Posted on 01/02/2012 8:06:07 PM PST by Mariner
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (AP) - Struggling to reverse a slide in his standing, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich said Sunday he'd been "Romney-boated" in Iowa and suggested his GOP rival would buy the presidency if he could.
The sharp words against Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire many times over who is in strong contention to win Iowa, come two days before voters here weigh in on the Republican field. It was part of a stepped-up effort by Gingrich to contrast himself with Romney, and the candidate said he would adopt an even more aggressive strategy when the race moves to New Hampshire, the former Massachusetts governor's backyard.
Gingrich's nautical attack was a reference to a 2004 TV ad campaign by a group called the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth" that bloodied Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. This year, Gingrich has faced an onslaught of negative TV advertisements by a group aligned with Romney.
Asked Sunday whether he felt that he had been "swiftboated," Gingrich replied, "I feel Romney-boated."
It was his second swipe of the day at the Republican frontrunner.
Speaking to reporters after attending morning Mass at the St. Ambrose Cathedral in Des Moines, Gingrich said the amount Romney will eventually spend on his various campaigns will rival the spending of billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has poured at least $261 million of his own money into his mayoral campaigns.
"Romney would buy the election if he could," Gingrich said.
A new Des Moines Register poll put Gingrich in fourth place, after leading the field a few weeks ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at siouxcityjournal.com ...
The denizens of Romneyland know this all too well.
Worse, it takes lots of money to be negative. Lots.
Any and every candidate that surpasses Romney in the opinion polls gets their character assassinated.
Coincidence?
I think not.
Romney is running the most negative primary in the history of the GOP and must be defeated by any means necessary.
Romney-boat establishment types for lies!
Santorum is next. Funny how Willard plays it dirty every contest he’s in despite a win/lost record of a pathetic 5-17 for the magic Mormon.
Nevertheless, Newt will SOON open up a can of payback in SC & FL.
I sure hope so. GO NEWT!
Newt said sitting on the couch with Nazi was a dumb thing to do. So was trying to run a positive campaign when nobody else is reciprocating. Hopefully he has now woken up from that Kool Aid and will come out swinging.
Actually, so-called “Swiftboating” was about exposing John Vichy Kerry and telling truth and FACTS about Kerry.
While there may be something to “one person’s negative campaigning is another person’s fact-checking” distinctions must be made between genuine information of importance and interest to voters and mere “smear” attacks (however hard to define impartially).
I vehemently reject all attempts to use the “*****-boating” expression to compare any negative campaigning with what happened in 2004.
In 2004 the country was saved from the lies of the progressive left, and that involved the “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” exposing John Kerry.
No conservative should allow the media theme of “****-boating” to be a generic term for “unjustified negative campaigning.”
I’m not sure comparing himself to John Kerry is a good thing for Newt Gingrich to be doing, especially since he had that disastrous “debate” where he esstentially agreed with Kerry about Global Warming and how we needed to stop it.
And is Gingrich saying he disapproved of the swift boat veteran’s pointing out John Kerry’s record? Is he telling us he thought the Swift-Boating was false?
I agree.
Off limits.
Bad Newt.
of course it was the reporter who framed the question that way, and Newt found it hard to resist a juicy soundbite....
but I do think it is always important for conservative candidates and speakers to think about and challenge the media “memes” such as “Swiftboating was about unfair negative attacks”
Etiam non princeps sed usque ad genua, Principis Pacis!
Etiam non princeps sed usque ad genua, Principis Pacis!
Unlike most other politicians, he was man enough to admit he screwed up. Far be it for some FReepers to recognize this though. Their mantra will continue on until the 2016 election.
My feelings exactly.
Yes, exactly, I think Newt really stepped in it here.
He showed himself more comfortable with the MSM ill portrayals of the 2004 campaign than with questioning it.
Granted, it’s hard to educate anyone in our sound-bite culture, but Newt prides himself on being a substance-guy and should not have accepted the “frame” of that question. He took the easy path because it served his immediate political need, when he should have objected to the term “Swiftboating”....
I agree 100%. Newt was caught off guard, but I wish he would have clarified his comment.
When Mitt isn't going after Newt, I guess Admiral Yamamoto’s grandson is.
If he expects to hold onto people like me who aren’t that crazy about his candidacy anyway, Newt needs to get off the pity-pot and quit whining.
Comparing himself to John Kerry in any way is not the image he wants to project.
Newt using this rhetorical device of the left, show once again he is a creature of Washington. Unless Newt is trying to say that Romney is spreading the truth about him? After all Swift Boat Veterans for Truth told the truth about Kerry.
Of course, Newt making class warfare claims like Romney is trying to buy the nomination is further evidence that his instincts are now DC instincts and he can not be trusted to be conservative.
Jim O Neil and fellow SBV officers killed Kerry’s claims of being a war hero with true facts about Kerry’s ‘service’ (I sent the SBVFTers $100 myself) and Kerry could only respond to them by repeating ‘stop the lies’ not debunking any of the facts,
For the record, ‘Swift-boating’ is a liberal term made up by Democrats used to smear Jim O Neill and his fellow officers for telling the truth. Newt’s choice of words is very revealing..
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