Newt Gingrich appeared on the Mark Levin Show last night to address a variety of issues. Levin has been pretty harsh towards Newt at times in the past. Thanks to The Right Scoop for the audio:
I find it very interesting that while Gingrich is more than willing to go on shows where he will be challenged, such as Fox News Center Seat, Mitt Romney has stayed away from situations where he can be questioned. As reported by The Boston Globe:
Mitt Romney has not appeared on a Sunday news program in 20 months. He has held only a handful of events in recent weeks at which the public was allowed to ask questions….
While Romney has participated in nine presidential debates and nearly 20 town hall meetings, he has stayed away from traditional campaign settings such as Sunday talk shows and avoided extended interviews with much of the national media. Instead, the campaign has sought to control its message and reach targeted audiences by using social media tools such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. The strategy is designed in part to lower the odds that Romney will make the kind of gaffes that have subsumed the campaigns of other candidates.
Had any other presidential candidate pulled Romney’s hiding act, that candidate would be skewered. (As Sarah Palin was for the past three years by people who now are Romney supporters, even though she was not running for President.)
As I pointed out in my post yesterday, Romney is not being scrutinized or challenged by the media during the primaries.
We are in the absurd position that the one candidate who most needs testing because he is the most likely nominee is the one candidate the media ignores as it devours his opponents. Buyer beware, we are being fed a false narrative of Romney electability.
I also pointed to a Chicago Sun-Times article arguing that when Romney was at Bain he used a “plunder” strategy for a number of companies. This is a theme Ted Kennedy used against Romney quite successfully. While new-found Romney supporters like Ann Coulter claim Romney came close to defeating Kennedy, in fact Romney was trounced because the anti-Bain theme worked.
Here’s an apparently unaired anti-Romney television ad which reflects the theme used by Kennedy to defeat Romney, and which will be used the Democrats in 2012:
Yet none of this Bain history has been examined so far in the primaries. The media has taken to digging up rocks to find dirt on Rick Perry, shaking complainers out of the trees against Herman Cain, and trying to sully Newt with innuendos about his consulting business, but Romney remains unexamined.
It’s not that the media hasn’t done it’s job; it’s doing its job of electing Obama quite well by holding its fire on Romney until it is too late for Republicans. Major Republican and conservative journals that support Romney are equally complicit, as it is in their candidate’s interest to portray everyone but Romney as unelectable.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure that the other Republican candidates have the resources to do it, but you can bet the Obama campaign does and has.
To nominate Mitt Romney without a thorough vetting in the primaries will result in a general election disaster.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Governor Perry is the only one that has even tried, but then he ended up having to fight off the attacks of other “conservatives,” even for doin exactly what you are suggesting. The “Rick Perry is mean” theme started getting a lot of play.
I was tweeting that thought last week.
https://twitter.com/#!/votermom/status/135022669912477697
https://twitter.com/#!/votermom/status/135017594838196224
Coulter says Romney is magnificent so there it is.
I find it interesting that the professor becomes defensive about Newt Gingrich when evidence surfaces that he was yesterday found to be intentionally mischaracterizing his 8-year relationship with Freddie Mac and the extent of his financial reward (from $300,000 to an estimated $1.8M).
Newt has been dancing on the head of a pin for decades. He is well practiced at obfuscating about his record. This was evidenced by his Center Seat discussion concerning the couch scene with Nancy Pelosi. His response was on virtually every side of the matter except a forthright explanation.
As for Romney, I inquired of our intrepid Fox News Special Report host yesterday about Mitt being willing to do the Google piece but refusing to go on Center Seat. I have yet to get a reply.
Romney is a real piece of work. Will be get by with his “above the fray” nonsense? Well, that to a large degree depends on his competition. Where is Gingrich? Where is Cain? The current process has demonstrated that none of his competition except Perry and Bachmann has the fortitude to take Romney on. Still, the man can get no more than 25 percent of the polling.
So, which candidate do you endorse?
I’m a disappointed Palinista. Will support the eventual nominee but no dog in the fight.
