Tag: mitt romney

Chris Wallace calls out Mitt Romney.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe Mitt Romney should take seriously this shot across the bow by Fox News host Chris Wallace:

[Mitt Romney] has not appeared on this program or any Sunday talk show since March of 2010. We invited Gov. Romney again this week, but his campaign says he’s still not ready to sit down for an interview.

After all, for just how long has Mitt Romney been running for President by now? 2009? If he’s not ready now to be play you’re-on-the-griddle with Chris Wallace then when the heck will Romney be ready? When Romney’s trying for the nomination again in 2016? Continue reading Chris Wallace calls out Mitt Romney.

Herman Cain ’12 Iowa caucuses: Obama, 2008? Or Dean, 2004?

Hot Air and Ace of Spades HQ are both contemplating the issue of Herman Cain, whether he can win, and whether he is truly likely to win.  Fortunately or unfortunately – depending on your point of view – I take a utilitarian point of view on the matter: what does the Herman Cain Iowa plan look like? Does it look like this?

Campaign organizer: We’re going to harness the power of the grassroots and take this country back by getting together and coming together with one voice in caucuses all across Iowa to win and we’ve got people calling and the enthusiasm out there that I’m seeing every day is infectious!

…or does it look like this? Continue reading Herman Cain ’12 Iowa caucuses: Obama, 2008? Or Dean, 2004?

#rsrh George Will flenses Mitt Romney.

With a dull knife.

The Republican presidential dynamic — various candidates rise and recede; Mitt Romney remains at about 25 percent support — is peculiar because conservatives correctly believe that it is important to defeat Barack Obama but unimportant that Romney be president. This is not cognitive dissonance.

Much as Mitt Romney would like you to believe otherwise.  And note that this is not the nastiest thing that George Will* wrote about Romney; it is, in fact, probably the nicest.  Give you an idea: Will’s piece ends by bringing up Michael Dukakis – and this sentence: “Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this?”

You know it’s bad when George Will feels the need to italicize.

Continue reading #rsrh George Will flenses Mitt Romney.

Romney, Romneycare, *free* health care, and illegal immigrants.

Yup!  I’m going there.

It’s funny: by the standards of a lot of people in the GOP I’m pretty firmly in the ‘pro-amnesty squish’ wing. [INSERT INTEMPERATE RESPONSE TO INSULTING AND PROVOCATIVE STATEMENT THAT WILL NOT FOSTER PARTY UNITY, BUT WILL MAKE THE RESPONDER PERSONALLY FEEL BETTER ABOUT BEING CALLED A RUDE NAME HERE] So it’s always a little interesting to talk about the immigration debate in the primaries.  Particularly since the two people that I’ll be talking about – Rick Perry and Mitt Romney – are both considered to be pro-amnesty squishes themselves by some.

First off, we have what is an entertainingly unhinged response by Team Romney over something written about Rick Perry in passing by MSNBC:

Continue reading Romney, Romneycare, *free* health care, and illegal immigrants.

New Perry ad: “Misleading.”

I can tell you at least one key difference between this latest ad by Governor Rick Perry and the latest one from former Governor Mitt Romney…

…Team Perry will probably not have to fall all over itself later today to pull the ad from the Internet. Which was something that Team Romney had to do yesterday with their ad.

For those without video, the Perry ad is called ‘Misleading:’ and it starts off by helpfully defining the term for Mitt Romney. It then proceeds to spend the next minute replaying several times where Romney’s allegedly lived up to the title, starting with Obamacare (with a shout-out to Romney editing his support of it) and ending with Romney’s “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake: we can’t have illegals” Kinsey gaffe from Tuesday’s debate. In other words: it’s a much better attack ad than the one that Team Romney put out, and then hastily buried, yesterday. Continue reading New Perry ad: “Misleading.”

Mitt Romney: enabling the PRC’s foreign adventurism?

There’s a lot to talk about with regard to last night’s debate, but I want to drill down on this unforced error made by Team Romney.  It’s… subtle, but it’s going to hurt Mitt in unexpected ways.  Via the CNN debate transcript (via Ben Domenech’s Transom) comes this fascinating discussion of alternative methods of funding humanitarian aid:

COOPER: Governor Romney, should foreign aid be eliminated?

