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Palin and Romney preview 2012
The Daily Caller ^ | July 20, 2010 | Aaron Guerrero

Posted on 07/20/2010 12:02:25 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

If the Republican nomination in 2012 shapes up as a two-way race between former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, expect fireworks to fly.

Last week, GOP primary voters caught a glimpse of how things might play out between the two Republican heavyweights when anonymous aides from both camps exchanged pointedly personal barbs.

The scuffle began when Time magazine’s Mark Halperin anonymously quoted one Romney aide in a column last Thursday, blasting Palin for her lack of substance, “She’s not a serious human being.”

Another aide to the former Massachusetts governor ripped into Palin, arguing, “If she’s standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she’s in trouble.”

In an effort to flank the chief Mama Grizzly, a Palin intimate quickly responded, telling Politico, anonymously of course, “She’s not a finger-in-the-wind kind of leader. She[s] supporting candidates who share her common sense values,” an obvious slight at Romney’s conversions on key issues in recent years.

In Palin-esque fashion, Romney took to the Twitter universe to quell the flames, labeling the anonymous aides as “numbskulls,” and proclaiming that Palin had “proven her smarts.”

With the kind of buttoned-up, disciplined political operation Romney runs, it seems implausible to think such attacks on Palin were not part of a coordinated strategy, one in which Romney green lighted himself.

A trial balloon for how he and his inner-circle may go about undermining Palin in the months ahead. A good cop-bad cop routine permitting those around him to play dirty while he keeps his nose clean. It’s an eerily reminiscent tactic that was used to great effect by top operatives within the McCain campaign, who through a slow drip of media leaks portrayed Palin as a combustible diva.

Regardless of how planned the jabs were, Romney’s aides stated publicly what many Republican establishment types have been thinking privately: that Palin as the GOP standard bearer in 2012 would be a disaster of the first order and make Barry Goldwater’s 1964 landslide loss look like a walk through Central Park.

Still, for all of her flaws and baggage, higher ups within the GOP consider Palin a legitimate threat to win the party nomination. No other Republican commands the kind of loyalty and bedrock support amongst the party faithful that she does. And in a primary filled with dull suits, Palin’s electric presence, accompanied by her litany of red-meat bombshells, could galvanize GOP primary voters in a way that no other candidate could.

As the current field stands, Romney remains the most viable alternative to Palin. His runner-up finish in 2008 has given him front-runner status for 2012. His impressive political operation, which features a high fundraising capacity and a hefty personal bank account, make him the candidate most ready to pursue a presidential run at a moment’s notice. And by all signals, he has given up the pointless pursuit of trying to be the darling of social conservatives and returned to emphasizing his strengths as a turn around artist in both the private and public sector.

But Romney has his share of weighty liabilities too. Perceptions of him as a chronic panderer never went away in 2008 and questions regarding the sincerity of his conservatism still linger today. He’s been called more robotic than authentic, and his past life as a corporate big shot may not sit well with a Tea Party crowd who holds the bailout of the banks as the grand and final betrayal of Big Government Republicans. Oh, and wait until his primary opponent’s begin running ads comparing his Massachusetts health care plan with that of president Obama’s. It could have a devastating effect on his candidacy.

One of the more intriguing aspects of a potential showdown between Romney and Palin would be the cut across cultural and ideological lines.

Culturally, the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein has explained this as the divide between “wine track” and “beer track” Republicans, a comparison between Republicans who are college-educated and economically wealthy, the wine trackers, and the more blue-collar, working class, the beer trackers. As Brownstein notes, the former would be more predisposed to Romney while the latter would likely flock to Palin.

Ideologically, Romney’s candidacy would garner the support of the prototypical northeastern, moderate Republican, a group more open to a campaign embedded in political pragmatism rather than ideological crusade. Palin’s candidacy would attract those who favor a wholesale and voluminous rejection of the Obama agenda, decrying any hint of bipartisan squeamishness.

As the political calendar inches closer towards 2012, Romney and Palin may quickly become more foes than friends.

*******

Aaron Guerrero is a 2009 UC Davis graduate, who majored in political science and minored in history. He formerly interned for Rep. Dan Lungren and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and is a freelance writer


TOPICS: Campaign News; Issues; Parties
KEYWORDS: 2012; acorn4romney; aig4romney; backstabberromney; badgovromney; benedictromney; bigdigromney; canttrustromney; chameleonromney; deceptiveromney; dirtytrickromney; du4romney; fakebadgeromney; logcabingop; loserromney; msm4romney; obama4romney; palin; romney; romney4dnc; romney4du; romney4obama; romney4obamacare; romney4romney; romneycare; romneydeathpanels; romneykilledgrandma; saboteurromney; sarahpalin; shapeshifterromney; steveschmidt
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

We don’t need more political royalty mucking things up. Romney is just more of the same thing that got us where we are now.


