Posted on 01/24/2012 5:55:37 AM PST by xzins
Are we watching the meltdown of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney?
Fending off pointed attacks by fellow GOP candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum ... Romney looked ...flustered, stiff, and at times just babbled
In comparison, Gingrich looked like he still had all the momentum from Saturday’s South Carolina primary win. He calmly answered questions ...(snip)
The biggest surprise in the debate: Gingrich was not asked about his personal transgressions, ...
...After his 12-point South Carolina win, Gingrich has surged ahead in the Florida polls, leading 41% to the former Massachusetts governor's 32%.
Still, Romney does expected to win Florida. Almost 200,000 absentee ballots have already been cast in the state... favor Romney. ...
But as Gingrich showed ... debate very much matters.
One point Gingrich hammered Romney on was his tax rate. Gingrich forced Romney to announce that he will release his tax records on Tuesday. ...He reaps millions of dollars a year from his former work at Bain Capital, though, maintains a low tax bracket. Gingrich in comparison pays a 31% tax rate.
Romney blasted Gingrich for his work at mortgage giant Freddie Mac, but ignored his own financial links to the organization.
...snip...Romney, though, had as much as $500,000 invested in Freddie Mac. All GOP candidates have blamed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for contributing to the housing crisis that helped to drag the nation into the Great Recession.
Ahead of next week’s Florida primary, Gingrich looks like he is gaining incredible steam. Romney — shell-shocked ...— looks like he’s out of answers.
And it might be a two-man race soon. In Florida, Rick Santorum is currently polling 11% ...
Monday’s debate turned out to be the slug fest most pundits thought it would be, with Gingrich the last man standing.
(Excerpt) Read more at policymic.com ...
Speaking of robots, R2D2 has more of a likeability factor than Mitt.
A lot of that was intentional. Newt used a prevent defense, scored some himself, and deflected any passes by his opponents.
I think it Newt won by his opponents not winning.
If this charge came from someone with any degree of credibility, it might have more effect. But coming from Romney, it will have no effect whatever. It won’t slow Newt down or deflect him from his course, and it is unlikely to change anyone’s mind.
On the other hand it does make Romney look even smaller and pettier than before, if that’s possible. I didn’t see the debate but I have seen Romney leveling charges at Newt in other recent fora, and he looks like a ninth grade weenie who has been turned down for a date by a girl who is going out with his best friend instead.
IOW, like a loser with a big “L” tattooed on his forehead.
What I noticed about the debate is that there were four people present, but only two were given full opportunity to participate. Of those two, I saw a lot of sniping and very little substance.
The morning takeaway from the anti-Newt crowd seems to be that unlike Carolina, he couldn’t generate enough red meat to evoke applause from the audience.
Of course, they fail to mention the audience was told several times they would be removed if they responded to the candidates.
There's much time to counter that jab. Like maybe how come Romney isn't still governor of Mass? Don't misunderestimate Newt. He's in the zone right now.
The point of this debate was to try to get Newt angry after unloading all the dirt on him. Angry Newt would just scare the folks.
Very poorly run, which is I am sure what NBC wanted so that no one could watch the thing.
And telling the audience that they can't react? What kind of audience agrees that a couple of media interns get to dictate their reaction?
Suckfest all the way around.
Newt has another debate to remedy the deficiency that you see. Romney, however, failed to name names while Newt did (which Congressmen did Newt approach, Romney?), so Romney came off as making unsubstantiated accusations.
I agree with you that many, if not most of the viewers are ignorant. Absent being spoon fed a rebuttal, they'll have to go with their gut, if they are choosing between Romney and Newt. In other words, to those people, the facts really don't matter at all - all that matters is their impression.
Disgrace? Newt helped bring about a republican surge for America and it continued after he was was shown the door. Hastert didn’t have newts fight or vision. Romney’s term as governor ended a long republican trend in MA, again no fight or vision.
Yeah, I realize NBCs Brian Williams is to blame, but so is Newt and the audience for playing along with that charade. If Newt were on his game, he could have overwhelmed Williams and the crowd would have been with him.
But in fairness, no one is on their A game every day.
Last night was as exhausting as visiting a boring old aunt who keeps the thermostat set on 90. She tells you a story about her cat that died several years ago for the tenth time as she serves you warm lemonaid in what appears to be dirty glasses.
You can’t wait to get outta there.
My recollection is that he briefly recounted his rationale for resigning his post; and that rationale was not one that amounts to a disgraceful reason.
I disagree. If your opponent launches an attack on you that is impossible for you to defend against, then by definition you’ve lost. Newt needs to look back to why he lost Iowa, because he’s going down the same path.
There are two ways to answer those attacks, disprove the claims, or simply say that’s not true and then spin it around to launch a series of attacks back at Romney. There were openings to attack Romney on his governorship and on his tenure at Bain Capital to spin the focus back on him and Newt didn’t take them. “I’m going to stay positive and not attack Governor Romney” is what lost in Iowa. Newt can’t unilaterally disengage from the fight. At this point attacking Romney serves as a demonstration to the voters of how he will attack Obama and that’s what voters want to see.
He didn't disengage.
I will not chase Romney's misinformation. He just said about four things that were false and you can check on my website. This is the worst kind of trivial politics. We have an ad where Huckabee and McCain talk about how Romney can't tell the truth. ...Wait a second, he just went on and on and on. He is a terrible historian. The vote on the ethics committee was in January 1997 and I asked the Republicans to vote YES to get it behind us. We took control of the House in 40 years and the Democrats were bitter. The only thing we did wrong was that I didn't pay one fine but then I paid it and I wanted it behind us. We had four balanced budgets after that vote. You ought to do is stop and look at those facts. We won the House for the third time in 1998 but the margin was not big enough. In 2006 when you chaired the Governor's association we lost governorship so as a party builder I have the record and you don't.
You know it’s not so, I know it’s not so. For reasons I am sure I need not explain to a fellow freeper (ie, a well-informed conservative), I do not have much confidence in the political IQ of the average FL voter.
However, there’s still a week to deal with it. Romney took Newt down in the polls before and must not be given any elbow room to do it again.
Sure we’ll see some voting shenanigans in favor of Romney.
I’d just rather Newt had taken the charges and crammed them up Romney’s fundamental orifice.
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