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The remaining four contenders for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination faced off for the last time before Floridians go to the polls on Tuesday. Despite it being the 19th such debate, it was a key event for former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in what has become a two-man race. Gingrich and Romney came out of the door swinging and the debate largely became a battle between the two frontrunners. The first question in the CNN-hosted debate came from an audience member who asked about illegal immigration, which has become a theme in the race this week. It’s fitting given the size of Florida’s immigrant community, but also because of recent attacks by the Gingrich campaign calling Mitt Romney “anti-immigrant”. In the exchange that followed, Romney said, “I’m not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife’s father was born in Wales. They came to this country. The idea that I’m anti-immigrant is repulsive”.
If Romney wanted an apology, he didn’t get one and Gingrich only escalated the attack, saying, “You tell me what language you’d use to describe someone who thinks that deporting a grandmother or grandfather from their family… just tell me what language you would use”. However, earlier in the day, US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) voiced objections to Gingrich’s campaign ad and they pulled it off the air. He told CBS This Morning that the tactic wasn’t good for the Republican Party, saying, “Whoever wins this nomination is going to have to come back to Florida in the fall and win again. I want to make sure that we don’t have candidates saying things that we’re going to have to come back and defend”.
Romney kept up his attack on Gingrich for working for Freddie Mac, the government supported mortgage giant, work for which Gingrich received around 1.5 million dollars (45.26 million Roubles. 1.135 million Euros. 953,000 UK Pounds) for services. Gingrich, however, used information recently revealed that Mitt Romney had invested in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to the tune of a half million dollars (15.1 million Roubles. 380,000 Euros. 320,000 UK Pounds), saying, “We discovered to our shock that Governor Romney made a million dollars (30.17 million Roubles. 760,000 Euros. 635,000 UK Pounds) of selling some of that and [he] has shares in Goldman Sachs which is today foreclosing on Floridians”. Romney responded that he didn’t know where many of his investments went because they were handled by a blind trust. Whilst Romney may have been risking further alienating himself from the voters, as he has been known to do, he seemed more confident in his response and said he was not going to apologise for his success, saying, “There are bonds that the investor has held through mutual funds, but, Mr Speaker, have you checked your own investments? You also have investments in mutual funds that also have investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac”.
Before long, former US Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Ron Paul stepped in, making an effort to stop the two opponents from bickering about their own wealth. Santorum suggested that one’s own success should be off limits, saying, “Governor Romney went out and worked hard. Leave that alone and talk about the issues”. Ron Paul proposed a simple solution, saying, “The question is, ‘What are we going to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?’ [They] should have been auctioned off”.
If this was the most contentious of the debates so far, that’s because Florida could be “do or die” for the candidates in this unique primary race in which all the rules have been thrown out and the swing state may have even more say in who the Republican nominee will be. Additionally, the two candidates are in a statistical dead-heat, with Newt Gingrich losing some steam after his South Carolina victory gave him a Florida bump. The negativity in Florida is palpable and not just in the debate. In the airwaves attack ads dominate. In addition to the ad calling Romney anti-immigrant, a Romney ad took on Gingrich for a comment in which he referred to the “language of the ghetto”. When Gingrich brought it up in the debate, however, Romney initially denied the ad, saying it probably wasn’t from his own campaign. However, a quick fact check at the debate showed that it was, undermining Romney’s statement and leading to headlines.
Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota who dropped out of the race a few months ago, told VOR that was the wrong story, saying, “I think the focus should be on did Newt say that or imply that. Third-party groups have looked at it and said that’s what he said”. Whilst Pawlenty endorsed Mitt Romney, former Congressman Bill McCollum who ran for Florida governor in the Republican primary, endorsed Newt Gingrich. After the debate, he told VOR that he thought Newt Gingrich handled the debate well, saying, “I thought he answered the questions just fine. The anti-immigration thing, Romney rehearsed… but Newt’s immigration policy is sound”. However, there were some lighter moments in the debate. When Wolf Blitzer noted that Ron Paul would be the oldest president if elected and asked if he would show his medical records, Ron Paul responded that he would challenge anyone on the stage to a 25-mile bike ride, adding, in jest, “There are laws about age discrimination, so you better be careful”.