ROMNEY: Foreign aid has several elements. One of those elements is defense, is to make sure that we are able to have the defense resources we want in certain places of the world. That probably ought to fall under the Department of Defense budget rather than a foreign aid budget.

Part of it is humanitarian aid around the world. I happen to think it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to borrow money from the Chinese to go give to another country for humanitarian aid. We ought to get the Chinese to take care of the people that are — and think of that borrowed money on today (ph).

Quick response: Mitt Romney wants the ChiComs to do no-strings-attached humanitarian aid?  Anybody who could convince them to do that wouldn’t currently be at 25% in primary polling. Continue reading Mitt Romney: enabling the PRC’s foreign adventurism?

Mitt Romney’s major problem: he’s… Mitt Romney. (Language warning)

This post is deliberately not going on Twitter, not being reposted to RedState, and not being guest-posted on AoSHQ this week; I just want to say it, and minimize the chances of it being used as ammo next year if Romney is the nominee.

Here’s my problem, and here’s Mitt’s problem; he’s a one-term former governor saddled with the reputation that he’ll say whatever the hell you want him to say in order to get elected (Stephen Green infamously summed Romney up in 2008 by saying that Romney acts like the guy who wants to know just what it’ll take to get you to drive that BMW off of the lot).  Nominating him will take one of our primary motivators (Obamacare) off of the rhetorical table for the general election*, which is bad: Obamacare is the God-help-us signature achievement of this administration, and the country hates it.  Worse, his performance in the pre-primary season can be best described as “ducking under the podium as the firefight goes on.”  Probably wise in the short term; in the longer one, not so much. Continue reading Mitt Romney’s major problem: he’s… Mitt Romney. (Language warning)

Song called on account of Twitter.

Stupid thing decided that I tweeted too many times tonight.  Anyway, short version of my take on the debate: Romney won, Perry lost, Cain was at his best (which is pretty damn good).  Romney will continue to get establishment support, Perry needs to get better at debating if he wants to win.  If Perry was a better debater this nomination fight would be over; if Romney was anybody else besides… Romney it might be over the other way.

And those are the only two candidates who matter at this point.  Everyone else has faded and/or never had a shot to begin with.

Moe Lane

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R, VA) on short list for VP?

That’s one potential conclusion that you can draw from today’s and yesterday’s Quinnipiac polls looking at Virginia political conditions.  Admittedly, they’re just one firm’s polls; also admittedly, anyone likely to be reading this is a hardcore political junky anyway, so we might as well take a look.

Yesterday’s Q-poll looked at Governor McDonnell’s popularity rating*, which is – to be modest about it – practically off of the charts at 61/21.  Those numbers represent a 67/17 favorable rating with independents, a barely underwater 39/40 among Democrats… and a 46/32 favorable rating with African-American voters, which presumably should have people perking up at this point – not that it would last long in a hypothetical 2012 Presidential election contest against Obama, of course.  Still, ablative armor is still armor, and the unique nature of Virginia’s gubernatorial situation applies here.  Bob McDonnell can’t run again for Governor in 2013 any which way anyway; and even an unsuccessful Vice Presidential run would not necessarily stop him from running for Senate in 2014, should Mark Warner (who is also very popular in Virginia) decide that he’d rather run for Governor again in 2013.  Or even if Senator Warner decides to stay in the Senate, for that matter. Continue reading Gov. Bob McDonnell (R, VA) on short list for VP?

#rsrh QotD, Well, It’s Mean: *BUT*… edition.

Jonah Goldberg, on Mitt Romney’s major obstacle to winning the GOP nomination:

I have shaken Romney’s hand a few times, and I can say he feels surprisingly lifelike.

Don’t get me wrong: if Mitt Romney gets the nomination, then I’ll vote for him. Cheerfully. The alternative is Barack Obama, and I’m kind of done with Barack Obama. But Romney’s… fragile. Fragile like Obama, and the current debate system is not actually helping him. One reason why I want the debates whittled down to five people (or less, at this point) is because Romney needs more on-the-griddle time. A lot more.

Moe Lane