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Republican Lawmakers Say Romney Campaign Needs to Change Course (more reform, less vagueness)
The Hill.com ^ | 09/15/12 03:00 PM ET | Alexander Bolton

Posted on 09/16/2012 9:34:29 PM PDT by drewh

Republican lawmakers are grumbling about the direction of Mitt Romney’s campaign and say he needs to change course.

These Republicans said Romney should make a concise, bold promise to reform wasteful spending in Washington.

“He should say, ‘I will manage your money in Washington. I will eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Obama wants you to send more money so he can spend more money.’”

Another GOP lawmaker said the aura Romney’s advisers are trying to create around the candidate has muddled the most compelling rationale for his candidacy: he is a no-nonsense problem-solver who can turn the economy around.

“My advice is don’t try to turn him into something he’s not,” said the senator. You’re never going to turn him into a teddy bear.

“He needs to say if you elect me, this is what you’re going to get, someone who’s going to bring common sense to the White House,” he said.

Lawmakers spoke to The Hill about Romney’s campaign on background to avoid publicly criticizing their party’s nominee.

“One need not be overly specific but to rally the base and the American people there has to be some articulation of a vision of America in 2016,” said the aide. “Reagan was very clear.”

GOP senators by and large agree with conservative pundits who have criticized Romney’s communications strategy.

The Weekly Standard published an open letter to Romney from contributor Peter J. Hansen urging him to be more specific in his policy prescriptions. Conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch this week tweeted: “Romney must draw clear line: offer specific path to restore American dream versus ugly Obama class war with jobs disappearing.”


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: romney
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1 posted on 09/16/2012 9:34:34 PM PDT by drewh
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To: drewh

Who are these “Republican Lawmakers”. Just give their names, because if it’s McCain or Brown, we respectfully won’t take the advice of RINOS.


2 posted on 09/16/2012 9:36:30 PM PDT by Viennacon
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To: drewh

Romney is doing better than the +10 Dem sampled polls say. But true he needs to provide something other than “not Obama”.


3 posted on 09/16/2012 9:36:34 PM PDT by TigerClaws
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To: TigerClaws

2012, the election year that stinks! My tagline....wish it was positive.


4 posted on 09/16/2012 9:41:15 PM PDT by yield 2 the right (2012, the election year that stinks!)
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To: yield 2 the right

Good tagline. Pathetic election season.


5 posted on 09/16/2012 9:45:13 PM PDT by toddausauras (FUBO x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000)
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To: drewh
Gee, Romney Inc. ran a scorched-earth neutron-bomb style campaign against his conservative opponents in the Republican primaries, and now he's gone all Marquis of Queensbury in the general election. What does that tell you?

(If you've got half a brain, it tells you that the man has no interest in promoting conservative ideals. He's a moderate squish who views Obama as a colleague and conservatives as the real enemy--just like the rest of the GOP-e.)
6 posted on 09/16/2012 9:47:48 PM PDT by Antoninus (Sorry, gone rogue.)
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To: drewh

It appears Romney’s achilles heel is his McCain style campaign approach.


7 posted on 09/16/2012 9:52:06 PM PDT by VideoDoctor
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To: drewh

Wow, the lamestream media is releasing all of these same stories AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. What a coincidence!


8 posted on 09/16/2012 9:53:31 PM PDT by Arthurio
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To: yield 2 the right

I would say 2008 was the election year that REALLY stank. McCain vs Obama with all the winds against us. It was miserable. Besides the spark of Palin on the campaign trail, I can’t imagine a more disastrous campaign season for conservatives.

Most of us can find many faults with Romney in terms of his conservative credentials, but all in all, this is a much better election cycle than the last. We have many winds at our back, a great VP pick (again), a potential majority Senate and House, and an unpopular Democrat incumbent (vs an unpopular Republican term-limited). We just need our nominee to get back on track and finish strong, and we have the potential to do some real good things in 2013.


9 posted on 09/16/2012 9:54:23 PM PDT by ilgipper
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To: drewh

Do we still believe the old bipartisan tradition that politics stops at the US shore in an overseas crisis?


10 posted on 09/16/2012 10:02:01 PM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: drewh
"I will eliminate waste, fraud and abuse."

That's the ticket. It's so novel, new and never heard before...

What I and many others want to hear is not how Romney is going nibble around the edges. Tell us how you're going to shrink fedzilla by 50% or more. Take it back to the Clinton size that lefties always moan and squeal about.

11 posted on 09/16/2012 10:02:21 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: TigerClaws

If this was 1996 and Clinton was the democrat incumbent I would agree.

But it’s not.

