Posted on 11/09/2008 3:27:03 PM PST by GVnana
Aides blast accusations, not from Mitt camp
By Dave Wedge
Saturday, November 8, 2008 -
Mitt Romney’s camp is firing back at reports his foot soldiers are behind a brutal smear campaign against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in a backdoor strategy to position the former Bay State governor for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.
“It’s a completely absurd allegation that is totally divorced from the truth,” Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said.
Fox News, the New York Times [NYT] and Newsweek have reported on a host of criticisms of Palin, including that she threw tantrums that made staffers cry and didn’t know Africa was a continent. Several media outlets reported some of the leaks came from within the McCain campaign. But the political blog, The Palmetto Scoop, citing “very good sources,” said it was Romney loyalists working for McCain who were behind the “premeditated last minute sabotage” of Palin.
Fehrnstrom took issue with the Scoop’s claim that as much as 80 percent of Romney’s campaign staff went to work for Sen. John McCain’s team after the GOP primary. Only “a handful” of Romney operatives joined the Arizona senator’s campaign, he said.
“The truth is, there are no former Romney staffers in senior roles at the McCain campaign,” Fehrnstrom said. “I can think of a handful of people, maybe three or four, who went over, all in junior positions.”
However, Romney’s former campaign spokesman Kevin Madden was among the ex-Romney staffers to bash Palin. In an interview on CNN just a week before the election, Madden called Palin “unseasoned” and questioned whether she should have been McCain’s pick.
“When you put out an unknown and you give them 70 days with which to go through a vetting process, both by voters and the national press corps, ugly things can tend to happen,” Madden said.
Since McCain’s loss, Palin has been accused of dragging down the ticket in what her spokeswoman Meg Stapleton reportedly called “a circling firing squad.”
GOP strategist Holly Robichaud, who writes the “Lone Republican” blog for the Herald, said: “It’s definitely Romney’s people. They’ve been doing it for a while. Romney is thinking about running again in 2012 and he needs to kill off Sarah Palin in order to get there.”
Romney himself has defended Palin, calling her a “positive addition to the ticket” in an appearance on CBS’ “Early Show” a week before the election.
“For a first-time candidate on the national stage . . . you’re subject to the national spotlight. It’s more like a national torch,” Romney said. “She has been able to keep cool under the pressure.”
Meanwhile, a new Rasmussen poll shows that 64 percent of Republicans want Palin to be the GOP presidential candidate in 2012 while 11 percent prefer Romney.
Good explanation about the difference between adopting a position and having a profound appreciation and commitment to a position.
Reagan really was an economic conservative and an anti-communist, at a very deep level. As for social conservatism, I don’t know his positions.
I think the economic conservatism is crucial in a President. In government, socially conservative positions should be advanced through legislatures. Granted, you want a good reception, not a veto, once legislation comes to the President. Those are my thoughts. I’m sure many will disagree!
Are you insane ?
I agree with you. But generally where there’s straying from principle in one area, others will follow. I’ve yet to find a candidate that wasn’t a social conservative but wasn’t a RINO on other things as well. Usually the socially liberal are all too quick to fall for some of the statist arguments that politicians are so fond of making to justify government intrusion into our lives.
Reagan was a social conservative. He was really the one who brought pro-life to the Republican platform, as far as I know. He didn’t wear his religion on his sleeve.
Romney in particular has bastardized every aspect of conservatism. Heck, he completely perverts both social and economic conservatism (socialized forced health care with $50 abortions) with RomneyCare alone.
(Oh, right. And the MSM which was already in the tank for O would have given the Mittster a total pass that while O was in a Hawaiian high school many of the non-white Mormons on the islands -- where Mormons have long had a big foot in the door long -- would have been locked out of the Mormon priesthood...all while Mitt was a 30 yo who agreed with such teachings of the church at the time)
Nina Easton’s husband worked for Romney during the primaries.
This stuff isn’t hard to figure out.
Hear, Hear!! I’ll go along with those sentiments. The Stormin’ Mormon is a phony!
And The Huckster isn’t far behind him
( Actually, in myeyes, he’s ahead). I still suspect it’s either one of these two weasels or someone else with 2012 aspirations that’s resposible for the continuing Palin attacks (although the media would continue it anyway).
I agree only a liberal would make the “Hillbillies in Neiman Marcus” comment.
There is no evidence to the contrary. If you think you have some please trot it out. The evidence that I have, the polls rising after her appointment to VP and the huge crowds she drew, the ones that dwarfed the McCain draws when he was by himself, are the most compelling evidence that she greatly increased his effectiveness. He killed his own chances, no one else did it, in large part by voting for the bailout after suspending his campaign to go back to Washington. To ignore the 70+ percent of Americans who did not want the bailout was political suicide. This coming on top of the fact he was Mr. RINO himself finished him off.
Without Sarah he might have held two or three states, but no more than that.
So, if you have it please show the evidence you say is out there that shows Sarah drug him down.
Jindal/Palin 2008!
Jindal/Palin 2012!
