utterly FAILED in the debate and came off quite small,
petty and nasty.
Rumor is that RNME and Soros are assembling a Romney 9.0.
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 ...
here’s the money quote
“Romney, though, had as much as $500,000 invested in Freddie Mac”
ROFL
Obama won.
He’s President, and no one bothered to mention him hardly.
I'm not surprised. The mainstream media reporters are a bunch of chihuahuas who are not used to people who bite back. They're not going to take the risk until they figure out how to do it and make Newt look bad instead of embarrassing themselves.
I agree that Obama did not directly come up.
However, since Romney is Obama-lite, Obama was right in the thick of it.
I have viewed each debate as “the big dog with the little dogs nipping at his heals”.
Normally it’s been Romney as the big dog and all the others as nipping at him.
Last night was as significant change, Newt was the big dog and the others nipping at his heals.
I believe it’s much more effective when talking about what the candidate WOULD do, not like Santorium: I did, I did, I did......
It is certainly getting interesting!!!
GO REPUBS!
PS: can anyone tell me (as I’ve missed it) did Santorium actually sandbag Michele Bachman in Iowa and what happened?
In addition to Romney’s personal 500,000, I wonder how much Bain had invested in Freddie/Fannie?
This proves somewhat that objecting to the premises of silly and inconsequential debate questions cowers the questioners themselves.
No one wanted to tee Newt up last night.
I don’t agree Romney babbled, but I think he tired out. On the last question about conservatism he seemed to be falling asleep. I credit Brian Williams for inducing narcolepsy.
Rumor is that RNME and Soros are assembling a Romney 9.0.
I’m solidly in the Newtist camp but he struck out last night.
He’s in FL for heaven’s sake, doesn’t he know that many older voters — and many ARE older — don’t use computers? They just watch the tv. Referring them to his website is worse than useless. He had the audience right there, that was the time to answer the question and trounce Romney for saying “resigned in disgrace” over and over and over again. :(
Many younger voters too, insofar as they bother to vote, are too busy to check out his website and explore the tedious cuneiform records of the 1990’s.
Nobody, but nobody, tuned in to obtain a link to a website.
And what answers he gave on the spot were spotty.
Newt was the poll leader last night, so all were nipping at him. I thought his calm answers were superb. I thought his deflection of terribly complicated issues of ethics charges and his speakership was right on target.
It simply isn’t possible to explain 7 dozen partisan charges in one sound bite, other than to say that Romney lies and here’s the documentation at Newt.org.
The moderators intentionally took the crowd out of the debate, so I think being the good debater he is, Newt evaluated the situation and answered differently than he would have had he been able to get a crowd boost.
That’s the sign of an experienced debater.
I disagree, LL. I think he did exactly what needed to be done.
There were some 7 dozen charges, and it’s impossible to deal with all that in one sound bite EXCEPT to say that Romney lies, which he said, and here’s the truth of a complicated subject at newt.org
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.
Romney accomplished his mission. He put the words “resigned in disgrace” in people’s heads.
Gingrich did nothing to remove it. “Resigned in disgrace” is not a label you can flick off your sleeve.
It was a dud. The audience was asleep because it was an anticlimax to the SC debate. I hope the next one is better.
Yeah, Brian Williams did a GREAT job of making sure the debate was about personal attacks, and not the issues. He sprinkled two or three issue questions in there, but generally, just let Romney and Gingrich spar.
Again, I disagree.
“Resigned in disgrace” is obviously not so, since Newt Gingrich is standing there the winner of the S Carolina debate.
He did not resign in disgrace, he resigned as part of political gamesmanship and a group of near-sighted republicans.
Now, is it best to get in the weeds defending your speakership, or is it best to deflect it and respond via education?
I choose the latter in THIS case.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.