Karl Rove Approves of This Message (for Romney)
Posted on 04/04/2012 7:34:47 PM PDT by VinL
Coming off of his primary wins in liberal Maryland and DC and a relentlessly negative campaign in Wisconsin, Mitt Romney’s campaign has signaled to the other candidates for the Republican nomination for President that there will be no let-up in the negative tenor of his campaign going into Pennsylvania and the other spring primaries. Mitt Romney As Bloomberg’s Heidi Przybyla noted, the “defining feature of the 2012 Republican presidential primary race” has been Romney’s relentlessly negative campaign. According to Przybyla’s research, “Since the contests began, Restore Our Future has spent $35 million on commercials attacking Santorum and Newt Gingrich” and “just $1.1 million promoting Romney.”
According to Przybyla’s reporting, Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, Romney’s super PAC Restore Our Future aired 16 negative ads 41,612 times in GOP primary states such as Michigan, Florida and Colorado.
Romney’s negative ads, many of them factually questionable, have carpet bombed the conservatives in the race. As Romney has unleashed this wave of negativity, the campaigns of conservatives from Rick Perry, to Michele Bachmann, to Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich have withered, leaving Rick Santorum as the last conservative standing to bear the brunt of Romney’s attacks.
However, these attacks have done nothing to build support for Mitt Romney, especially among movement conservatives, and to the extent that Romney can claim front runner status it is because he has come to be seen as the “least worst” alternative by rank-and-file Republican primary voters.
Romney’s campaign has already made clear that it will employ the same hard-edged tactics that he used to crush Newt Gingrich in Florida and overtake Santorum in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin, to defeat Santorum in his home state of Pennsylvania.
Whether Romney’s slime machine campaign will work against Santorum in Pennsylvania remains to be seen – it didn’t work against Gingrich in his home state of Georgia where Newt buckled down and ran like he was running for county sheriff to neutralize the charge that he was an out of touch Washington insider.
Even if one accepts the fuzzy math that Romney claims puts him half way to the 1,144 delegates he needs to clinch the Republican nomination – and we don’t – his negative campaign has left him with a substantial enthusiasm deficit, and no real base upon which to mount a winning campaign against Barack Obama.
As long as Romney relies solely on negative advertising to tear down his more conservative Republican opponents, without making the positive case for his own bona fides to be the Republican standard-bearer, conservatives will have little reason to support him.
Given the huge hole that leaves in the Republican base, the other candidates should prepare to stay in the race all the way to Tampa, knowing that if Romney’s delegate count doesn’t give him the nomination on the first ballot, conservatives whom he has failed to convince during the primaries will continue to look for an alternative until the roll is called and the last vote is counted.
And what does Mark say after he gets done telling everyone how bad Romney is?
"We have to vote against Obama and for the Republican nominee."
I didn’t know we had a nominee yet. Until I have to chose the orange juice can, I am fighting against Milt.
“Why are people voting for this weenie?”
Which weenie, blue jeans/buttondown or sweatervest?
“Romney’s ads will play just fine against Obama.”
Establishment R’s don’t attack progressives. They attack conservatives.
“Do not fool yourself into thinking that Santorum and Newt wouldn’t have run vicious attack ads against Romney,...”
Mis Marple forgets it was Romney that fired the first shots back in December, and those ads were as close to outright fabrications as it gets.
Don’t try to excuse Romney of responsibilty for what he has done by saying Santorum and Gingrich WOULD have done it. That simply does not excuse what Romney ACTUALLY did to destroy party unity.
Karl Rove Approves of This Message (for Romney)
When did conservative become such crybabies?
It sounds like Romney doesn’t pull any punches. If he attacks Obama with anything like this kind of fervor, it should be interesting to see whether he can make a dent in the Messiah’s numbers. I’m a Santorum guy, but I’ve always been curious as to whether McCain could have won in 2008 if he (1) hadn’t signed on for Federal financing, thereby ensuring he would be outspent 3 to 1 and (2) had relentlessly attacked Obama for his radical connections, instead of holding back in the interest of an unfair and one-sided “civility”. I think there are two ways for Romney to get the base energized. One is to pick a conservative VP - Ryan, Rubio, Palin, Santorum or Gingrich would do it. Another is to pick a non-conservative, but go nuclear on Obama, the way he went after his opponents in the GOP primaries.
One thing’s for sure - whomever the nominee is, this cycle will be replete with Super PAC money ready to match Obama dollar for dollar in terms of negative ads. Can money parity alone win 2012 for the GOP? Given the lack of charisma among all the GOP candidates (with the exception of Cain), I think we’re about to find out.
I think you hit it on the head. In the deabtes, they all went after each other, which means they dont have a problem with negative. Just mad that Romney had more money. Im not going to play the class warfare game.
They are both politicians, so that would support it. They both went negative in the debates, which supports it as well.
Any pro-lifer who ever votes for Romney is a hypocrite.
Fine, live in the bubble. Everything you dont like is a lie, the people you dont like are lying, and your people dont lie.
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