Neither of those posts contradict each other. I had critical problems with several of the candidates that stepped up to run for President. Two were failed Governors (the one from MA, and the one from AR), another was essentially a policy liberal Democrat but yet with a successful run as Mayor of NYC (at least with respect to cutting the crime rate, but that’s not something that necessarily translates to being President since he was still wrong on so many issues, but at least he wasn’t being a hypocrite and lying about what he stood for), and an antagonistic pro-illegals RINO squish Senator from a southwestern state who was far too old to run (and who himself came close to offering himself as a running mate to the DEMOCRAT nominee for President in 2004). I’m saying we’ve got to pay close attention to the ACTIONS, not the words of those we’d support for high office. They can lie to us just as easily as anyone else.
Aside from Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter, none of the candidates could claim to be successful Conservative leaders with the core values with a straight face. We had our best and brightest Governors take a pass this year (people like SC Governor Mark Sanford, who had a stellar record in DC and in his home state; Rhode Island’s Don Carcieri who actually, unlike his MA neighbor, governed like a Conservative in one of the most Democrat states in the country and won reelection in a horrible year, 2006; NE’s Dave Heineman, another great Conservative Governor who boldly and courageously refused to get out of the way for the RINO establishment choice and pro-illegals squish Rep. Tom Osborne, a revered sports figure in the state, and prevailed; SD’s Mike Rounds; or even MS’s Haley Barbour).
The media, of course, when it came time to selecting running mates offered up mediocre choices, including the also-rans and people like MN’s Tim Pawlenty, who presided over a complete collapse of his state party. No surprise they went absolutely hysterical when Gov. Palin was chosen, a fairly solid Conservative who had taken on her party’s establishment and beaten them and saved a Governorship that was all but certain to return to the Democrats in 2006. I didn’t consider her a name for President simply because it was a bit too soon for her to run, but as a choice for VP, it was a bold and stellar pick, the only good thing McCain did during his entire embarrassing campaign.
I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your comment about the primary process. Yes, I would say the current process is an epic disaster and must be completely revamped (along with the election cycle itself — I talked to a Democrat supporter last week and the one thing we both agreed on, probably something a huge majority of Americans would agree on, is that we need to tighten up the schedule. These having to declare years before the election Presidential races and having the actual campaign cycle itself from the first primaries through the general election are ludicrous. We need to return to having Spring primaries running through the Summer (not Winter through Spring, where we can often see who the nominee is going to be more than half-a-year ahead of time)).
IA & NH as the first states need to go. I don’t have a firm plan for what the best idea is for a primary system, I’m willing to listen to any reasonable ideas, only that perhaps we might go to regional primaries and have a points system based upon the actual Republican performance of a state. The more Democrat a state is in a Presidential primary, the less pull they should have on the outcome. NH and IA aren’t even Republican states anymore. IA has only voted GOP once for President since 1988 and NH twice. They should have minimal say in the nomination choice until such time as their percentages and support for the party improves. It may bias the process to Southern and Midwestern states, but so be it, that’s where the base lives. I also say unequivocally that the primary system should be CLOSED. No people from the opposite party flooding in to determine our party’s choice. It may be fun to screw with the Democrats, but in the end, Operation CHAOS got us nowhere and they still took the election.
I think we’ve got a double agent working in the campaign. The person needs outing, and a public firing in the media.
Sarah should also go on record saying that the reporters form Fox don’t have the “cahones” to source their articles properly and tell the people who made the scurrilous charges.
Actually, somebody said a lot of Huckster’s people were very approving of Governor Palin. I don’t like Huckster, but the undermining of Palin isn’t his style and doesn’t make sense (and he doesn’t have the resources to do it). However, knowing full well the M.O. of the paid employees of Slick Willard, the attacks stank to high heaven of his style. That’s precisely how he and his people roll. She’s in the way of his self-described “destiny” and must be destroyed (and, yup, so was McCain, too).
Wrong. She got people out to vote in huge numbers. The loss would have been much larger had she not been a player on the ticket.
It is the long term actions and history that draws me. Even Reagan made some calls that were not popular with Conservatives but his sum total actions as well as his words were more than enough. Take Mitt as a counter example...
They cannot “destroy” her. She is a woman of principle. She will be a player in 2012.
Wrong. She got people out to vote in huge numbers. The loss would have been much larger had she not been a player on the ticket. [maxter]
Exactly. Exit polls showed that 69% of McCain voters said Palin helped. (I'm not even sure how the other 31% broke down, but you always have a smaller % who say neither helped nor hurt, plus a few % points of people who don't answer or say "don't know." Bottom line, is that only 20-25% of McCain voters agree with you. And those are the moderates who plugged McCain there to begin with.)
The reason why IA and NH are first on the primary list is because they are small states with relatively cheap tv markets. IA and NH were intended to give boosts to the economies of these small states and “level” the playing field for lesser funded candidates. If just had a national primary day where all 50 states had their primaries, Hillary and Willard would be the winners due to their initial fundraising advantages. The Communist Organizer didn’t rake in the cash until after his SC win.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.