If Romney is not at least 10% ahead of Obama he’s NOT doing good. Sorry. This is a NO BRAINER.


12 posted on 09/16/2012 10:10:42 PM PDT by tsowellfan (Obama blaming Freedom of Speech for Al Qaeda attack on Embassies in Libya and Egypt on Sept 11)
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To: gleeaikin
Do we still believe the old bipartisan tradition that politics stops at the US shore in an overseas crisis?

Did Obama and the Democrats believe it when they campaigned against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, against Gitmo, against interrogating terrorists, and still continue to bash Bush for the decisions he made during those wars? I don't believe in not criticizing people when they make bad decisions, period. And the Democrats believe in criticizing anybody at any time if they can spin it to their political advantage.

13 posted on 09/16/2012 10:22:18 PM PDT by JediJones (KARL ROVE: "And remember, this year, no one is seriously talking about ending abortion.")
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To: gleeaikin

Not anymore. Politics used to stop at the shore, until over 50% of the population was bought off increasingly with government checks full of other people’s money. We are a nation of hustlers I fear, trading our vote for filling our wallet.

These bad financial times go hand in hand to seal in tyranny, by paying off treacherous voters.


14 posted on 09/16/2012 10:25:14 PM PDT by RitaOK
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To: Viennacon
Who are these “Republican Lawmakers”. Just give their names, because if it’s McCain or Brown, we respectfully won’t take the advice of RINOS.

How about thinking for yourself and realizing that whoever these lawmakers are, they're obviously right? Or you could look to the Wall Street Journal, who spent just about the full hour on their Fox News show this weekend tearing the Romney campaign to shreds in very harsh, almost mocking terms. But not happily, clearly out of disappointment and frustration, because they don't want Obama to be reelected. They agree the convention was a failure just like I posted here right after the RNC ended, that the DNC would easily be able to top what Romney did there in terms of appealing to voters and end up getting the bounce in the polls.

15 posted on 09/16/2012 10:29:01 PM PDT by JediJones (KARL ROVE: "And remember, this year, no one is seriously talking about ending abortion.")
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

The “abuse” should be defined as the seizure by force of what’s taken out of my paycheck every week.


16 posted on 09/16/2012 10:36:29 PM PDT by JediJones (KARL ROVE: "And remember, this year, no one is seriously talking about ending abortion.")
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To: RitaOK

That 50% figure (or 47%) is false, it includes all the social security people who were the most anti-Obama voting age group, the military, military retirees, and others who’s checks are signed by uncle Sam.


17 posted on 09/16/2012 11:08:43 PM PDT by ansel12
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To: Viennacon

If Romney didn’t ask them for advise, they are just flapping their gums to hear themselves talk...and get their name in the paper....The one’s I really love are when the democrats give republicans advise. They are bigger jokes than republicans that do it...


18 posted on 09/17/2012 12:36:10 AM PDT by goat granny
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To: drewh
This is is the third article I have read this morning (German time) from a third left-wing source describing the alleged "disarray" in the Romney campaign, the other two coming to the New York Times and Politico.

Not one of these articles is specific and all of them assume that there is a problem without proving it. Much of the assumption is based on a superficial analysis of the polls which, when adjusted for elimination of polls of registered rather than likely voters and when adjusted by elimination of those polls which exaggerate Democrat voters, Romney is running even or just below even.

The problem for Romney is that the breakdown of the 2008 electoral college map when transposed onto this cycle means that Romney must essentially run the table and win the preponderance of the swing states. In point of fact, he had been making progress to close his deficiencies in these key states but that seems to have stalled-according to the only pollster worth listening to at this point, Rasmussen.

This article suggests that Romney's malaise, if you will, comes from a lack of particularity in his position papers but I think it comes from a lack of punch in his bumper stickers. Consider Newt Gingrich, he encapsulates the point in a phrase, "the food stamp president vs. the paycheck president."

That is what sways voters, not position papers. Romney should hire a staff of comedy writers and jingle writers from Madison Avenue to encapsulate his positions and to satirize Obama-all to be overseen by Newt Gingrich.


19 posted on 09/17/2012 1:01:44 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: Antoninus

And so it goes. Romney follows in the footsteps of Bob Dole and John Mc Cain as the men who sought only the nomination. Only this time, Romney’s loss spells the end of the GOP. If 0bambi isn’t beaten, Romney and the rest of the RINOs can blame everyone and everything they want. But first, they’ll have to take a good look into the mirror.

Personally, I think that Romney knows he cannot govern a country that has gone past the point of no return, economically. We are Greece.


20 posted on 09/17/2012 1:08:43 AM PDT by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners)
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