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.
As always, you make excellent points. Thank you for reminding me of another RHINO POS I’d never vote for-Pawlenty. He came on FOX the other day and I tripped and fell trying to get to the controls to change the channel. I can’t even stand to see or hear some of these people any more.
Still my point was that Ø's actions show he thought chasing $600+B was more important than buying votes with any policies. He use it to buy off the MSM, every ad minute they could find to sell him, even those whose legs weren't already tingling for him. Money may not be the most important criteria to be a good candidate, but having sufficient money, both on absolute terms and also relative to your opponent's money, is an essential criteria for a winning candidate. We need to pick the most conservative candidates (as judged by our honest predictions on how they'll behave if elected) that we also judge can win.
A recent poll says a large majority of conservatives currently think Sarah Palin is that candidate. Folks here may recall I was an early (in Iowa we had to be early) Romney supporter. Well at this early (RE 2012) date I'm in Sarah's camp. Presuming she really wants to run, rather than do a Fred, and that our expectations of how she'll perform--when unshackled from McCain--are proven true, she'd be a great leader for conservatism, a great candidate and a great president. She needs to act like a leader and show she's ready for the promotion. Reagan gave speeches including regular radio broadcasts and worked for conservative candidates and causes throughout Carter. Sarah needs to do the same and also the Internet. She's not yet quite as big a lock as Reagan was after Carter's win, but for the first time since then the GOP curse of deferring to the next in line looks helpful. That nomination is hers to lose.
Her strengths should include the essential reunification of the economic "small government" conservatives and the social conservatives. Romney at least spoke both sides, but wasn't believed by many of the latter and some of the former. His naysayers here were legion and many of the loudest are still loudly unconverted. Huckabee also claimed to speak both sides, but many of economic conservatives didn't believe him either. I and, I suspect, many others here remain unconverted. Palin naysayers here are nearly as scarce as early McCain supporters were and are probably nearly all trolls. Even considering our despair before she was announced her breadth of support is remarkable. With Ø running unopposed the left likely will pick some RINO to oppose her in the primary and will play registration games even worse than they did to pick McCain this time. Sarah will need to maintain her broad support to keep the Romneys and Huckabees from entering the race and dividing conservative votes. Unopposed from the right she'd be free to slay the RHINO in ways that will prove she's ready to move up. Then she goes to work deprogramming the salvageable Øbots and shift the American Idol voter's debate from the 15th to the 19th amendment.
Well put...
I never said voters are intelligent as a group. Which has a silver lining in that it is easier for people like us to out compete them easily and become more successful. If voters think Obama will be better for the economy than Romney, I want them to stay dumb on that level. It is better for us.
Um, mix Duncan with Mitt, I think that makes the answer obvious.
Just because you say it does not make it true. And I don’t think it is anywhere near true, actually the reverse of that may be true.
What is the kind of which you speak? Conservatives? Are you finally admitting that Mitt was a weak candidate, for if he was so easily taken down, there was not much there to begin with...
Mitt Romney beat Mitt Romney, it was that simple.
This seems to be in-character for Romney — keeping his own hands clean while having his “people” sling mud. It reminds me of the “Phoney Fred” site that Romney denied connection with (but was traced back to his paid operative); those fake “push-polls,” etc.
First and most important, do not run the primaries 10 months before General Election (GE). The economic landscape can change dramatically in between. Like this year, the economy took a sudden turn in September with Lehman going Bankrupt followed by AIG & WAMU and others. Exit polls told us economy was #1 issue for them. Yet, we had McCain carrying the mantle with his “Economy is strong”, “I don’t know much about Economy” & “I voted 90% with president Bush” statements to be exploited by Obama.
Second, allow only registered republicans with ID’s vote in primaries. We have no way to know how many democrats voted for a 72 year old, pudgy and short person to be the noominee against a lean, tall & youthful democrat.
As for the electoral votes from each state, most large states such as CA, NY, PA, are blue and should not be overweighted for selecting a GOP nominee. This can get complicated and I don’t see if any consensus can be reached. But there is no point in giving credence to delegates won in CA since CA has been blue recently every time. If we pick our candidate using delegates won in CA & NY, we are picking the wrong candidate. OTOH battle ground states and red states should be overweighted.
That's sure an interesting way to champion us "working together with respect." :)
Thank you for your input. I think some weighted analysis is way past due in the primary process for the Rep. presidential candidate. Using the 90/10 rule (or maybe the 80/20 thing is more appropriate these days), might be a smarter way to approach things. And I don’t mean the new age “90/10 principle”. I’m referring to avoiding spending 90% of our efforts on that last 10% that provides little return for the effort. Something to ponder while I hit the hay. G’Nite, ajay.
I HATED this election cycle. Obama proved that only meaningless generalities could survive.
Second, allow only registered republicans with ID’s vote in primaries.
Agreed.
You can't penalize delegates from CA, NY, etc. Their support for local and congressional candidates is important. (In my dreams I see California going back to electoral votes by congressional district. Ah, for the good-old days..)
I don’t think delegates won by the presidential contenders are the same as for the congressional candidates. Congressional winners in primaries are strictly for local use in state or district and those are fine as it is.
But let’s say a liberal RINO candidate gets large wins in NY & CA primaries and beats out a solid conservative candidate,
is he or she our best choice?
I don’t know if Mittens is a “flaming” liberal, but he is a liberal, like his father George and his mother Lenore.
I don't know that that has ever been a problem. If you look at the geography of California 50% of the state is red. It's the urban centers of LA, and the SF Bay Area and the coast that's blue. If both of my next door neighbors are Democrats does that make me less of a Republican?
Since the delegates are selected by the number of votes received, they represent the proportion of the party electorate in that state.
Well, you made me laugh.
First of all, there was nothing wrong with what Madden said. It was all true.
Second of all, Madden is not the same person as Mitt Romney, nor does Romney have any control over what Madden says. Madden used to work for Romney before the latter dropped out of the race, but once that happened and Madden was no longer on his payroll, Romney lost all control over what the guy says.
Blaming Romney for what people who don't even work for him say is the height of stupidity.
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