Very interesting responses. I was expecting this of Newt, since it has been his history. I’m not going to say anything negative about him personally, but here’s what I think he should have done regarding Romney’s attacks on him.
If it were me, I would have stuck to my ideas, and my solutions as much as possible. Here’s who we are, here’s where we are, this is where we are going, but this is where we need to go, and this is how my administration will move us in that positive direction.
My opponent is trying to drag me into the mud, be we as a nation do not have time to wallow in the mud. What my opponent has said about me is false, and rather than be distracted by his desperate attempts to derail me, I am going to focus on returning our country to the free country our founders intended her to be.
Essentially, defend himself by denying the accusations, but do not attempt to destroy the accuser, because that causes one to become distracted bloodied, angry. Furthermore, disregarding one’s personal feelings about Romney, do not attempt to destory him, because he may well in fact be the nominee, and we do not need a circular firing squad here. yes, I know that sucks , but it may indeed be a reality.
I think Newt has made a tactical error here in allowing Romney to pull him into the mud.
>> I think Newt has made a tactical error here in allowing Romney to pull him into the mud <<
Agreed. But I think Newt’s past history of histronics and hysteria had made the error altogether unsurprising.
Moreover, Romney’s political operatives, led by the always crafty Stuart Stevens, are probably the best since Lee Atwater at behind-the-scenes tricks — “dirty” or otherwise. I’ll bet they were confident they could bait Newt into committing political seppaku, even if they didn’t know exactly how, when or where the inevitable explosion would eventually occur.
So the kind of cool, calm, collected and rational reponse outlined in your very sensible post was never a high probability outcome. It was probably about as likely as would be Ron Paul’s asking Ben Bernanke to be his running mate!