Debate Weekend: The Nasty Newt Show
The Republican presidential candidates will have back-to-back debates this weekend on Saturday at 9 PM and Sunday at 9 AM, amounting to what Politico is calling “Mitt Romney’s weekend from hell.” Santorum will have the spotlight as he never has before, but expect Newt Gingrich to steal the show by doing everything he can to take Mitt Romney apart.
The big moment everyone is waiting for is when a moderator asks about how Gingrich flatly called Romney a “liar” over the anti-Gingrich ad campaign in Iowa by a pro-Romney Super PAC. Gingrich followed that with: “Somebody who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president.” He’s repeatedly called him “timid” and a “Massachusetts moderate” that Obama will “laugh at” in a general election.
“Obama’s going to say, ‘I developed Obamacare based on Romneycare. I even brought your staff into the White House in order to develop it,’” Gingrich said in making the case against Romney’s electability. He accuses him of raising taxes on the blind, funding abortions, and allowing gay marriages. Gingrich mocks him for only getting 25% of the vote in Iowa and says Romney is “out of the mainstream of the Republican Party.” If you doubt that Gingrich will get this personal on stage, consider the fact that he refuses to congratulate Romney on his victory in Iowa.
Gingrich’s camp discussed forming an alliance with Santorum to double-team Romney in the debates. This did not materialize and Gingrich is softly going after Santorum. He questions his ability to oversee a national campaign and referred to him as a “junior partner.” Gingrich’s overall message is that he’s the man that can bring change to the government, doubling-down on the theme of Obama’s 2008 campaign. Gingrich is focusing on Romney and apparently hoping that Santorum won’t survive the scrutiny he gets as the new member of the top tier.
Mitt Romney generally coasted through the earlier debates as his rivals battled to claim the right-of-Romney vote. This won’t be the case this weekend, as every single candidate will be gunning for him. His theme will be tailored for a general election and he will accuse Gingrich of doing President Obama’s work for him. His main goal will be to appear presidential by not getting flustered as he has in past debates and interviews.
Perry needs to stick with promoting his goals and principles. He should avoid any idea of trying to hurt any other candidate as a waste of his camera time. He needs to be presidential if he wants to be president.
That said Romney needs to be savaged by everyone else because he will be savaged by Obama should he get the nomination. Therefore he must prove his ability to defend his record. And he has done it to everyone else, so it is his turn in the box.
“If you doubt that Gingrich will get this personal on stage, consider the fact that he refuses to congratulate Romney on his victory in Iowa.”
And your point? Finally, a candidate with a pulse! I hope Gingrich does go after Romney. It’s about time somebody did. I also thought Romney was too slick for his own good, too afraid to say what’s on his mind for fear of offending anybody. You don’t lead that way. What we need is a candidate who not only can out-think Obama, but also out-fight him as well. And Romney sure ain’t it. With Romney as our candidate, we will have a choice between Obama and Obama light. Take the war to him, Newt. It may be your last chance to do so.
Every time Romney talks the first thing that comes to my mind is stereotype “Used Car Salesman.” I don’t know how people ever see him as “Presidential,” he just projects sleazy to me.
He seems more presidential than the communist, who runs around with his nose in the air, in our White House.
We need a campaign warrior, not a mealy mouthed Republican. What will Romney say (as our candidate) to O’Bamster during a debate, Oh your’e so mean. No, we need someone will call O’Bamster out on his failed policies, his green scheme paybacks, his gun running, his trampling on the Constitution, his radical associations, and his debt and deficits.
As for backing the individual mandate, yes Gingrich did back it. But he didn’t enact it!! That’s the crucial difference. Romney does not have any defenses against Obamacare and I simply don’t trust him to undo it. More fuel to the fire, is that Romney’s financial adviser has put together Obama’s mortgage modifying scheme that Obama is getting ready to roll out. Please folks, the evidence is right in front of our face. Romney is a progressive!!!!
That doesn’t sound like a crucial difference to me. If Gingrich was a Governor at the time, do you think he would support the individual mandate and then not sign the bill containing it? Come on, you don’t like Romney because Romney is rich and you have bought the collectivist belief that rich people get rich at the expense of the rest of us. Maybe you haven’t, but that is what this baseless vitriol towards Romney sounds like to me. Or else, I guess you could be trashing Romney because you are part of Obama’s truth on the internet squad.
VDH’s circular firing squad, loading their bullets?
Utterly insane.
So fixated on petty revenges and putting on a spitball fight for the amusement of Marxists is not Presidential in the least.
