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Mitt Romney: I’m no back stabber
Boston Herald ^ | 11/8/2003 | Dave Wedge

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.


TOPICS: Front Page News; Politics/Elections; US: Alaska; US: Massachusetts
KEYWORDS: 2008; 2012; backstabbers; election; elections; gop; mccain; mittromney; mountainmeadows; mythromney; nopalin2012; palin; rinosrunamok; romney; sabotage; sarahpalin; waronsarah
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To: Elsie

“There are some [who]would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it is more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers – I will be true to them and to my beliefs.

“Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.”

Mitt Romney, December 6, 2007.


301 posted on 11/10/2008 1:29:18 PM PST by lady lawyer
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To: NavVet

Romney is not one of “us”.

Maybe not, but sure is nice to look at...


302 posted on 11/10/2008 2:01:46 PM PST by JMKirnan
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To: Diogenesis
There's a lot of hate here it seems. I am guessing that it has more to do with his faith than anything else. But maybe I'm wrong about that. I'm a Catholic, but for me, religion has nothing at all to do with a person's qualifications for President. Nor does race. Nor does gender. For me, the top requirement for a candidate is that he will be ELECTABLE, while carrying forth most of the values I share. Certainly not a bridge-crosser like McCain, but someone who is articulate, bright, attractive, relatively young, engaging, quick on the feet, tough on the opposition and a Constitutionalist. All the things McCain was not. Most of these qualities, but for the last, we saw in Obama. And like it or not, was a large part of why he won. Stupid, yes. But Stupid elected him. The stupid voters had no real choice in this election. Obama won on all the above points. We can appeal to the stupid, while at the same time appeal to the thinking conservatives, with the right candidate. I believe Romney shares the qualities we need for the stupid voters, as well as most of the conservative values we need to win on. But so do others, Pence, Palin, etc.

Maybe someone else will come forth. I just don't think trashing any possible Republicans/Conservatives does us any good. There are plenty on the other side who do that. And until you can come up with proof of Romney's offenses, the accusations you make seem to be just based on a personal disdain for the man or his faith.

303 posted on 11/10/2008 2:47:13 PM PST by adc (Rush '08All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently oppos)
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To: adc

FRiend, there is no hate from the Romney critics.

There is documentation of bad behavior by Romney,
and to find it yourself: use the **search** engine or
Google or hit a few of the URLs and links.

Only the RomneyBOTs have shown hate, ad hominem, and
lack of explanation for their and Romney’s treason
against conservatives, or Romney’s
[fill in] _____________ (socialized medicine, 2nd amendment,
gay marriage, illegal aliens at this mansion, shapeshifting,
backstabbing, fake LEO badges, pushpull polls against GOP
...).

The only time religion is brought up is by his defenders.
It happens over and over and over. Romney’s defenders
attack and lie and attack. No wonder their knives have
Gov. Palin’s childrens’ ‘blood’ on them. At this site,
they attacked the VP Candidate UNTIL, AND THROUGH, THE
DAY OF THE ELECTION.

If you really care about the facts, go to the links
yourself, then decide yourself. We did.


304 posted on 11/10/2008 3:14:24 PM PST by Diogenesis (Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)
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To: fieldmarshaldj
(self-pinging post #223 by fm dj for future reference on the best and brightest to watch for and support, as well as for primary process repair!)

FM DJ, you are in even better form than usual, just darned ELOQUENT throughout this thread! Man o manishevitz.

I, like many others here, regard Romney "bashing" as a timely and worthy battle that is NOT divisive to the party, but unifying because Romney is a Trojan Horse threat to Republican limited government principle and needs to be rooted out asap. The fight against him needs to start NOW.

305 posted on 11/10/2008 4:25:34 PM PST by Finny ("Raise hell. Vote smart." -- Ted Nugent.)
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To: Finny

Thank you. It is oh-so-true. “Trojan horse” is a frequent description I’ve used for these RINOs... Democrat agents to destroy the GOP from within (because as discovered eons ago, it’s much easier to destroy your opponent once you’re inside their camp).

Pray tell, why do we not adopt such hardcore tactics to similarly undermine THEIR party ? Perhaps because our TOO trusting and naive party gets taken by these confidence men, while the Dems, already being chock-full of these folks, usually can spot those a mile away and they give ‘em the bums’ rush out of the building before they reach the elevator. A crooked party they are, but with a helluva lot more street smarts than we have...


306 posted on 11/10/2008 5:05:32 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
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To: Girlene; fieldmarshaldj

The only way to assure every state’s vote’s count would be a national primary.

I’d like a closed national primary in May with instant runoff voting but that’s likely a non-starter among the unimaginative.

NH and IA are ludicrous. And no one has the balls to say “no more” to these little bastards “traditional” status.


307 posted on 11/11/2008 11:39:17 AM PST by Impy (RED=COMMUNIST, NOT REPUBLICAN)
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To: yongin

You make good points but it’s really not fair 2 small states have such disproportional power to choose the President. A better way should be reached.


308 posted on 11/11/2008 11:48:30 AM PST by Impy (RED=COMMUNIST, NOT REPUBLICAN)
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To: GVnana
Mitt Romney: I’m no back stabber, I have staff for that!
309 posted on 11/11/2008 11:49:57 AM PST by Petronski (Things fall apart, it's scientific.)
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To: Petronski
"Almost every critical remark made about Palin
on a recent briefing call about her selection came from political consultants
with ties to Romney. Those comments were planted, says one,
because they knew that reporters would be on the call."

[Washington Prowler, American Spectator, Storm Center, 9/2/2008]

This reminds Conservatives of Romney's fake badges and attacks on Sen Thompson.

Novak: Fred Thompson drop-out rumors traced to Romney campaign

Said Novak: The rumors were "traced in part to Mitt Romney's campaign,
trying to stir up strife between McCain and Thompson
."



310 posted on 11/11/2008 9:46:27 PM PST by Diogenesis
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