21 posted on 07/20/2010 1:51:41 PM PDT by pallis
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To: ansel12

Romney is the Father of Obamacare. I will be interested in hearing how he’s going to get around that little fact ?


22 posted on 07/20/2010 2:12:09 PM PDT by dbrew2u
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To: dbrew2u
Good question. Team Romney, like Team Obama, just lies.
They just guided Sen/Traitor Brown to help the DNC.

"Mitt Romney Lies About Father ‘Marching With Martin Luther King, Jr.’"
"Mitt Romney has been caught in yet another lie.
Only yesterday Romney’s claim of not supporting Planned Parenthood abortion mills was abruptly smashed by a photograph surfacing of him at one of their fundraisers in 1994.
Today, it’s Romney’s claim that his father “marched with” famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
During his “I’m a Mormon but it doesn’t matter” speech, Mitt Romney claimed he saw his father,
George Romney, marching with MLK during a 1968 civil rights march through Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
It was a stirring account of the efforts of his father to show that the Romney family have always reached across ecumenical lines.
Only one little problem… it never happened."



"Mitt Romney went a step further in a 1978 interview with the Boston Herald.
Talking about the Mormon Church and racial discrimination, he said:
"My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit."
"Yesterday (12//07), Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom acknowledged that was not true.
"Mitt Romney did not march with Martin Luther King,"
he said in an e-mail statement to the Globe.


Against Myth Romney is 1:

"On Sunday, June 23, 1963, 125,000 people marched down Detroit's Woodward Avenue
to the Civic Center, in what was described at the time as the largest civil-rights demonstration in the nation's history.
According to the next day's account in the Holland Evening Sentinel,
the crowd at the Center "lustily booed," when representatives of Governor George W. Romney
read a proclamation declaring "Freedom March Day in Michigan." But Martin Luther King Jr. didn't fault Romney for his absence,
which the governor ascribed to his policy against public appearances on the Sabbath.
"At a news conference following the march . .
[King] refused to criticize Romney for not attending the demonstration," the Sentinel reported."

Against Myth Romney is 2:

Susan Englander, assistant editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, who is editing the King papers from that era,
says Myth Romney was untruthful, when she told the Globe yesterday:
"I researched this question, and indeed it is untrue that George Romney marched with [Dr.] King."

Against Myth Romney is 3:

"King never marched in Grosse Pointe, according to the Grosse Pointe Historical Society,
and had not appeared in the town at all at the time the Broder book was published.
“I’m quite certain of that
,” says Suzy Berschback, curator of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society"


Once again a few good women stand in the way
of the nutcase carpetbagger.

23 posted on 07/20/2010 3:25:40 PM PDT by Diogenesis (Article IV - Section 4 - The United States shall protect each of them against Invasion)
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To: ansel12

Really? What did he do to deserve that moniker?


24 posted on 07/20/2010 9:17:00 PM PDT by econjack (Some people are as dumb as soup.)
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To: econjack

Look into the man, he was invisible on social conservatism for one thing, until he declared that he wants to call a truce on that most fundamental portion of conservatism.

Mitch Daniels is no conservative, he is a Romney/Rockefeller type.


25 posted on 07/20/2010 9:30:29 PM PDT by ansel12 (Mitt: "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush")
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To: hrh40

Excellent comments.


26 posted on 07/20/2010 9:36:20 PM PDT by onyx (Sarah/Michele 2012)
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To: hinckley buzzard

You’re right. Huckaboob was runner-up. Romney dropped-out after spending gazillions of his own money.


27 posted on 07/20/2010 9:39:59 PM PDT by onyx (Sarah/Michele 2012)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Ideologically, Romney’s candidacy would garner the support of the prototypical northeastern, moderate Republican, a group more open to a campaign embedded in political pragmatism rather than ideological crusade.

Precisely the voters who like and elect Collins and Snowe.

Palin’s candidacy would attract those who favor a wholesale and voluminous rejection of the Obama agenda, decrying any hint of bipartisan squeamishness.

Clearly.

28 posted on 07/20/2010 9:49:35 PM PDT by onyx (Sarah/Michele 2012)
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