There is a manner and an elegance to great communicators. If Reagan was being attacked, he might say “There you go again”. If his age was used against him, he might say “I will not use your youth and inexperience against you”.
It carries the same message, but it is charming and much more effective.
To mortally wound the eventual combatant who must face Obama, is so dunderheaded as to defy belief.
Don’t get me wrong. I WANT someone to suggest that Romney is too timid. I WANT someone to say that he is just nibbling around the edges of what is the real problem with the Fabian in the White House and his radical extremism.
I hope the five of them paint Ron Paul as accurately as possible…as an equally radical extremist to Obama…and in some instances, more radical and more extreme.
I wouldn’t waste a molecule of oxygen talking about Huntsman. He needs to pick up 5 percentage points just to be an also-ran. Right now he’s trailing Lyndon LaRouche, Mickey Mouse and Pat Paulsen. And two of them are dead.
Newt may be a great debater, but he is coming off to all but his most ardent fans as petty, venal, unstable, erratic, fixated, ego-maniacal, self-absorbed, a bit of a diva, and mercurial. Not what MOST people look for in a President…even in his own party.
Perry has the worst strategic planners perhaps in the history of Presidential campaigns. Every instinct is wrong, every tactic is a blunder. He needs George Costanza to tell him to do the opposite of every instinct his staff comes up with. He needs to tell his potential audience not that Texas is the place that has the jobs…but HOW IT DID IT. Not that Texas is the place that Californians are moving to…BUT WHY.
He needs to quit “performing” on stage in these debates and start being real. Don’t tell the people …SHOW the people. Don’t try to be cutesy and gimmicky and cloying…it comes off fake and smarmy. Be yourself and stay out of the spitball fights. Talk about how Texas made things work. The specifics of the successes…not a litany of them. It’s the only chance. I doubt his team can come up with this, however.
Santorum needs to go through the gauntlet…he picked the best time to suffer it. Let’s see how he comes out on the other side.
Romney has to decide whether he wants to lead us…or win. Those are not the same things. By a long shot.
“To mortally wound the eventual combatant who must face Obama, is so dunderheaded as to defy belief.”
Indeed.
The problem with the quote is that the main guy doing the wounding is Mitt Romney, desbite the batting eyelashes and shy denials. Now his minions are screaming for consensus.
After Sarah Palin, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, who can blame Newt Gingrich for having enough of one of the most hypocritical presidential campaigns of all time?
I once said I would vote for Charles Manson over Obama, but I never contemplated that Manson would prefer to destroy his opponents than the most dangerous man in the world.
And I have been one of Romney’s biggest boosters on PJM.
It’s not Romney who must decide to fight to win. He was Governor of Massachusetts one of the bluest of the blue states. Senior Senator in perpetuity John Kerry, twin to that other perpetual senator E. Kennedy progressive – liberal – “democrats”. We must suppose real Republican or conservative could not have become governor without significant “compromises” in such a blue state.
It’s people who support Romney and those like him who must decide whether they prefer a pretty face and good speech, a “presidential” image to really taking the nation back from this Khan now resident in the White House. His horde of vandals furthering his destruction of laws and customs of America, while Congress and Judiciary sit on their hands and look the other way.
OR whether they care enough about America to take on a bare-knuckle fighter or tamer of the wilderness to get this man and his criminals out. There remains that one question none of the potentials dares ask? Let’s see the records Obama sealed from public view. NOW.
This entire “debate” among the Republican/conservatives may well be contrived from the Obama crew of legacy media, celebrity pundits etal to disrupt potential opponents concentrating on one effective candidate for the big prize. That old divide and conquer tactic.
Those of the “right” now battling one another, taking their eyes off the ball and goal of the game: Obama as THE ONE to oust. A nation divided cannot stand. Ditto an army without an effective general whose troops respect him/her. Effective as operative.
Obama seems strangely unconcerned about any potential opponent for 2012. Anyone else notice, even with sympathetic photography, his constant smirk ?
I’m having an increasingly difficult time whipping up enthusiasm for the candidate with a consistent approval rating of 25% but who appears to be world class at undermining his opponents. Maybe we should call him the serial sabateur.
Now, if I thought for a single second that Romney and his Ruling Class collegues would muster the same hatred against obama, I would jump on board with all the strength I could muster. But so far, the strongest attack the good ol boys can muster at the guy whose goal is to end the United States of America is “he has failed”. Well shut my mouth. Does he have to make a penance every time he says it?
I keep hoping that McCain II will be good enough, but have to admit I agree with Newt about it. The country will laugh at Romney.
