The new Top Tier: Gingrich and Dr. Ron Paul - image mediaite.com
The fact that the Iowa and New Hampshire Caucus and Primary are now four weeks away has current front runner, Newt Gingrich, the target of just about everyone who is connected to Washington or the Romney Campaign. According to Gallup Gingrich leads Romney by 15 points, and the President by continues to hold historically low approval ratings. Rasmussen reports Romney is behind Obama by 2 points, while Gingrich now leads the President by 3 – both within the margin of error. In the GOP Primary, Rasmussen shows Gingrich with a lead of 38 to 17%(Romney), (that data coming from Dec. 1st, while Gallup’s release was on Dec. 6th, with similar results.
Over at Public Policy Polling: Gingrich Leads in both South Carolina and Colorado by 51 to 14 in SC and 37-18 in SC (PPP).
Romney is not going to take this surge by Newt Gingrich sitting up straight and playing nice: Lately, Romney has met with the Republican Royalty, the Bushes CBS, and most recently Romney received the backing of Dan Qualye, former V.P. under President George H.W. Bush.
Further, according to the blog TPM a track on Karl Rove (former Advisor to George W. Bush, also known as the “Architect” of the Bush campaign’s has been less than kind to every candidate but Romney. Although, one has to take all of this as a given, as Romney has been considered by the Republican Establishment as a “given” for the nomination since 2008. Even with all that help from his friends, Romney feels the need to target Gingrich who, at this point in time, and with a 10 plus point lead over Romney in both state and national polling, may be difficult to remove from his perch.
Gingrich appears to have the lone distinction of being disliked by almost everyone in Washington, from the Post, to key Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, but more importantly to the a small number of Republican’s in the Senate and Congress, who have a lot to say about leadership, and organization, or in their words, a lack thereof. Of course, that may play well with other Congressional Representatives, Karl Rove, the Bushes, and or a variety of RNC operatives, but how well does that play in the heartland? One might refer to the polls.
Before Mitt Romney can go on his mission to destroy Newt Gingrich (by rehashing old records, and repeating Rovian slurs, (and perhaps a pointer or two from the Bushes and Dan Quayle), he has to deal with the fact that his administration dumped all email correspondence just prior to his abandonment of the Massachusetts Governors office for a run at the White House. The story, which has been bubbling below the surface since November 18, 2010, speaks to Romney’s spending over $100,000 in Massachusetts State Taxpayers Dollars (a mere drop in the bucket considering Massachusetts and waste of Tax Payers Dollars), to buy staff computers, and then wipe the hard drives clean of any electronic communication that then Governor Romney or his staff may have written or received in the three years he acted as Governor (campaign for President in the 4th year) The move to do so was considered unusual by former Governors: Cellucci, Weld and Swift, and the entire revelation of the sale and wipe of the Romney computers leak to the press - was blamed on the Obama administration. Apparently the spin is Deval Patrick (D-MA), current governor, and pal to President Barack Obama, was so filled with angst over Romney (who has not led in polls since anyone but Romney entered the race), that the administrations lawyer leaked the facts to the Boston Globe. (First Amendment Center)
Romney should have realized the Governorship he held was in Massachusetts, where, if one were to read The Blues State by Jon Keller, available on Amazon for a pittance one would understand that dirty politics rule Beacon Hill, and although the dominant political party is Democrat, those Republican’s in position of power, tend to tread similar waters. The book is a real eye-opener and well documented.
The balance of the world media has run with the story as of this morning: December 7th and the tale of Romney ridding history of emails during his tenure can be read from Canada, or one might catch it on the morning news. However, it is apparently the norm for the systems to purge outgoing governors records automatically (according to the Boston Globe), but that does not explain the physical purchase and wipe of the drives Secretary of State, Democrat William Galvin will be releasing the paper trail from the Romney administration soon. From an historical pespecxtive it is unfortunate that the emails were lost. However,from the Romney campaign’s perspective wiping these electronic documents and selling the computers to staff members was completely legal under Massachusetts law (again read that book “The Bluest State”).
Side note: although to this mind it is of little consequence given the fact that the release of Sara Palin’s emails during her tenure as Govenor of Alaska revealed that she did her job, while the bulk of the emails were so mundane, that those news outlets that paid a pretty penny to gain access, were sorely disappointed. That may have been the case with the Romney emails, but the fact that theses emails were specifically erased, legal or no, raises questions.
Ron Paul, who is now second in most polling to Gingrich, essentially replacing Romney, has gone negative in his campaign ads, and as Romney plans to do the same thing (given the LA Times report), one can anticipate a backlash against both the Romney and Paul campaign. The reason Gingrich is known as the “smartest guy in the room” is simply because he has kept a civil tone throughout, focused on the nation, rather on tearing down his peers, and that, from past elections, both state and national is the smartest move one can make. Negative advertising gives no advantage – therefore, the suggestion to Dr. Paul’s campaign abandon the attacks and play up one’s ideas and one’s own record. As a resident of the State of Massachusetts who lived under the Romney administration – the message to that Campaign - don’t change a thing.
In closing the latest Gingrich ad that is running in Iowa is shown below.
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