Posted on 10/21/2011 10:02:21 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
In a new web site, in a controversial ad that was launched and then quickly pulled from sight, and in Tuesday’s now infamous debate touching episode, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is handling rival Rick Perry as if the Texas governor’s poll numbers were not at a paltry single-digit. With mounting evidence, he is, in short, treating Perry like Perry has Herman Cain’s numbers.
[snip]
If Romney can fatally weaken Perry now, it would allow him to dominate in the early primaries. Strategically, a strong showing in the Iowa caucuses would be followed by an anticipated victory in the New Hampshire primary, resulting in strong momentum as the voting shifts to South Carolina and Florida.
“You’ve got the guy down a bit, you don’t want to let him up off the mat,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant. “A mistake for a lot of campaigns is the front-runner doesn’t engage, and when they do, it’s too late. Particularly when Perry has the resources to go up in the air with negative ads, I think it’s smart for the Romney campaign. I think the Romney people are making the educated bet, probably the right bet, that there’s no one else in the field that can rise up and can be a sustainable long-term challenger.”
A source close to the Romney camp said, “One of these two guys is going to be president. You learned a long time ago in this business that when you’re getting attacked, you better answer.”
That Romney could be vulnerable to Perry’s millions, or the millions raised by his super PAC, lends a peremptory, inoculative quality to his elevated pressure on Perry. “If you’re Romney and you’re looking around the field you’ve got there … the only one who’s proved he can raise any money is Perry,” said Andrew Smith, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. “He has to make sure that Perry isn’t able to consolidate his position as a front-runner in polls, because he’s certainly a front-runner in fundraising.”
The stepped-up offensive comes at a curious time, with Perry at his lowest point in the polls since he entered the race in mid-August. Romney is trading the above-the-fray persona he has cultivated at the risk of elevating Perry, putting him on the same plane as the front-runner. A NBC News/Marist poll of likely South Carolina primary voters published last week had Perry at 9 percent, just three points higher than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is not a serious contender for the nomination.
The flare-up during Tuesday’s debate in Las Vegas stemmed largely from Perry confronting Romney over his hiring of a lawn care company that employed illegal immigrants, prompting Romney to recycle his criticism of a Texas law that Perry signed granting tuition discounts for the children of illegal immigrants. But Romney went beyond policy, taunting Perry by pointing out he had already had “a tough couple debates,” and reaching out to touch his shoulder — a personal space invasion that’s a no-no during debates.
Romney also irritably appraised Perry’s debating style as discourteous: “You have a problem with allowing someone to finish speaking. And I suggest that if you want to become president of the United States, you have got to let both people speak.”
[snip]
Perry Communications Director Ray Sullivan called Romney’s aggression “not a new phenomenon,” but said “this week’s high-profile activities” were proof of Romney’s nervousness about Perry.
“The Romney camp and Governor Romney himself know that Rick Perry is the most likely candidate to be the conservative standard-bearer, given his record,” Sullivan said. “They’re threatened by Governor Perry’s strong record as well as fiscal and social conservatism, and they realize that we have the campaign organization and financial resources to win. Despite all of the efforts to belittle and dismiss, the Romney people know that Rick Perry is a very serious and credible threat to their now six-year-long presidential campaign.”
[snip]
That fool’s worrying about the wrong guy.
Economic Speech scheduled for Oct 25.
But wouldn't it just be better to go after Cain?
Perry weakened himself, Romney is just circling the future corpse. lol.
Romney will never get more than a third I think. We need to find a real heartless conservative to back in the primaries.
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Maybe he pulled it because it was a stupid, crappy, ineffectual ad. I am a Cain supporter, one-hundred percent. I watched Romney’s anti-Perry ad and thought it sucked. If he couldn’t even make one brief point that I agreed w or thought was effective, then the ad was ill conceived and badly executed.
Romney: couldn’t run a state, can’t make a good ad, will NOT win the primaries.
So is Romney now attacking Perry to help Cain? I can never keep my wacky internet electoral conspiracy theories straight.
Romney-zzard: "Is that RINO dead yet??"
What I find interesting is, the people attacking Perry are helping Romney win the nomination.
Perry has three critical things necessary for a presidential campaign. The only other candidate that has these three things is Romney. They are money, money, money.
As far as the so-called debates? They are important but not as important as the media leads us to believe. We are not electing the head of our high school debate class.
It is too soon and way too early to say who is going to come out ahead in this contest. It is not too early to say goodbye to Santorum, Bachmann, Paul, Newt and Huntsman if anyone can find him:)
As far as Obama goes he is in such bad shape he pulled the get-out-of-Iraq card. This move is very significant. A move of desperation. I bet Obama is having kittens now that many of the people he greased via the stimulus are not lining his pockets. And now Obama’s latest jobs for unions bill that he has been pushing is toast. It is sweet!
As anyone who has played chess knows, sometimes to get to the king you have to take out a key pawn.
Hopefully these two stooges will bludgeon themselves both out of the race.
Have at it.
Then we will be mulling the options of Bachmann, Cain, Santorum...and Ron Paul
—They are money, money, money.—
Dan Rather would disagree. Money has a harder hurdle to jump in the internet. A message can go viral virtually, if not literally for free. No amount of money can compete sometimes.
We are living in a different world than in any election in history. Money still talks, but just nowhere near as loud as it once did.
“But wouldn’t it just be better to go after Cain?”
He knows that Herman does not have a gazillion dollars in campaign cash like Perry and is under the assumption that he can buy all the ad time he wants forcing Cain into oblivion. I guess he’s never read the David and Goliath story.
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