Posted on 01/27/2012 3:18:48 PM PST by Timber Rattler
We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.
We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this week’s tactics aren’t what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.
I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.
We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didn’t have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration “from the right” to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan, and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you won’t stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this “anti-Reagan” claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan. He actually was against the Reagan movement, donated to liberal candidates, and said he didn’t want to go back to the Reagan days. You can’t change history. We know that Newt Gingrich brought the Reagan Revolution into the 1990s. We know it because none other than Nancy Reagan herself announced this when she presented Newt with an award, telling us, “The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive.” As Rush and others pointed out, if Nancy Reagan had ever thought that Newt was in any way an opponent of her beloved husband, she would never have even appeared on a stage with him, let alone presented him with an award and said such kind things about him. Nor would Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, have chosen to endorse Newt in this primary race. There are no two greater keepers of the Reagan legacy than Nancy and Michael Reagan. What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stanlin-esque re-writing of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.
But this whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guard’s choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans “bitterly clinging” to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the “wisdom” of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 that didn’t win. Well, here’s a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.
I spoke up before the South Carolina primary to urge voters there to keep this primary going because I have great concern about the GOP establishment trying to anoint a candidate without the blessing of the grassroots and all the needed energy and resources we as commonsense constitutional conservatives could bring to the general election in order to defeat President Obama. Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this. Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps it’s possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romney’s conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up. And, trust me, during the general election, Governor Romney’s statements and record in the private sector will be relentlessly parsed over by the opposition in excruciating detail to frighten off swing voters. This is why we need a fair primary that is not prematurely cut short by the GOP establishment using Alinsky tactics to kneecap Governor Romney’s chief rival.
As I said in my speech in Iowa last September, the challenge of this election is not simply to replace President Obama. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with. It’s not enough to just change up the uniform. If we don’t change the team and the game plan, we won’t save our country. We truly need sudden and relentless reform in Washington to defend our republic, though it’s becoming clearer that the old guard wants anything but that. That is why we should all be concerned by the tactics employed by the establishment this week. We will not save our country by becoming like the left. And I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted. Oddly, they’re now using every available microscope and endoscope – along with rewriting history – in attempts to character assassinate anyone challenging their chosen one in their own party’s primary. So, one must ask, who are they really running against?
- Sarah Palin
“I’ll choose ABR...Anybody But Rino.”
Don’t forget ABO...
Sure, if the primary continues without someone having, essentially, clinched, there may be the opportunity for more "vetting" of Romney. There will also be the opportunity for more "vetting" of Gingrich.
Look:
Romney is on his second presidential primary campaign. He has gone through all the debates, including being subjected to Newt Gingrich in all those debates, and he has been talked about endlessly on talk radio, etc.
While it's true that the media has not put as much out on Romney as on Gingrich, that's partially precisely because Romney's dirt is as bland and as boring as the rest of him. Nothing can be done about that.
Moreover, Romney has always been viewed as a likeable guy. (And Newt, not so much.) Nothing can be done about that.
None of those things will change no matter how long the primaries goes on.
So, first, it's pretty hard to make the argument that Romney hasn't been vetted. He has been through the primary process just like everyone else and, guess what, he has a bunch of supporters who don't care what he's done in the past -- exactly like Newt Gingrich has a bunch of supporters who don't care what he's done in the past.
Secondly, what else can happen if the primaries continue? Newt and Romney will continue to throw mud at each other and the more likeable guy will likely come out on top.
Is this a reason to not fight for Florida? Of course not. But I just don't see this argument that Romney has "not yet been vetted" as creating a huge political opening for Gingrich. Again, primarily because, as much as Gingrich supporters say, "we don't care if his stuff stinks, we think he can beat Obama," Romney supporters are saying the same thing.
So more time for more stinky stuff to come out doesn't seem like The Answer Palin perhaps is trying to make it out to be.
So you're promoting violating election rules and fraud?
LOL. He// no. I’m laughing at you. Wrong on all counts. FR, led by Jim is all in for Newt Gingrich! You’re covered in mud and here you are back supporting the one you called a quitter!
I have listened to Rush since the third day that he went national.
I believe that at first, there were about 50,000 of us.
I firmly believe (and hope) that if Mitt Romney is forced upon us by the RINOCRAT PARTY, there will be a new, ACTUAL conservative party within 4 years
Unless of course someone wants to tell me HOW IN THE BLOODY HELL ROMNEY IS CONSERVATIVE!
One last point:
The continuation of a hotly contested primary would, in fact, accomplish some very important things so long as the contest was about who understood and committed to the conservative agenda to the greatest degree.
This goes for Romney and Gingrich. They both need to earn the nomination and understand very well that they owe us.
Or just remembers...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Ayk9G7-sc&feature=related
She's gone to the darkside! Stopped listening to her awhile back, she was hard to hear in the first place...whines like Paul...but she's now batting for the wrong side and making like she's innocent while doing so. She's after "theater" for herself. Time to dump her books maybe!
Where have you been. Newt did not start this class warfare. It started by Romney in Iowa and it cost Newt the State. Newt was ahead by far with his positive messages in Iowa until that barrage of shi! from leftest Romney. Newt then had to respond and did in SC. He won. They Romney flooded, for at least a month, Florida with lies and pure garbage. The Florida voters apparently believed it and say goodbye to Florida. Get with it.
Romney is not ata ll likeable. He comes off as a fake and liar. Usually because he is lying.
Sarah has not been around as long as I have. The GOP is notorious for forming their firing squads in a circle.
Romney has never been vetted, and the dirt on him is much more explosive.
The media will gut him like a fish.
The Mormonism cult alone, and the Romney 172 years of service to it will be enough to bury him.
A racist Church Bishop and teacher?
Nice, thanks for posting, Sarah nails it again.
Hmmmm...is Sarah running? And what part of her FB message do you disagree with?
I think most all of us agree. Maybe we could get a few hundred thousand FReepers to send her a short, quick note requesting she endorse Gingrich.
I sent her a note a few hours ago asking her to endorse Gingrich before the Florida primary.
Excellent.
GO NEWT GO......this is not just about picking a president, it’s about the very survival of our country!!
She’s not prohibited, she just doesn’t think its right to take sides in a primary, but I think your idea is terrific. If they did it I’d love to write Todd’s press releases.
I just turned on the TV and Fox was playing Romney-made/Romney-endorsed ads with Brokaw in the 90’s distorting the account of Newt’s ethics investigation OF WHICH HE WAS TOTALLY EXONERATED!!!!!!!
Romney is turning out to show that he is such a SCUM! I am SO disgusted and angry right now.
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