Romney frets Gingrich's attacks could deflate win

Washington Examiner ^ | January 30, 2012 | Paul Bedard

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Confident of victory in the Florida primaries tomorrow but afraid it might not be big enough to derail challenger Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney's team is moving to play down talk he will win by 10 points or more. "The win will wind up big, but we're not going to get double digits," said a key advisor.

Several polls today have Romney's lead increasing to a Real Clear Politics average of 12 percent. Only three of nine of the most recent polls have Romney's lead in single numbers, with the highest being a 20 point lead in a Suffolk University poll released over the weekend.

What's driving the Romney team to downplay expectations are indications that the nasty campaign is angering voters and might put the brakes on the surge of Romney voters to the polls. "Romney's message is clearly resonating in Florida, but the race has been very fluid and Gingrich's negativity is bringing the discourse down," said the advisor. As a result, he added, the vote could be depressed.

[Michael Barnes]

Newt needs to hammer that home...I can almost hear him saying in rebuttal at a debate:

"You know, my opponent here is using more smears based on lies to attack me, yet he won't call his buddy Obama what he is, a socialist based on the teaching of Saul Alinsky. Who's side are you on Mitt?"

[Tennessee Nana]

From an exmo website..

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,403801

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/mitt-romney-2012-2/

The article starts this way, and it reminds me of so many Mormon men I’ve known:

>I asked a captain of American finance what he had made of Mitt Romney when they were young colleagues at Bain & Company. “Mitt was a nice guy, a smart businessman, and an excellent team player,” he ­responded without missing a beat. Then came the CEO’s one footnote, delivered with bemusement, not pique: “Still, whenever the rest of us would go out at the end of the day, we’d always find ourselves having the same conversation: None of us had any idea who this guy was.”<

Then there was this nugget, reminding me of my own father:

>...Romney reminded him of the “dad who’s never home.”<

A few other tidbits:

>And yet Romney is in some ways more exotic and more removed from “real America” than Obama ever was, his gleaming white camouflage notwithstanding. Romney is white, all right, but he’s a white shadow.<

>“A wall. A shell. A mask,” they write at the outset, listing the terms used by many who “have known or worked with Romney” and view him as “a man who sometimes seems to be looking not into your eyes but past them.”<

>During his one term as governor of Massachusetts, Romney was inaccessible to legislators, with ropes and elevator settings often restricting access to his suite of offices. He was notorious, one lawmaker explained, for having “no idea what our names were—none.”<

>Mitt’s “main cause appeared to be himself.”<

>But Romney is even less forthcoming about his religion than he is about his tax returns.<

>In the current campaign, Romney makes frequent reference to faith, God, and his fierce loyalty to “the same church.” But whether in debates, or in the acres of official material on his campaign website, or in a flyer pitched at religious voters in South Carolina, he never names what that faith or church is. In Romneyland, Mormonism is the religion that dare not speak its name. Which leaves him unable to talk about the very subject he seems to care about most, a lifelong source of spiritual, familial, and intellectual sustenance. We’re used to politicians who camouflage their real views about issues, or who practice fraud in their backroom financial and political deal-making, but this is something else. Romney’s very public persona feels like a hoax because it has been so elaborately contrived to keep his core identity under wraps.<

>The answers to questions about Romney’s career as a lay church official may tell us more about who he is than his record at Bain, his sparse tenure as governor, or his tax returns.<

>The questions are not theological. Nor are they about polygamy, the scandalous credo that earlier Romneys practiced even after the church banned it in 1890. Rather, the questions are about the Mormon church’s political actions during Mitt Romney’s lifetime—and about what role Romney, as both a leader and major donor, might have played or is still playing in those actions. To ask these questions is not to be a religious bigot but to vet a candidate for the nation’s highest job. Given how often Romney himself cites his faith as a defining force in his life, voters have a right to know what role he played when his faith intersected with the secular lives of his fellow citizens.<

>...we know that Romney’s faith has contributed to his self-segregation from the actual “real streets of America.” His closest circle comes from within his faith, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, the fact remains that today the American Mormon population is still only 1 percent black. (Those recent television promo spots marketing LDS as a fount of diversity are a smoke screen.)<

>When he’s forced to interact with the America beyond his hermetically sealed Mormon orbit, we get instant YouTube classics like his attempt to get down and rap with black voters on Martin Luther King Day four years ago by quoting “Who Let the Dogs Out?”<

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Mitt Romney's real record in Massachusetts [1:39 video]

[RedMDer]