My concern is that neither Gingrich nor Romney have been thoroughly vetted. My hope is that we don’t prematurely demand a coalescing around the lead dog at this point but that everyone be vetted (Romney and Gingrich in particular). That way, should either of these less-than-ideal men be nominated, that there are no surprises sprung on us by the Obama campaign caused by our own negligence (in not vetting).
I think this is a fair point. We do need to vet Gov. Romney. But, I also think that part of the non-vetting is that there really isn’t much there.
People should bring up the corporate attacks with regard to electability (instead of letting the Democrats save those attacks for the general election). Just as people should bring up the big mansion and crony-capitalism charges against Perry, the Fannie Mae lobbying and other issues with Newt, etc. etc.
Get the dirt out, now, a year before the election, as a sort of vaccine against the plague that the MSM will bring in 8 months. But it’s not just Mitt, all of them need to be vetted.
@Boone
Yeah. Gov. Perry challenged Romney to release his tax records…Romney said no. Texas has a strict open records law so all of Perry’s stuff is out there in the public and has been for years. Perry has been accused of “crony capitalism” by liberals for years but he’s done nothing illegal or improper under Texas Law so liberals & Big Media in Texas are left frustrated and sputtering. Now Newt said he won’t release any records or papers from his years in consulting which even if he’s right about confidentiality looks kinda bad to the average voter.
This will be interesting.
Well, any canidate the GOP put out there is dead meat in the MSM. It literally doesn’t matter who wins, it is an uphill battle after the primaries. Mitt, who I am fairly familiar with as a resident of Mass is a good guy really. There isn’t much in the way of “dirt,” but of course, there is a ton of baggage. Romneycare and Bain are the big ones, and they will be really hard for Mitt to repudiate. That said, Newt is in for an even harder road, between the personal indiscretions and the professional liabilities… Still the meme that is working is “anyone but Obama” and I think we as conservatives do need to unite behind that. We need to stop savaging each canidate, and embrace each where they are strong. When asked about Herman Cain, I say, “I like his willingness to take on tax reform.” Newt? “I like his ability to focus on what’s important, beating Obama.” Mitt? “I like his mainstream appeal and ability to manage, and ability to work across the aisle.”
That’s how we can survive the general… not beating ourselves in the primary. We need to be in a good position to rally behind our canidate, when we have one.
Ha, I just remembered what this post made me think of: The NYT endorsing McCain and then just literally making stuff up against him (affair with lobbyist, etc;), like hours after he got the nomination…
Mitt is a really good guy? Really? What other candidate has an entire website devoted to attacking another candidate like Mitt does? And why is Mitt running from his record as governor as fast as he can and campaigning based on his business acumen? Why is Mitt refusing to give any personal interviews? Is he afraid that people are going to dig into his actions as governor and ask him about them? Perhaps he is trying to avoid explaining why he nominated twice as many Democrats to the Massachusetts bench as he did Republicans? Or why his state is do deep in debt, which is increasing, not decreasing? Or why a number of his “advisors” have wound up working for the Obama administration on health care and “climate change?”
Mitt went after Rudy Guiliani and Mike Huckabee hammer and tong over illegal immigration, just as he has Rick Perry. He has not changed his campaign tactics since 2007. Yet, by Feb. 8th, 2008, Mitt was history. Hopefully, he will repeat that record.
It does not matter if Romney is a good guy. All that matters is Obama is defeated. With such a standard, what could go wrong?
This is why Newt’s response during the debate (about whether Romney is a change agent) was vapid. I still believe a Romney nomination will neuter all the gains made by the Tea Party. A Romney presidency will effectively end the Tea Party Movement. Watching the debates, there is only one candidate who has taken Romney to task and tear down that veneer of inevitability. That candidate plods along in virtual anonymity.
Ah, such vitriol. Look, the point of my post was that there isn’t going to be the kind of personal “dirt” that say Cain and Newt come with, that’s it. Romney has a lot of baggage too, as I said. As to a vast majority of your, I’m guessing, rhetorical questions… He is campaigning as he sees fit, and he’s from Massachusetts. Yeah, that debt that keeps getting worse? That’s cause it’s Massachusetts. We suck. I hate it here for those reasons. Barney Frank wins here. We had THREE former Speakers of the House convicted of felonies… IN A ROW. What the hell do you expect? Mitt was kind of a ray of semi-conservative sunshine. All his judical appointments had to be approved by Dems, all his legislation had to be approved by Dems, all his budgets, that’s right, proposed by Dems. So, yeah, I feel his pain.
