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.
I got mine Fur Shur.
With economy in worse shape since the great depression, who better to guide the country than a man who built a career on turning failing corporations around. That is how Romney made his millions. Might have been a lot better in 2008 than McCain of the “I don’t know much about economy” fame.
So now have Mr Obama, who is willing to kill every unborn,
regardless of how late in pregnancy, declare defeat in Iraq,
appoint 3 more Ruth Ginsburgs to SCOTUS, increase taxes on businesses making more than $250k which will drive more of them to Ireland where tax is 11%, and complete takeover of education system.
Romney haters got what they deserve.
Secondly, McCain still got blown out in the election anyway. Spin it any way you like, but this thing was not at all close and the outcome was never in doubt as the results started coming in on Tuesday night.
Thirdly, any conservative who truly loves this country and cares about it's future would have voted for McCain anyway if it meant that doing so would prevent Lenin Obama from winning the White House. If people knew that the alternative to McCain was obama, and still couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain until he picked Palin as his veep, then I have to question their thinking.
McCain would have lost they way he did no matter who he picked because he was a disaster of a candidate. The only reason it wasn't even more of a blowout is because of who he was running against. In every presidential election the difference between victory and defeat rests largely in who the so-called 'independents' and 'undecideds' go for. This group is, by definition, by and large so completely ignorant and apathetic when it comes to politics that even knowing the names of the VP candidates is an accomplishment for them. This is the group that won the election for Obama. Palin didn't matter nearly as much as many here would like to believe.
This is not a knock against Palin by the way; no VP candidate ever means as much as they are built up to be.
Romney is not popular enough to win without Palin...money can’t buy everything. Live with it.
I am one of those consistently against Governor Romney, and it is because of his anti-RKBA stance. Governor Palin is a strong, vocal supporter of the Second Amendment, and Governor Romney isn't.
Another Bush tag along. He trusted too many people and should have cleared the deck when he took office. Of course he probably agreed with them. I hope there are no more Bush’s running for office.
Quite true, however Romney could have attracted some of the voters who (mistakenly) voted for Obama with Economy as #1 issue on their minds. Obama cleverly painted McCain/palin as 8 mor years of Bush economy. Obama had no way to say that about Romney.
Um, ok....
That explains all that support he had here during the primaries LOL.
There is one Mitt basher out there, real nut case I guess from your perspective. Goes by Jim Rob or something, I see his name all over the place around here for some reason...
Who said anything about Romney?
The Democrat dominated school board got that canceled even though Obama had free use of space around here during the primaries.
We ended up in a park and over 23,000 people spontaneously appeared.
This area rarely ever has a large Republican gathering although there are a lot of Republicans here ~ most of them employed or owning shops, so this was a daytime meeting that needed a lot of gimps, crips and the elderly to get there by climbing up and down hills and parking miles away.
We were definitely motivated. And we are still motivated.
This puke Obama has nothing for the gimps, nothing for the crips, nothing for the elderly, nothing for the retired people, nothing......
Listening to his speeches I wondered if Obama was even a Democrat or just another commie face man.
I think we all know the answer to that.
Jindal is fine but Sarah Palin has the first seat for now and its her’s if she wants it.
But the RINO’s aren’t going away and they will block any move to get the GOP upright again.
In Canada real conservatives got fed up 20 years ago and surged into the Reform Party that split elections so the Liberals won.
Is the GOP headed for the fate of Canada’s Conservative Party back then being reduced to a handful of seats in a 308 seat Parliament?
Eventually a new Conservative Party absorbed Reform and threw real conservative policies (especially pro-life pro-family ones) over the side.
Harper still can’t get a majority up there (the economy holding him back) and has upset some natural supporters with his obstinate views about keeping the abortion issue out of the parliament.
We now hear from the king of the back stabbers.
“money can’t buy everything”
I don’t know. It seemed to help Obama a lot.
Romney would have gone down in flames by himself, bad economy or not. He has to prove something to people and he is off to a very bad start with his vicious tasteless toadies walking all over Palin.
Madden can't do simple math. Sarah was his pick since the first week in February, close to 200 days, and she was both the best vetted candidate of all time, and the best overall candidate of the cycle.
What is Madden so bitter about?
They don’t work for the Romney campaign. Reporting what they have heard no more makes them Palin bashers or Romney supporters. They’re simply reporting what they have dug-up. If it doesn’t comport with your tidy world view I am sorry. One week we love the FNC; the next the FNC is the enemy. NO media is our friend. Conservative principles are our guiding light. Remember them; espouse them; take comfort in them.
It is not the money, it is economy knowhow where Romney is head and shoulders above McCain, Palin, Rudy, Huckabee and any one else running.
I have 'people' for that.
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