Attacking Mitt Romney

7 Comments »

• Craig says:

  13 January 2012 at 6:03 pm

  It’s how the US do politics, real politics not like the wusses here when the Blogisphere stops and puts their hands in air in disbelief when the PM won’t disclose what was said in a private conversation, oh the horror. Or when a minister spends $200 at dinner, at Tax payers expense. Oh the humanity
  However I loathe when the publisher/investor in these smear campaigns are not transparent. its cowardly. I would put money on it being funded directly or indirectly by opposing politician(s). Paid for by US tax money. But by the way Romney is a piece of work.
  Here’s NZ politics wrapped up by a friend of ours.

  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1106/S00072/video-the-daily-show-on-new-zealand-politics.htm

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    13 January 2012 at 6:28 pm

    Nice. Thanks for the The Daily Show clip:

    The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
    Intro – New Zealand Politics
    http://www.thedailyshow.com
    Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

    As for the anti Mitt Romney ads, the group ‘Winning our future’ (bleurgh) is out as a group of Newt Gingrich supporters/ex staff… riiiight

    WASHINGTON — A super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich began airing TV and radio ads Thursday attacking Mitt Romney for his career in the private equity world.

    The 30-second and 60-second TV ads label Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, a “corporate raider” and calls his company, Bain Capital, “more ruthless than Wall Street.”

    It quotes a number of people who claim to have lost their jobs after their companies were acquired by Bain, which Romney led from 1984 through 1998.

    “He pulled the rug out from under our plant,” one man says. Another man says, “Mitt Romney and them guys, they don’t care who I am.”

    And the 30-second ad closes with a woman saying, “I feel that is the man that destroyed us.”

    Some had speculated that the super PAC, Winning Our Future, might not run the ads, given the enormous backlash that had come from all corners of the conservative movement against the criticisms.

    But Winning Our Future spokesman Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich aide, said that the ads began running at 11 a.m. in South Carolina, which holds its primary on Jan. 21.

    Winning Our Future has set aside $3.4 million to spend on TV ads in South Carolina, but Tyler would not say how much of that is going toward running the ads hitting Bain.

    Update: 7:10 p.m. Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul sent HuffPost a statement responding to the ads:

    “It is sad to see Speaker Gingrich and his allies so desperate to try and revive his campaign that they’ve resorted to blatant falsehoods and fabrications,” Saul said. “These facts have been proven untrue and Speaker Gingrich himself said the ads should be taken down.”

    Saul sent along a clip of Gingrich saying in a radio interview that a portion of the super PAC’s 28-minute film attacking Romney from which the ads were created is wrong. One of the women says Romney “has 15 homes,” which is inaccurate.

    “It is not accurate, and if that’s true they should take down the ad,” Gingrich told WRKO’s Howie Carr. “And I’m glad to say publicly they should take that out of the ad if that’s in the ad.”

    Of course, the 30-second and 60-second ads airing on TV don’t include that assertion, and so Gingrich will have to clarify whether he is calling on the super PAC to pull its TV spots, or whether he wants it to pull the 28-minute film off the Web, or neither of those things.

    Saul also sent along a report from CNN Money that highlights numerous other inaccuracies in the anti-Romney film.

    Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond told HuffPost, “We acknowledge that Romney does not own 16 homes, and our suggestion is for either the group to correct it, or perhaps they could put up a flashing banner that says the Romneys only own four homes.”

    Hammond sidestepped questions of whether the film should be taken down entirely if, as the CNN Money column indicates, it is shot through with inaccuracies. He directed questions about the film to Tyler.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/12/pro-gingrich-super-pac-be_n_1203011.html

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    14 January 2012 at 8:34 am

    Craig see this:

    POLITICO’s Ginger Gibson reports:

    Newt Gingrich called on the super PAC supporting his candidacy to remove any inaccuracies from the film they purchased which documents Mitt Romney’s time as CEO of Bain Capital.

    “I’m calling on them to edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film,” he said, adding that he cannot coordinate with the PAC but can make public statements. “I’ve said all along that these super PACs ought to have some sense of responsibility.”

    Speaking to supporters at a headquarter opening in Orlando, he used his call to remove the inaccuracies to criticize Romney for not doing the same.

    “Somebody who wants to be president ought to have the courage to stand up for the truth,” Gingrich said.

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/newt-calls-on-pronewt-group-to-pull-inaccuracies-from-110748.html

    But not THE ADS?

• poormastery says:

  14 January 2012 at 11:01 am

  FT article that I found interesting on the US election:

  http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6aacc21c-3de4-11e1-91ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1jNSxyx00

  “We seem to be living in an age of disenchantment with democracy,” says Mr Jacobs. “Trust in the system has almost entirely vanished””

  Ouch.

  Rgds,
  *p*

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    14 January 2012 at 11:55 am

    Thanks. That’s a very good article from FT.

    I agree Romney is copping leftist/anti-capitalist -style attacks from his own party:

    Without any help from the left, the former chief executive of Bain Capital stands accused of being “a vulture”, “looting”, “greed” and “profiting from other people’s misery”. If it carries on like this, the Democrats will have nothing left to say when it comes to the general election.

    Also, striking that white folk will be a minority in the USA by 2040 — and the grey vs brown character of politics.

    Love the Hanna quote:

    Mark Hanna, the late-19th century electoral manager, famously said: “The three most important things in American politics are money, money and I forget what the other one is.”

• Graeme says:

  17 January 2012 at 1:23 pm

  I was surprised that it was Republicans responsible and not Democrats. The documentary style is so like Mike Moore’s “Roger & Me” regarding his home-town, Flint, Michigan.

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    18 January 2012 at 1:56 pm

    Thanks Graeme. Yes I agree. It’s dramatic how the gloves are coming off. Gingrich (and his supporters) seem to be acting like no amount of harm against other Republican contenders is too much … well, I guess there could be more they’re holding back.

    It’s amazing how trenchant it gets. -P