Posted on 03/14/2006 3:08:26 PM PST by SC33
Going into last weekend's Southern Republican Leadership Conference, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his staff said they were expending no energy on and had only fleeting interest in a straw poll assessing the potential 2008 presidential candidates.
Even after he finished a surprising second in Memphis, behind Tennessee native son Sen. Bill Frist, Romney was modest, declaring: "I really don't read into a straw poll very much, certainly not at this point. This is, what, three years away from the '08 race?"
It turns out not all his supporters had a similarly distanced view.
Roughly 200 Romney backers camped out at the Marriott hotel in Memphis, and some had all their expenses paid for. One of the financiers was John Kingston, general counsel of AMG Inc., of the Beverly, Mass.-based investment management firm. AMG is run by Sean Healey, the husband of Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, Romney's most prominent ally.
"If only we could have had more time," said David French, a Tennessee lawyer and Kingston classmate at Harvard Law School who spearheaded the effort. "I don't know that we could have beaten Frist, but we could have done even better." Romney supporters were not alone in organizing for the meeting. Frist, the Senate majority leader, bused in dozens of supporters to ensure a strong showing. He succeeded, garnering 37 percent of the vote. The next closest was Romney, albeit distantly at 14 percent.
The pro-Romney organizing surfaced after blanket assurances there would be none by numerous members of the Romney political camp, both in and out of the Statehouse.
Nancy French, who runs the pro-Romney Web site www.TNforMitt.com, initially told an Associated Press reporter all the Romney supporters paid their own way. Later, after a student attending the conference told the same reporter that French and her husband had paid travel expenses for him and four friends, French confirmed her involvement.
She said she, her husband and Kingston had paid for supporters who could not otherwise afford the registration fee and hotel expenses. Kurt Keilhacker, a California venture capitalist and Kingston associate, said he also provided money and helped French raise it from others.
© 2006 Associated Press
Gee, what a shock! A politician actually having his supporters campaign for him? I've never seen anything like it!
http://romneyisafraud.blogspot.com/2005/02/dime-dropper-willard-mitt-went-to.html
This is the equivalent of a very, very expensive poll freep.
This is a straw man argument.
You bet.
But in this case its 'a liberal political pretending to be a conservative politician actually having his liberal supporters campaign for him'.
Reap what you sow, Republicans.
Here's a link to my NewsBusters column documenting the way in which, on a recent Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace eventually cornered into admitting that his position on abortion has "evolved."
http://newsbusters.org/node/4190
Shouldn't that be "Romney Farces" ?
Roughly 200 Romney backers camped out at the Marriott hotel in Memphis, and some had all their expenses paid for. One of the financiers was John Kingston, general counsel of AMG Inc., of the Beverly, Mass.-based investment management firm. AMG is run by Sean Healey, the husband of Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, Romney's most prominent ally.
"If only we could have had more time," said David French, a Tennessee lawyer and Kingston classmate at Harvard Law School who spearheaded the effort. "I don't know that we could have beaten Frist, but we could have done even better." Romney supporters were not alone in organizing for the meeting. Frist, the Senate majority leader, bused in dozens of supporters to ensure a strong showing. He succeeded, garnering 37 percent of the vote. The next closest was Romney, albeit distantly at 14 percent.
The whole process of choosing who will run for president peeves me off. They are never picked by ordinary people, they are picked by friends and wealthy supporters.
Maybe I'm naive, but what is the point of trying to win but not to admit that you are trying to win?
*snort*
4 years ago he was buying votes!!
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