As to climate change, it’s the candidates views NOW that are important. I forgive Newt for appearing with the she-devil Pelosi, and I forgive Mitt for any dumb climate related statements in the past. A lot of people were lied to and fell for it.
My greater point stands. We need conservatives in the House and Senate, and once we have a canidate for Pres… he’s our guy. If you get too worked up against anyone of them, it’s to your own detriment. How can you sell your friends, family, and neighbors on a canidate you spent six months railing against. If you stay at home on election day, YOU ARE VOTING FOR OBAMA. Be for Newt. Be for Perry. Be for Mitt. Be for Cain, or Bachmann… but do not make the mistake of being against any of them. That’s the media’s job. Whomever wins WILL be the most important factor in SAVING THIS COUNTRY. We will hold whomever it is to our conservative principles.
Amen!
Good for Newt..I think?
“Gingrich’s campaign said today they will release all the documents they legally can of his contract with the once-beleaguered housing giant. Gingrich continued to staunchly deny reports that he ever lobbied for the group, but he skirted questions about the financial payouts he received from Freddie Mac for his contracting work.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/newt-gingrich-to-release-freddie-mac-records-denies-lobbying/
His rationalization on Laura Ingraham yesterday could be a problem in the current climate. I guess time will tell.
Romney is taking a page out of the Obama/Daily Kos playbook. Obama (and Clinton) refused to take questions or be interviewed by Fox News or any conservative publication. It is difficult to be vetted when the opposition can not ask questions of the candidate.
Romney is doing one better; he isn’t talking to anyone. The media has annointed him with front-runner status and he finds no reason to be aggressive to get his message out to the public. He has all the personality of the little man on the wedding cake; with just as much gravitas.
As to the Kennedy race; Kennedy filleted Romney. I remember one barb Kennedy made, which seems very apropos today; “Mitt Romney isn’t just pro-choice, he’s multiple choice.”
That line would have made a great Ann Coulter title.
Professor, is this the type of “vetting” you had in mind? …
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/us/politics/after-mitt-romney-deal-company-showed-profits-and-then-layoffs.html?pagewanted=all
Note that the article headline reads: “After a Romney Deal, Profits and Then Layoffs.”
Nevermind that the last sentence of the article (which is lengthy and filled with heart-wrenching anecdotes about $80,000 per year employees suffering wage cuts of $1 per hour and laid off janitors attempting suicide) reads:
“Bain’s strategy, as painful as it was with plant closings and layoffs, had ultimately worked, executives said. The bankruptcy ‘does muddy the story,’ said Mr. Wolsey-Paige, the former Dade executive. ‘Over all,’ he said, ‘it was very positive.’”
I know little to nothing about private equity financing. The average American voter knows even less. I do know that capitalism is messy and that Romney played a high risk, high reward game with other people’s money, earning upwards of $250-million in the process. (This is the guy who going to lead the fight to renew the Bush Tax Cuts?)
Do you believe the mainstream media will highlight Romney’s successes at Bain (such as growing Staples into an industry leader)?
Or will smear merchants like the New York Times concentrate on the messy parts, painting Romney as another “Greed is good” Gordon Gekko?
The answer is obvious.
Romney is the prototypical poster boy of the evil, Wall Street 1% that class-warring Obama is gearing up to fight with well-funded lies and smears of his own.
Six months from now Occupy Wall Street will be occupying Mitt Romney. Count on it.
I agree, and it’s sad. That’s why, whomever the GOP nominates has an uphill fight to even get to level ground. We must pick the best person we can, and then rally around them. We will need to sell our canidate in every forum we can, as the media is going to be in absolute rabid attack mode. Every single person reading this will have to convince ten people to convince ten people to vote republican for us to even have a shot. Read Newsbusters, listen to Rush, visit the professor here at Legal Insurrection, and more importantly, get other people to do so too! We need to start now to build a winning campaign for a republican, or we’ve already lost.