Of course, if unemployment is over 10%, the stock market crashes again, Iran invades Iraq, and GM files for bankruptcy, Daffy Duck could be elected.
Well, at least Romney has a plan.
Mitt Romney motto: Fellate the Left and Fight the Right.
That was a real zinger. Sheesh.
Does Romney seem more presidential to you because he uses big money surrogate superPAC’s to trash his opponent while Newt does it in person?
Romney is too weak to say it to Newts face. At least Newt is a man about it when he calls Romney out on his crap.
excellent observation
Even the little known Republican candidate Vern Wuensche could debate Obama without notes. There’s not one declared Republican candidate that doesn’t have a longer, and VERIFIABLE, resume than Obama.
The only thing Obama has to show for his resume is stale newspaper articles and crackpot commentators claiming how smart he is.
Yea; There’s two things all my employers have asked for when I applied for a job;
“Where’s all your crackpot references and news articles that say how smart and qualified you are?”
“Can you read from a tele-prompter?”
Obama’s legacy will be a stain on American History. A smudge no amount of deceit can discolor.
cfbleachers said: “Newt may be a great debater, but he is coming off to all but his most ardent fans as petty, venal, unstable, erratic, fixated, ego-maniacal, self-absorbed, a bit of a diva, and mercurial. Not what MOST people look for in a President…even in his own party.”
Exactly so. Isn’t it time for the former Speaker to do the honorable thing (no snickers, please) and withdraw?
Haven’t I read that about Obama somewhere?
Rick Perry is my pick for President against Romney (Bush III).
Cfbleachers, Excellent post, my only question is who is the second dead person, Mickey Mouse or Larouche?
It’s just that I hadn’t seen or heard anything about him, he wasn’t in the news, he wasn’t on TV, …that I thought he was dead…so, am I wrong? Is Mickey still alive?
Mickey’s voice actor died a few years ago, but they got a new one and they’re making a new game for release this spring. You decide how to interpret that.
Where is it mandated that these candidates must attack each other to the nth degree? Shouldn’t they be telling us how they would be the better choice then Obama. Unless they or even one of them have a positive message of the future direction of the United States why bother to listen. I’m so pissed at them all.
Romney-Weak
Perry-Not ready for prime time
Newt-Fool
Paul-Idiot
Santorum-?
Good! Romney needs to feel the heat. His major political achievements are identical to Obama’s, Obamneycare, Tax increases, and Regulation. How is he supposed to campaign against Obama when he is just like Obama except for the white skin?
– concentrate on keeping the House and obtaining a working majority in the Senate.
The “Nasty Newt Show”? Really? There is some amazing anti-Gingrich animus here. Look at the ads Ron Paul ran, that 45% of the Iowa ads were anti-Newt, and you talk about Newt being nasty? btw, you haven’t seen anything yet – wait until the Nasty Barack Show gets rolling.
Thank you. PJM likes to act all like they’re all maverick-y but notice how easily the get the vapors. Ooooh, very scary boys & girls, they’re mean!
The so-called “conservative” websites have spread more crap about the non-frontrunner candidates than the MSM sites (to increase their page views) and now they want everyone to play nice? Cut me a smacking break. What a bunch of slimy hypocrites they are.
I’ve listened to all the clips of nasty Newt and would like to know where Nasty Newt is.
He seems remarkably composed considering the outrageously vile treatment he has been receiving from the Ruling Class dart throwers. Too bad they can’t raise their hackles to be as aggressive telling the truth about little lenin as they can to lie about their in-party opponents.
They must still be very very angry that he upset their apple-cart with the Contract with America, tax cuts, and balanced budgets. They managed to return to the status quo as quickly as they could drive him out of office and have had 14 years to enjoy their sinecures without having to endure the nastiness of balanced budgets and all that silly stuff.
It’s understandable why Newt rising from the ashes to torment them again would invoke their ire.
How many Republicans exactly is it who have dramatically increased their net worth while the ordinary citizenry approaches bankruptcy? 100%? 99%?
According to the Daily Rash, somebody in the Gingrich campaign has paid a man to “stare” at Mitt Romney in an “intimidating” way during tonight’s debate in New Hampshire. It’s definitely getting nasty. http://www.thedailyrash.com/gingrich-campaign-denies-hiring-man-to-stare-at-romney-during-debate
I want to know why it is that PJM & other conservative media outlets seem to be in Romney’s back pocket. I don’t understand why it isn’t as obvious to others as it is to me that, among the current field of candidates, Gingrich is the one who has the most of what it would take to go up against Obama. There must be a wide-spread impression among all these media minds that Newt is simply too “brand damaged” & must be summarily dismissed forthwith as a serious contender. I think it’s a shame & just might be the very thing that helps to slick Obama’s way to a second term. Pat yourselves on the back.
