The New News Cycle: Romney and Thompson Defend Rush

Townhall.com ^ | October 3, 2007 | Hugh Hewitt

[ejonesie22]

He may well have missed the boat. I think if he was more a long time Conservative, Rush would be more receptive, but since his history is working against him already, well i thing Rush was not real open to him before the Phony Soldier bit. Now, well uphill battle would be kind.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Interesting.

I’ll admit, I’m not a Romney supporter.

And I’m confused that he would make such a huge error. As one of the leaders in the pack I expected he wouldn’t have too many mishaps.

But this reminds me of a mistake a novice would make.

I thought he had more substance.

[ansel12]

This is transcript and the audio.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_100407/content/01125112.guest.html

[ansel12]

It will be interesting to see if the Romney followers know Rush well enough to know how angry he is after reading todays transcript, or if they will be baffled.

[ejonesie22]

That’s the problem, he may be a deep thinker or whatever, he did have a good article last month over at CFR.ORG (yes that one) but his stances are an inch deep on many issues.

I won’t say Mitt is not accomplished, but he doesn’t really understand the modern Conservative. It is as if he put on that jacket to run for the nod, but it doesn’t fit just right. His lack of understanding where Limbaugh fits in the scheme of things paints him as an outsider even more.

[Lancey Howard]

and that guy no longer works for the Thompson campaign).

Ergo, I expect that Madden's time has run out. How stupid do you have to be to try to pander to a pack of liberal scumbags at the Huffington site?

[Lancey Howard]

Check this out:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/27/romney_names_4_women_to_bench/

Apparently, Romney likes “diversity” so much, he appoints Democrats.
Sounds like a RINO California governor I heard about....

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Thank you.

[Bobbisox]

ME TOO! I’m in the Hunt for a RED November, 2008! Fred is the man to beat now...they just don’t know it!

[ellery]

I actually thought Romney did a good job in that “meltdown over Mormonism” clip — it reminded me of civil but spirited arguments my dad and I had around the dinner table when I was a kid (oh, who am I kidding — we still have those kinds of arguments when we get together).

Back on-topic, though — I went to google to try to get a handle on the timeline of all of this. I ran across another statment on this issue from a different Romney spokesperson, issued to the Boston Herald on 9/29 and mentioning Rush specifically:

“Rush’s comments were unfortunate. People should be free to express their opinion and no one has earned the right to express that opinion more than these soldiers,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for ex-Bay State governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/view.bg?articleid=1034890

It’s not definitive, but I think this adds credence to the speculation that the original anti-Rush statement came from Romney rather than from just one rogue spokesperson.

[ansel12]

Keep us posted, but really I think that the last few days, including Wednesday and today have told us everything we need to know.

Now the story is that Romney is totally snubbing Rush and keeping the attack on him out front, which means that it is far to late to look for excuses, their relationship is cemented.

If you notice, the Romney crowd doesn’t seem too fond of “Mr. Conservative” Rush Limbaugh anyway.

[ellery]

See post 150 — apparently on 9/29, a different Romney spokesperson made a statement very similar to the one Madden made to HuffPo in 9/28, and this time, mentions Rush specifically.

“Rush’s comments were unfortunate. People should be free to express their opinion and no one has earned the right to express that opinion more than these soldiers,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for ex-Bay State governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/view.bg?articleid=1034890

[DanielLongo]

So it seems that was the spokesperson’s opinion and not that of Romney himself. Everyone is making it sound like Romney said it. Glad he cleared that one up.

[ellery]

Either Romney must be held accountable for the statements of his spokespeople, or he must be held accountable for poor management if his spokespeople are issuing statements he doesn’t sanction. Thompson had this problem this summer, and I did not give him a pass for it — I believe he wasn’t managing his spokesperson tightly enough in that case. That spokesperson no longer works for his campaign.

Do you give Romney credit when his spokesperson says something you like? Or do you just give the spokesperson kudos? Come on.

In this case, this may be moot — because now we see that two separate spokespeople made two very similar statements a day apart. That makes it considerably more likely that this was coordinated from the top rather than simply an off-the-cuff remark from one spokesperson.

[kevkrom]

Romney’s staff never said a thing about Rush in that initial statement, only to say that they believed in the right of expression for those who served.

Wrong.

Romney's spokesman (not corrected by the campaign) specifically said: "Governor Romney would disagree with the negative characterization of those men and women who serve with honor and distinction in the United States Military."

That doesn't mention Limbaugh by name, but what other "negative characterization" would he be talking about? Only someone who is willfully blinding themselves can read this as anything other than a criticism of Limbaugh. "Nuance" doesn't cut it for Romney any better than it did for Kerry.

[kevkrom]

See my #92 — that isn’t a statement of support, that’s stopping the bleeding with the weakest statement possible. All of the equivocating and temporizing implies that the Media Matters story was legitimate and that it took a clarification from Limbaugh to set the record straight, when the truth is that the whole thing was made up by Media Matters in the first place.

[kevkrom]

So it seems that was the spokesperson’s opinion and not that of Romney himself. Everyone is making it sound like Romney said it. Glad he cleared that one up.

Two different Romney spokesmen make the same basic comment to two different publications -- just a coincidence? I think not. Has the campaign retracted or "clarified" either statement?

[DanielLongo]

If Romney was using his spokespeople to trial baloon the comments, then yes, I have issues with that. However, if those were not his sentiments, I agree that the spokesman should be spoken to and if necessary, put on a shorter “leash”.

[ansel12]

This still goes unanswered by Mitt Romney.

“””RUSH Transcript:
“I didn’t talk about this last week, but Mitt Romney issued a statement much like he issued against — who did he throw under the bus? Oh. Larry Craig. He issued a statement: That’s reprehensible what Limbaugh said, horrible, whatever it was he said — and then later in the day somebody from his office called our office. “We just found out that this is a smear, and Mitt will say this if he’s asked about it.” He hasn’t been asked about it, so his statement still stands.””””