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 ...
Another thing I’ve noticed about Romney that makes me uncomfortable....he mince-steps when he walks.
Yes Newt did respond, he just said that the details were at Newt.org. If you recalled he very clearly said that Romney had just lied 4 times. He also attacked Romney's deficient governorship.
Everything you asked for above was done by Newt.
"Romney can't tell the truth" is about the same as "You're a liar." Romney didn't rebut that charge! He just made up a few more false allegations, and faced similar knockdown. He accused Gingrich of making 1.6 million dollars, to which Gingrich asked about the gross income of Bain Capital. Romney's response was that question was irrelevant. The liar can't even frame and maintain an argument worth a darn!
Leep, By that description, I can see you have been there. Very good. Well put.
—If he had tried to get down in the weeds on those multitude of charges, it would have been impossible in a 60 second soundbite. He handled it correctly.—
Correct. He is remarkably good on his feet.
Nothing illegal about either one of their past jobs/income but Romeny sure doesn't come off looking any "cleaner" than Newt in the Freddie Mac area.
Romney just lost his attack talking points!
Great analogy!
If Mr. Romney brings that “resigned in disgrace” line up again, Mr. Gingrich can answer him with:
“People tell me that YOU, Governor Romney, “resigned in disgrace” from the Governorship of Massachusetts. You knew you couldn’t win reelection because your popularity had dropped to less than 40%. So you “moved on”, just as I did after Republican “big spenders” in the house formed an unholy alliance with the Democrat “big spenders”.”
“Which is more disgraceful? That my team of patriots brought the GOP to a majority position in the House? Or that your “big spending” ways nearly destroyed the Republican Party in Massachusetts?”
No, there isn't. Voting started on Saturday. Every day the message war is lost means lost votes. You're right that Newt should've pointed out that Romney was an unpopular one-term governor who declined to run again and lost a Senate race to Ted Kennedy by 17 points. All stuff he's mentioned before. It's funny that both Mitt and Newt seem to get overconfident and perform best when they're in the underdog position, and not so good when they're coming off a win. I thought Santorum had the best answer of the night. He clearly and cleanly laid out a good argument why he would be a better contrast to Obama than the other guys.
Did you see Drudge's story link???
No Ovations
Hey Drudge, could you be more misleading???
It's a tough deal when you have to fight the opposition as well as your own party.
Sounds like you have an aunt you don’t like very much. LOL
I do agree with you about the knowledge of the average voter. I’ve watched too many who didn’t know their current vice president when shown a picture.
However, those voters are purely poll driven when not yet involved in the election. So, with Newt up, then they go with the guy at the top.
Even in terms of Romney’s so-called advantage with absentee voters and early voting, Newt was up about the same time that voting began. I don’t think it’s a given that Florida absentees are going for Romney.
The only news at all about Romney the past 2 weeks has been about how badly he’s been doing and how well Gingrich has been doing.
Resignations seem to be something Sarah and Newt have in common....Sometimes it’s better to walk away from a loaded unfair fight, and be alive to fight another day.
Retreat, Reconnect and Reload
Hadn’t thought about that, LL.
Good point.
We should contact the Newt people when stuff like this happens. I’ll try to put this on the Contact Us email section on Newt.org.
Excellent point, hoosiermama. The unfair lawsuits against Palin would have bankrupted her, and there was no relief in Alaska law. She had to pay for them and not the state.
In Gingrich’s case, the deck was stacked given that the moderate republicans had joined with the liberals to attack their Speaker...one of their own.
I believe this group was led by Boehner and others. And we all know that Boehner is a pure, immovable fiscal conservative. /sarcasm
Yes, he can and has. Drudge = Coulter, they are a team and are out to destroy Newt. It was sickening on O'Reilly last night when O'Reilly told Coulter there was nothing new in the ABC ex-wife interview, and then Coulter claimed they had to bring it up in the debate because it was "on Drudge" and therefore was a big story. (barf)
YEAH! Newt quote form Fox and Friends this morning.
The biggest surprise in the debate: Gingrich was not asked about his personal transgressions, ...
.........................................................
I thought that was funny.
After seeing the ass whipping Newt gave in the last debate, no one wanted to face that.LOL
So far they are pointing out that Willard has 500,000 invested in F & F and that one of his bundlers was a lobbyist for F&F.....Better coming from the media then Newt having to appear defensive.
I’d like to know how Romney got IN the governor’s mansion in Massachusetts!
Last night I went around the web looking for something firm on the subject of Romney’s residence. There’s talk of him using a basement mailing address in MA for voting purposes, talk of a difference between tax return residence and voter registration residence...talk of him spending a great deal of time in CA where he bought a residence...likewise a residence in NH...and talk of not having met the residency requirement for the governorship...talk about — well, talk about nailing jello to the wall.
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