27 January 2012
Carmen Russell-Sluchansky
Voice of Russia World Service
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/01/27/64734338.html
Voices from Russia 
25 December 2012. You Can’t Make Shit Like This Up… Mitt Romney’s Son Says He Never Actually Wanted to Be President
Tags: 2012 Republican National Convention, 2012 US Presidential election, Barack Obama, Boston Globe, extreme right, Far-right politics, Michael Kranish, Mitt Romney, New Right, Newt Gingrich, political commentary, politics, Radical Right, Republican, Republican hopefuls, Republican National Convention, Republican nomination, Republican Party, Republican Party (United States), republican presidential hopeful, Republican presidential nomination, Republicans, Rick Santorum, right-wing, Right-wing politics, rightwing, RNC, Romney, United States, US President, US Republican Party, USA, Willard Romney
Romney never criticised the racism in the GOP… any questions?
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Editor’s Foreword:
Read the following. It’s mind-blowing in its self-centred pity and angst…
BMD
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Mitt Romney‘s palpable discomfort during the 2012 election season has mostly been attributed to the fact that he’s (very likely) a robot. However, in a lengthy Boston Globe piece about what went wrong with the campaign, Romney’s eldest son Tagg offers a different explanation for his father’s poor performance… “He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to … run. If he could’ve found someone else to take his place… he would’ve been ecstatic to step aside”. The statement certainly seems to serve as a great “I told you so” moment for all those Republicans who endorsed genuinely fired-up people like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum during the primaries, though the story also suggests the Romney campaign‘s issues extended well beyond his supposed lack of enthusiasm for the task.
The Globe‘s Michael Kranish (co-author of The Real Romney) confirms that those closest to Romney, such as Tagg and wife Ann, clashed with his staff over strategy, especially when it came to humanising the candidate. The story blames campaign manager Stuart Stevens for the unremitting focus on the dreary economy and the reluctance to share some of the more appealing elements of Romney’s biography with the public. When Tagg finally convinced RNC organisers to feature the grateful parents of a terminally-ill 14-year-old Mormon boy Romney once comforted, they were put onstage before any of the big networks even tuned in {Big deal. If the kid wasn’t a Mormon, that’d be news. It just proves that many Mormons are good to their own, but view us “Gentiles” as two-legged cockroaches: editor}.
There are also criticisms of the campaign’s infrastructure… the organisation employed a mere 500 paid workers nationwide (less than the Obama team dedicated to Florida alone) and failed to make good use of social media and other technology. As Romney’s digital director Zac Moffatt explained, they simply didn’t have as much time as Obama did to prepare. Moffatt recalled worrying about early on, “Can we do 80 percent of what the Obama campaign is doing, in 20 percent of the time, at 10 percent of the cost?” Tagg also told the Globe that his father hopes to use what he learned during the campaign to help Republican leaders make changes to the way the party is run, saying, “Having been through it, you know so much more than when you haven’t”. Perhaps, the first thing Romney should suggest for the next go-around is picking a nominee who actually wants to be there.
23 December 2012
Andre Tartar
New York
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/mitts-son-says-he-never-wanted-to-be-president.html
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Editor’s Afterword:
”I really didn’t want to be president!” If that were so, why did Wet Willy run? Why did he spend millions of his own money and millions of the Republican Party’s money? Why did he order fireworks in Boston, as he was convinced that he was going to win? In short, GIGO all around. Wet Willy’s nothing but a spoilt brat who never grew up. His corporate daddy bought him a phony “clergy” deferment in the Vietnam War and gave him the seed-stake to enter business… that is, Wet Willy had the ways greased for him and he never had to do anything for himself. This story tells you volumes about the Romneys. Aren’t you glad that the Prez did win the election? After all, Willard didn’t want it… his son said so…
What a bunch of sore losers and incompetent tossers…
BMD