If Gingrich is your guy, get out there and support him. You could have started by helping the guy remember how to get on the ballot in several states. And don’t forget to vote for him when your chance comes. I will vote for Romney because I like him better. I will campaign for the Republican nominee even if it is your guy. Our country needs to start flushing these communists out of our system.
No need to worry about me, dear. I know what to do: Let my opinion be known here & elsewhere (if Newt checks his Twitter account, he has seen my input.) I have yet to fail to show up at the voting booth in any election. Spare your energy for those who really need it.
Ron Paul is the only hope we have so what is the point of this article?
Was that a fact and, if so, what is it based on? Or was it your opinion and if so why was it unsupported by any evidence?
I hate when people say Paul is extreme for wanting to follow the constitution. It is really hard to say lefties are wrong for violating the constitution when we don’t even try to follow it on foreign policy. We spend a ton of money playing games with nations like Iran and have little to show for it.
If we want to prevent Iran from getting a nuke, war is likely the only way. Worse yet, when N Korea tested nuclear weapons. We decided to soften our stance and provide foreign aid. N Korea then spits in our face and ships food to El Salvador. This emboldens Iran to get the bomb, plain and simple.
We have too many troops in too many nations while we continue to bear all the costs. Worse yet these nations pretend they don’t want American troops in their nations. We should embrace Donald Trumps idea and start charging friendly nations, some of the cost of their defense. Europe has been able to spoil their citizens, at our cost. Then the American left complains that we don’t provide the same quality of life, that these failed nations provide.
NATO could not even enforce a no fly zone on Libya with out running out of tomahawks. Bad things could happen quickly if the euro collapses. With America in charge of defending all of these nations.
2006: Santorum ‘Wrestles’ the Issues with Boxer and Clinton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCyU5I43_Hc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnation.foxnews.com%2Frick-santorum%2F2012%2F01%2F07%2F2006-santorum-wrestles-issues-boxer-and-clinton&feature=player_embedded
Romney is Obama’s brother from another mother.
Newt is the man that keeps Obama up at night.
Gingrich 2012!
Abortion News: Good, Bad, and Worse
Unlike the weather, few people like talking about abortion. Nevertheless, much like the weather, abortion is real and omnipresent. A principal difference is that the weather is sometimes beautiful and abortion is always ugly.
In America, the foundation of the right to legally kill a pre-born child is rooted in the Supreme Court’s split 1973 Roe v. Wade Decision based on a woman’s non-existent constitutional right to privacy. Just as with SCOTUS’ flawed 1857 Dred Scott Decision, Roe v. Wade will some day be overturned.
In the interim while we await that surety, the most committed pro-abortion president in history, Barack Hussein Obama, may have inadvertently provided the next president a precedent to scrap Roe v. Wade or, at the minimum, render its enforcement useless.
By announcing he has the authority to bypass Congress and rule by executive decree and by making so-called recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess, Obama has established two principles: First, that the Chief Executive has the power to govern by fiat and, second, that he can appoint Supreme Court justices without the advice and consent of the Senate whenever he determines that body is in recess, whether they are or aren’t.
Of course, that whole scenario is a stretch. It’s based on the assumptions that the next president will be a pro-life Republican, that he is not a “constitutional scholar” like Obama, but that he flouts the laws of the land anyway.
Unfortunately, that stretch is the only recent plus in the ongoing battle of the Abortion Lobby against those who believe in the sanctity of human life.
Two stories–not scenarios–reveal that the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, PPFA, is a conglomeration of liars and that a recommended abortafacient drug can be almost as deadly to mothers as it is to babies.
The PPFA has for decades billed itself as a beneficent enterprise dedicated to, well, planning parenthood, providing pre-natal care and information on “reproductive health,” etc. As such over the years, it has been generously rewarded for its beneficence with billions of taxpayer dollars with which to continue its planning and caring and informing despite the fact it functions primarily as the nation’s busiest abortionist.
Exposed repeatedly as facilitators of child prostitution, purveyors of smut to children, and illegally performing underage abortions, PPFA still has friends in Congress and a major buddy in the White House, all of whom refuse to cut its public funding–46% of its billion dollar budget.
In view of Planned Parenthood’s annual report, rational thinkers might expect its supporters would re-evaluate their position but don’t bet on it. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=12071.)