Posted on 01/26/2012 10:51:53 AM PST by kristinn
Speaking in friendly territory -- before a tea party crowd of about 500 in Central Florida's bucolic Mount Dora -- the former House Speaker savaged Mitt Romney, the campaign ads that have been pillorying Gingrich across the state -- and his own Republican party.
Gingrich wasted little time in criticizing Romney as he took to the stage with his wife, Calista, decrying the "attack ads and all sorts of junk" and charging that Romney is hypocritical for attacking him for Freddie Mac when he has stock in it.
"He thinks we're going to back down, I don't think so," he said.
"This is the desperate last stand of the old order, throwing the kitchen sink, hoping something sticks because if only they can drown us in enough mud -- raised with money from companies and people who foreclosed on Floridians," he said. He charged Romney and his super PAC ads were "paid for with the money taken from the people of Florida, by companies like Goldman Sachs."
The Romney campaign issued an all-caps email with the headline and subtitle that read: "UNHINGED: DR. NEWT AND MR. HYDE...GINGRICH LEADS OCCUPY MOUNT DORA"
But Gingrich, who had been surging in the Florida polls, said the race is now "very close" and that he believes the "weight of the negative ads" and what he called Romney's "dishonesty," had "hurt us some."
He called on the tea partiers to start working harder. "This group alone is big enough to start to turn this around," he said, declaring he wouldn't allow the "monied interests" to defeat him.
Gingrich is clearly banking on support from Florida's tea party -- which helped elect Marco Rubio and Rick Scott in 2010 and he thanked the crowd, some of whom wore tea party t-shirts.
SNIP
This is where the rubber meets the road. We knew, all along, that we would have to take on the establishment, and Mitt Romney is proving at every turn that he is the Republican donkey.
Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, et al, can kiss my tea partying *ss. It's war.
After the convention, Romney and Gingrich will be all making nice-nice with each other
And what is Romney? A guy who has stock in the company.
....socializing losses on the backs of the tax payers.
500 people is a large crowd for the small town of Mt Dora.
It strikes me that Romney has a good answer for this charge, which Gingrich seems to have ignored.
Romney is saying that all of his investments are in a blind trust, and that he therefore did not know that his portfolio has Freddie Mac stock.
Gingrich continues to make an issue of this in the face of what sounds like a very reasonable response from Romney.
Anyone who reads my posts on FR can see that I am a very enthusiastic Newt supporter at this point, but it pains me to see him continue to try to nail Romney on this issue because I think it the voters will buy Romney's answer and come away with the impression that Newt is making bogus claims.
If Romney gets the nomination, mark my words: As soon as the convention is over, you're going to see the Romney who passed the Assault Weapons Ban. You're going to see the Romney who supported gay marriage. You're going to see the Romney who protected and knighted Planned Parenthood. You're going to see the Romney who invented Obamacare and wants to keep it going. And conservatives will no longer have any say inside the Republican Party.
Please go back to outerspace. And don’t forget to take your magic underwear.
Romney may have used a clever tactic in his attempt to minimize Gingrich's contributions or work during the Reagan years. The point may not be whether Reagan "mentioned" him, but where was Romney during that period and what contribution was he making to conservatism?
Methinks Romney supporters protest too much in their Pelosi-like efforts to discredit Gingrich. By doing so, they may discredit themselves and their authenticity as spokespersons for conservatism.
Hopefully, the unveiling of the video of Nancy Reagan's words might reveal Romney's misleading comments about Gingrich's links to Reagan and the conservative cause of that era.
Voters might ask, where were Romney's efforts in the conservative victories during those years. When Brian Williams asked about any such efforts, Romney seemed to think that raising a family and starting a business career in a "consulting firm" qualified as contributing to the "conservative movement."
In the meantime, during those same years, other business men and women were spending their dollars and their time out there warning citizens that if they didn't rein in their elected representatives in government and return to constitutional principles, the free enterprise system which allowed them the freedom to "raise a family" and "work in the private sector" might disappear from the earth.
Working in what Romney calls "the private sector" and working to preserve the Founders' "freedom of individual enterprise" principle which underlies all the other freedoms Americans enjoy are two very different things.
Romney has done the first: Gingrich has done the latter.
Krauthammer's frank assessment of the apparent incapability of Romney to explain conservative ideas is a telling evaluation. By the way, ordinary citizens out here know the difference between fast talk, blinking eyes, discomfort when asked to define "conservatism" and shifting to another subject entirely versus the Gingrich ability take a question, calmly set the answer in a context of understanding, and provide more depth of explanation than the questioner implied.
When viewing, it's like the difference between a used car lot salesman avoiding the CarFax question and a Lexus commercial. One just "gets" the difference.
Mitt Romney the “buyout baron” is a liar, a con man and a scam artist. He is the founding father of the “private equity” Wall Street scam. They take over a company and inflate its short-term profits by laying off workers, cutting pensions and selling assets. They then take out huge loans in the acquired firm’s name and quickly transfer the money as “dividends” and “fees” to Bain capital. If the now deeply debt-ridden acquired firm goes bankrupt, Bain gets to keep all that money as it is untouchable in bankruptcy proceedings.
Bain socializes their losses to banks, pension insurers, etc. and privatizes their gains in the same kind of Wall Street con job that led to the mortgage crisis. Bain donates to Democrats and keeps the laws in place to allow this to go on.
Nominate Romney and you will see all of this exposed by the liberal media in the fall. He is a classic Wall Street crook and will become unelectable. If he did win, you can only expect the collusion between big government and Wall Street to become deeper and more endemic, driving the nation further into bankruptcy.
Great points! I would like to quote you on the Rush thread..if you don’t mind. Thanks.
No crime being wealthy. The crime is is that it’s the welthy elites that have been running our country and ruinning it...!
the wealthy elites have plundered our wealth, destroyed our currencey, destroyed our constitution, and are leading our country down the road to socialism and communism....!
We are sick of the wealthy elites selling out our country for dollars..
You can worship at their alter if you want too, that’s up to you.... I bet most conservatives want do it thoug...
Tyranny is tyranny whether it comes from the left or right.
Especially after all of Mitt’s “friends” in the MSM savagely turn on him in favor of Obama. It’s a scenario that’s played out over and over through the years, but the establishment Republicans never seem to get it.
Warn the villagers The rinos are coming! The rinos are coming!
Ha, funny thing last presidential election it was the Wall Street CREW that bought and paid for the chief sitting in the White House. AND it is this same bunch that are promoting the 'occupy' performance art in anticipation of a general election campaign against 'rich' Romney.... Who do you think hires the Washington insiders, why it would be Wall Street to protect them and their profit margin.
Oh my local news just announced the way has been cleared for a 1.2 TRILLON debt increase!!!!!!
15 TRILLON in debt we are and Wall Street hires its lobbyists. So who did Bain hire as their insider lobbyists?
I’d be honored.
Oh wow! Another good one! Can I quote you one the Rush thread..? These are great points!
If Romney succeedes, then he will lose to Obama-and I will relish it!
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