Vladzred]

Newt...Fight to win. If you play the game of thrones, its Win...or Die!