I’m not really “In love” with any of our Republican candidates, they all have warts, bunions, and fleas. But they are all (even…Ron Paul..ick) far better picks than what we have now. (Ahh, to be Greek, where the Gods rule us all…but that didn’t turn out very well now, did it?)
Romney is doing a very smart thing by not sitting for long interviews with “The Big Media”. Sit for an hour, and have them chop the interview up into 10 second soundbites to make it sound like you are some sort of ax-wielding murderous fool, no thank you please.
The scrutiny Mitt should face revolves around his record.
Frex, Romneycare: We know Obamacare is really basically just a way to funnel money to the Health Insurance lobby. Was the same thing true of Romneycare? Does he Mitt have ties to the Insurance lobby that would make him keep a version of Obamacare intact?
This is the same kind of scrutiny Perry & Newt & Cain & Bachmann should also face. Crony capitalism and corruption are killing the country. How clean or dirty are these people who want to take the most powerful seat in the world? Are they reformers or players?
[…] entry comes courtesy of William Jacobson, Dean of Legal Insurrection: …The media has taken to digging up rocks to […]
This looks bad.
“Just before Mitt Romney left the Massachusetts governor’s office and first ran for president, 11 of his top aides purchased their state-issued computer hard drives, and the Romney administration’s e-mails were all wiped from a server, according to interviews and records obtained by the Globe…”
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2011/11/17/before-leaving-governor-office-mitt-romney-staff-eliminated-m
The future god of his own planet wants the presidency just too much. Info on Mormonism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3BqLZ8UoZk
As usual, the MSM is trying to push the most liberal candidate possible as the Republican nominee. Its become very apparent that their attempt to push Huntsman on us has no chance.
So, Romney. They have been trying, and will continue, to destroy all the Not-Romneys.
Don’t worry though, they’ll get around to ‘vetting’ Romney after he wins the nomination.
When do you think they’ll get around to vetting Obama? Or, for that matter, JFK?
There is no need for the media to vet Romney. They are touting him as the electable candidate, and all this with the approval of the Republican Establishment, whose purpose in anointing Mitties is served. Letting the Lefty Dem. MSM help coronate the Republican candidate. Yes, The Establishment is the less than 25%. Skewering will start after the Great Coronation of Mitties.
I know that we cannot mark a ballot for Mitties, nor can many we know. And yes, we will mark a ballot for Gingrich or Perry. We are the unwashed flyovers, W. of the Hudson River, not from the Northeast, ex-centrist…Dems.
The Republicans are hellbent on losing.
The Dems, their allies, and conservatives unhappy with Romney’s nomination will deploy the same argument against him that was used so successfully against Kerry in 2004: flip-flopper. Mittles is like Madonna, he reinvents himself every time the wind changes.
[…] (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}by SmittyLegal Insurrection raises some excellent points:I also pointed to a Chicago Sun-Times article arguing that when Romney […]
First of all, I love how they say “hasn’t appeared on a Sunday show” as if Sunday shows are the only opportunities to properly interview a candidate. Fox News has featured Romney dozens of times this election season, particularly in the recent Google+ program they had so heavily promoted. Oh, and he was just on Neil Cavuto’s program this very afternoon.
Second, “Will we ever get around to vetting Mitt Romney?” Who HASN’T vetted Mitt Romney? This is his second run for the presidency; he was thoroughly vetted the first time around, and the only thing he’s done between that election and this one is get other people elected. How much more vetting would you like him to have? What will a couple of appearances with Chris Wallace do that all the other television, radio, Internet, debate, town hall, and stump speech appearances couldn’t?
Romney hasn’t been vetted in the same sense that McCain wasn’t vetted- until he won the nomination. Then as now the MSM sees an Establishment-type Republican that the conservative base really doesn’t care for, so of course they’re pulling for that candidate to get the nomination.
Once that happens they’ve got a perfect situation to help the Democrat win the general. First, the base doesn’t really like this guy they’ve nominated much anyway. Then the media starts piling negative reports on him in mile-high stacks once the Republicans are stuck with him, thereby discouraging Repub voters and turning off independents.
