Exactly. He was part of the very vocal, very visible assassination squad in Florida, doing Jeb's bidding.
Romney contributed to Rubio's campaign when he was just beginning and an unknown. willard has a way of sniffing out the young ones, think Haley.
What is funny, though, even romney endorsers take their cues from Newt. A few days ago, Newt said very straightforwardly, he was taking it to the convention, he would support Romney as soon as he had the delegates needed for the nomination, but romney had to "earn it".
that's what rubio said tonight, romney has "earned" the nomination. These people are pathetic.
On to Tampa!! Stay strong - We can do this!!
As much as I hate to admit it, I think I gave Conservatives too much credit for having more common sense. Instead, all I see is a herd of mindnumbed cats playing with catnip. If we couldn’t defeat romney KNOWING what a shapeshifter he is, or santorum who started out whining which has now turned into prolonged howls of victimhood, even as he moved ahead using the backdoor of romney money and romney’s assassination of Gingrich, without which his candidacy would have been long over, shame on us.
We only have this chance to change anything at all. Never give up and never give in.
You have a valid point here, TrueBelieverForever, and it's something those of us on Free Republic need to remember. What we say about backing Romney can come back to bite.
Newt Gingrich's statement that he'd be voting for Mitt Romney if he's the nominee gave political cover to Tea Party conservatives like Rubio to make his Romney endorsement, and in a cascade effect, that will lead to more and more people climbing on the Romney bandwagon publicly when until recently they've been afraid to say publicly what they believed privately.
In Gingrich's case I can't blame him. He had no choice; if he said he'd vote against Romney in the fall if Romney wins the Republican nomination, he'd destroy his chances of winning the nomination himself and headlines would be telegraphed all over the world saying, “Former Republican speaker threatens to work against likely Republican nominee.”
The rest of us don't need to be publicly saying such things about future backing for Romney, except in those cases where some of us hold public political office and what we say on the internet could hurt us in our local, state or national positions. I realize that over at RedState, they're saying to get the most conservative Republican possible in the primary and vote Republican in the general election. That's not Free Republic's position, and I don't think it needs to be, or even should be.
Romney is not stupid. My guess is that the timing of the Rubio endorsement was planned to precede the upcoming GHW Bush endorsement to reduce the credibility of the inevitable conservative attacks on Romney for being a RINO. Even if that wasn't planned, it's what the effect will be.
Romney knows that he needs to get prominent right-wing conservatives to publicly endorse him now to take the wind out of both Santorum’s sails and those of Gingrich, and build up the aura of inevitability so a brokered convention not only doesn't happen but doesn't come close to happening. Even if Romney wins at a brokered convention, he would be badly damaged by the fight in ways that a conservative insurgent who went into the convention and won the battle would not be.
What's the narrative if Romney wins a brokered convention? People will say “he's not only the weakest Republican frontrunner since Leonard Wood in 1920 but now also a weak nominee because he doesn't have the enthusiastic backing of his own party's base,” which is more or less what Gingrich has been trying to point out.
What's the narrative if a conservative insurgent wins? “Candidate X (Gingrich, Santorum, or fill in the blank with some third name) managed to take on all of Mitt Romney's money and he still won! Maybe he can do that to Barack Obama this fall.”
Bottom line: At least for now, let's try to avoid making pro-Romney comments or statements about backing him in the general election unless forced to do so. I don't blame Gingrich for what he said, and I probably don't blame Rubio since the alternatives for them would be worse. For most of us, we can stay neutral about what we'll do if Romney wins the nomination for at least a little while longer.