It appears that the South Carolina verdict is forcing Romney to start taking Gingrich seriously.
“We’re not choosing a talk show host, we’re choosing a leader,” Romney said, saying that their nominee should exhibit “integrity,” “sobriety,” and “ethics.”
He called Gingrich a “failed leader” as Speaker who “had to resign in disgrace” and criticized his work as a highly paid consultant for Freddie Mac in his years out of office. “He said he was just a historian there,” Romney said. “I’d like him to release his records there.”
Gingrich was able to take South Carolina by expertly flipping any criticism about his character and past into an attack on the media and the left. In a game where perception is everything and integrity takes a back seat to hubris, it’s not what one has actually done that counts but rather the manner in which one denies having done any wrong. Romney’s poor performance in that regard was his downfall in South Carolina. He came off as weak and defensive in defending his role at Bain Capital and was unable to articulate in a convincing manner his reluctance to release his tax records. As for Gingrich, he was able to deflect the issue of his gross hypocrisy and infidelities by deftly going on the offensive with blows to CNN’s John King and the mainstream media. After that, it was game over.
And so, the call for Romney to remove the mittens has begun.
Another reason why Gingrich won is that Romney has been playing it safe, believing that the nomination will be his, and that he can train his fire on President Obama. That thought should be banished from Romney’s head; he has to use the upcoming contests to decisively put away his competition. He can do so by going on the offensive against Gingrich, who actually represents a target-rich environment for Romney. Romney has to campaign as though he is a million votes behind, so that commentators will stop talking about how Romney might feel that he is entitled to the nomination, and so that they will start talking instead about the grit and fire which Romney needs to display from here on out.
Romney has the backing of the Republican establishment to take out Gingrich as quickly as he can. The thought of Newt possibly winning the nomination is creating serious headaches for every thinking conservative who hopes to defeat Barack Obama in November.
If Gingrich wins Florida, the Republican Establishment is going to have a meltdown that makes Three Mile Island look like a marshmallow roast. Why? Because the Establishment will be staring down the barrel of two utterly unpalatable choices. On the one hand, Gingrich’s national favorable-unfavorable ratings of 26.5 and 58.6 percent, respectively make him not just unelectable against Obama but also mean that he would likely be a ten-ton millstone around the necks of down-ballot Republican candidates across the country. And on the other, Romney will have shown in two successive contests—one in a bellwether Republican state, the other in a key swing state—an inability to beat his deeply unpopular rival. If this scenario unfolds, the sound of GOP grandees whispering calls for a white knight, be it Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (who, conveniently, is delivering the Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night) or Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan or even Jeb Bush, will be deafening.
Tonight’s debate will indicate whether Mitt Romney is willing to take the fight to Gingrich face to face. Tune in, it should be interesting.
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Mitt needs to come clean on his personal record be that Bain, tax returns, health care, etc. Just state his case and drop the BS. That takes the courage of one’s convictions which so far has been a weak point for him. Take a stand and stick with it. That’s what appeals to the binary mindset on the right. Gingrich’s candidacy is alive only because of his big backer in Las Vegas. That’s where Newt’s pro-Israeli rhetoric has been coming from lately. He’s beholden to AIPAC and it shows. Not a bad place to be going into the Florida primary.
The GOP believes in entitlement. Candidates who failed to get the nomination one election year are entitled to receive it on a subsequent go-round. It happened with Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Dole and McCain. This time it’s supposed to be Romney’s turn. Gingrich is supposed to step back, fail and wait his turn until 2016. Maybe by then Callista will find out he’s cheated on her, too, and do a bobbit job on him.
Characterizing the Newt as, “… a ten-ton millstone around the necks of down-ballot Republican candidates across the country…” sounds good to me. If Huntsman, the only halfway sane Republican candidate, has no chance I would like to see a major fail in the choice of a man to run against Obama.
I don’t agree with all Obama’s decisions but he is sincere in his attempts to help the country recover from eight years of bad leadership.
Mitt Romney for president?
If Romney or Gingrich become President,I will burn my birth certificate.A wet bird never flies at night.
I said this in a comment at another page: “If someone came up behind me while I was marking my ballot, pressed a gun against my head and said, ‘Vote for Gingrich or die’, the only thing I could say is ‘Pull the trigger’”.
Gingrich is to Romney, what Obama was to Hillary.
Hillary was more qualified for the job of POTUS, but Obama gave better speeches. Hillary lost to a less skilled negotiator, who could BS better.
Romney is better qualified to be POTUS, but Gingrich debates really, really well. Romney could be about to lose to a better manipulator.
If the republicans aren’t careful, they’ll make the same mistake the democrats made in 2008. Hillary would have been a better president than Obama. Romney would be a better president than Gingrich.
When I think about either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich facing off with Obama in a debate, I can only see the cold hard facts hitting Republicans square between the eyes. When they realize that the one they’ve chosen for their nominee just doesn’t have the character to stand up to Obama.
Both Romney and Newt have lambasted this president, saying things that aren’t true at all. Calling him a liberal president, a food stamp president, etc is not going to cut it in a real debate with the man because the truth will come out. Obama is a great debater. So is Newt but Newt’s problem is that he just doesn’t have any substance. just rhetoric behind his grandiose words.
Republicans; in a desire to defeat this president have allowed only the worse of candidates to dominate the nomination. If they had chosen better; say maybe a Jon Huntsman candidate, they’d have more of a chance to beat Obama. But no, they had to choose the perfect business man Romney or the fire-breathing Gingrich and neither can carry it through to win the White House in November.