They did it with McCain; looks like we’re planning on falling into the same trap with Romney.
You’re not even talking about “vetting”. And I’m starting to think the professor isn’t, either. You don’t want Romney’s past researched and laid bare so the electorate can see who he “truly is” and make an “informed decision” about him; that would imply there’s something else about Romney’s past that we still need to learn (heads up: there’s nothing else). What you want is for the MSM to “hate” him as much as they “hate” every other Republican (heads up: they do; there’s just nothing else to hit him with).
I’m rethinking my earlier theory. It’s not just that Romney’s “inevitable” that ticks off (some) voters; it’s that he’s getting the “soft” treatment from the “media”, so they must be trying to force a decision on you, so you Must pick someone else. Guess what? That’s still letting the media pick for you.
Or, just maybe…we really don’t like Mittles. We remember that he tried to get into the Senate from Mass. by running to the left of Ted Kennedy, we remember that his signature “accomplishment” as governor of that state was a mandatory socialized healthcare program, etc etc.
I really do hesitate to drag out the RINObomb in discussions like this because I think it’s often used the same way Democrats use “racist.” It’s meant to short-circuit the debate- an I-WIN button. In Romney’s case though, I don’t what else to call him. Sure, what he’s saying *now* sounds like good Republican boilerplate, but right now he’s running for office instead of holding it. Who Mittles is is determined by who Mittles wants to vote for him.
Many of us are simply tired of the MSM’s attempts to use their influence to push Republicans into nominating the most liberal establishment candidate- usually by casting his victory as inevitable, as they’re doing now.
Look, first of all, there is no perfect candidate, let alone another Patriotic Constitutional Conservative Ronald Reagan, in the current field of candidates.. So, with that being said, Newt, with his his warts and all, has all of his 38 years of political career baggage, and or laundry, all out there in the open, for all to see.. His accomplishments, and his msitakes and flaws.. So, the people can decide whether or nnot, they want and like Newt, over the other candidates, at America’s helm, as the next US President. Especially with major economic, political, social, and international world affair issues at stake, and on the table, the next President will have his or her hands full.. which Newt is more than qualified to handle..
But, the same cannot be said of Romney, which in fact, the opposite is true. Romney is almost like Obama in may respects, as he hides everyuthing controversial and negative, and them lies abour them when asked.. He is so much like Obama is many regards, character and political tactics, it’s often hard to tell the difference.. and the MSM, refuses to vett Romeny, like they refuused with Obama.. why, because if there is one thing the liberals like more than a Democrat in power, it’s 2 Democrats in power.. In other words, when the candidate on either side of the political race, is of the same stripes, and agenda, then it’s a win win situation either way for the liberal agenda.. That’s whay they hate Costitutional Conservatives, like Reagan and Palin, as they could not be bought or corrupted, unless they quit, like Palin, and so doing, Palin did the liberals job for them.. knocking herself out of the potential to be the US President..
So, this also why there is a split in the Republican party, the standard bearing Republican Party establishment of Bush, Rove, Romney, Christie, etc.. and the Tea party Constitutional Cosnervatives like Marco Rubio, Jim DeMint, Michele Bachamnn, Paul Ryan, etc.. This is where the line has been drawn in these 2 factions of the Republcian Party. But the Tea Party represents the faction, that represents the Will of the People, not the Will of the crony politicians, which is main the difference.. and that is why the far right crony capitalists like Romney and Christie, are backed by the establishment Republican Party.. But the question is, is Newt part of the Republican Party establsihemnt, or the Constitutional Conservative Tea Party faction.. It would seem he is now Part of the Tea Party, that represents the people, which is why he is now, the frontrunner, comared to Romney, who is backed by the liberal establishment, and is why Romeny is not being vetted, and is why Newt is being attacked and vetted, and the target of the Democratic attack machinery, as well as the Republican Right attack machinery, ie; both sides.
This is the truth, as the people have been the targeted enemey since Obama’s election as US President, then reinforced by Pelosi and Reid of the 111th Congress, then made even more evident after the 2010 mid-term elections, from both sides of the political aisle. So, it is no surprise that they, the Obama left and the RINO right, have teamed up to cooridinated a media attack against Newt..