Click


GO NEWT!
GO FREE REPUBLIC!!!
Newt Gingrich @ The Villages in Florida Sunday January 29 2012
In 1980 we were involved in a campaign like this and it was clear that we needed a conservative that was a long way from Jimmy Carter in order to win because you had to show the difference.
And I would argue, we tried a moderate in 1996 and we couldn’t show the difference.
We tried a moderate in 2008 and we couldn’t show the difference.
If we are going to beat Obama, he’s going to have a Billion dollars and almost all of it will be used negatively because he doesn’t have any posistive record to run on.
So he’s gone from yes-we-can to why-we-couldn’t as his theme. So we need to have someone that can show a sharp distinction.
ObamaCare and RomneyCare are about this far apart (shows about one inch.) you can’t make the difference.
Where we are as Conservatives is about this far apart. Obama will not be able to hide from the difference...

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-—Romney team has a helluva lot of nerve attacking Newt as making the campaign negative. Is there any lie these people won’t tell?-—

Still,thinking.

And yet, Obama is “in over his head.” No, he’s a bleeding Marxist.

[onyx]

PREFECT ©

[onyx]

Right! I think he has said that, but it would be a good line at the next debate.

[manc]

No support, no money no votes from me if Romney gets the nomination.
He is no different from obama, he has never done anything for the conservative cause and you can bet the establishment thinks that they will get us to vote by doing this.

Coming on here now after the election and saying we must unite to beat obama, nah not going to work.

Then talking heads will say we have to put differences aside otherwise staying at home will mean obama wins.
nah not going to work.

Then they will say we’ll put more of a conservative on the VP ticket to get you out to vote, nah not going to work

You know why it will not work now, because they attacked us, they did not let us pick our, yes OUR not their CANDIDATE.
They went all out attacking Newt and others who were in the race and they have done this time and time again.

Well I couldn’t careless what they say or do or how many times the Romney trolls on here say obama will win if you stay at home because obama is Romney and Romney is obama.

The establishment, Coulter, Drudge, FOX etc have all gone too far now, they have shot themselves in the foot and when it comes to swing states like mine they will need the base and every vote and without my state the establishment loses the election

[llandres]

Bfl

[Belteshazzar]

Nice.

[MachIV]

Poll numbers give Romney a measley 1 point advantage over Obama. I figure that razor thin edge will probably doom Romney for sure. I suspect there are plenty of Tea Party/Conservative voters who are so ticked off at the RINOs that 3rd party siphoning will spell certain defeat for him in November. GOP implosion will probably be imminent at that point. By the time the primaries get to my state, I suspect only Ron Paul will be on the ballot as an alternative. I will remain registered as a GOPer(if it still exists after this election), but I suspect I’ll be voting 3rd party at the federal level for the 1st time in my life more and more.

[onyx]

I concur with your every word.

They have all gone too far.

There will be NO uniting behind a Romney nominee.

The GOP can GTH with Romney, “if” he prevails.

His big money, scorched earth, versus Newt Gingrich’s conservative ideas and solutions is a no brainer for us, but if voters go for Romney, then so be it.

GTH Romney and take the GOP with ya.

[Political Junkie Too]

...Gingrich's negativity is bringing the discourse down,"

In other words, just lie back and enjoy it.

-PJ

[DarthVader]

The Bondi Traitor Effect is coming back in Myth’s face.

[Thane_Banquo]

We have Flip Romney on the run. Keep pressing the advantage!

[ansel12]

Burn the house down.

With Romney, they have gone too far, stopping him is a very important goal for conservatives.

With Romney as head of the party, and fear in the hearts of elected Republicans who saw him and the Rove/Rockefeller machine defeat the insurgency, then we will suffer a massive set back, and will lose almost all of our office holding allies.

[World'sGoneInsane]

"Newt's negativity?" How stupid do they think the people are, they have been subjected to Romney ads, what 5:1? Oh yes, at the same time Mitt was slamming Newt in Naples yesterday for complaining. Even Romney's wife looked uncomfortable on stage.

As much as they and the media tried to downplay Newt's win in SC, they must still be hearing that little voice saying, "South Carolina picks presidents."

[LibLieSlayer]

If you Floridians vote for mitt, I will NEVER set foot in your state again... and I come there quite often.

LLS

[CASchack]

I agree with your sentiments.

Willard is on Hannity right now, claiming that he’s never attacked Newt personally!

He also claimed to be conservative. What a liar!

If the nominee is Willard, I walk.

[absalom01]

Exactly. The Newt tide is coming in, and Romney's team is about to go into high-spin mode; the Florida race that was supposed to be Romney walk in the park is turning into a rout. It's going to be a close run thing tomorrow.