Close Ties to Goldman Enrich Romney’s Public and Private Lives

The Democrat Mitt Romney voted for
By Steve Kornacki, Salon.com, Jan.27, 2012

Surprise, surprise: The story he tells now is a lot different than the one he used to tell.

An unlikely name crept into Thursday night’s Republican debate in Florida: Paul E. Tsongas, a one-time Massachusetts Democratic senator and 1992 candidate for president who passed away 15 years ago this month.

Romney, who exercised his right as a registered independent to participate in the Bay State’s ’92 Democratic primary, acknowledged years ago that he cast his ballot for Tsongas, who was vying with Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown for the right to oppose President George H.W. Bush [....]

Mitt vs. Newt: the Gloves Come Off
By Patrick J. Buchanan, Taki's Magazine, Jan. 24, 2012

[....] Whether Newt or Mitt Romney emerges victorious, the candidate who comes out of the Republican convention will be bruised and bloodied.

Consider, first, Newt.  According to a Fox News poll, 56 percent of the American people have an unfavorable opinion of the former speaker. Only 27 percent hold a favorable opinion. By two to one, the nation has a negative view of Newt. And as Newt has been a national figure for two decades, to reverse the impression he has left on the country would require an immense volume of positive media, free and bought.  And Newt is getting neither [....]

[....] It is hard to recall a primary season that got this ugly this early.

The primary season that much resembles this one is 1964. Then, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, icon of the Eastern liberal establishment that had imposed nominees Wendell Willkie, Tom Dewey (twice)  and Dwight Eisenhower on the party, lost the California primary and the nomination to Barry Goldwater.

Speaking to that divided convention, Rockefeller was booed and jeered from the balconies when he called on the delegates to condemn the John Birch Society equally with the Ku Klux Klan and Communist Party.

The party never came together that fall. Goldwater suffered a defeat unequaled since Alf Landon carried two states in 1936. The ideological divide between Romney and Newt is not nearly so great as that between Goldwater and Rockefeller, but the personal animosity is certainly approaching that [....]

I looked up the latest Palin spin, because of the mention in the second Times' article; it's a doozie:

Cannibals in GOP Establishment Employ Tactics of the Left
by Sarah Palin on Friday, January 27, 2012 at 2:57pm

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150516734848435

Romney is just flat out buying this election.  He's got the $$$$$$$ (from some we'll never know who they are until it's too late) to sustain the bully brigade and brags about it.  The SCOTUS really screwed the pooch and the rest of us.

The truth is, that if Santorum would drop out, Newt would have it.  Makes me have all kinds of conspiracy theory hallucinations. 

It's the Romney campaign team executing a new plan that got to Drudge, according to Jim Rutenberg & Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times:

The Calculations That Led Romney to the Warpath
Published: January 28/29, 2012

MIAMI — Facing the unthinkable here just seven days ago — a second loss in a row to Newt Gingrich  — Mitt Romney’s campaign team hatched a two-part plan to win in Florida: make Newt mad and Mitt meaner.

In a call last Sunday morning, just hours after Mr. Romney’s double-digit loss to Mr. Gingrich in the South Carolina primary, the Romney team outlined the new approach to the candidate. Put aside the more acute focus on President Obama and narrow in on Mr. Gingrich.

[....]

Mr. Romney, meanwhile, had been receiving help from a new debate adviser — Brett O’Donnell, a longtime leader of the Liberty University debate team who advised Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota in her campaign last year — and assumed a new role as the campaign’s chief attacker, relinquishing his old approach of leaving the dirty work to supporters and a friendly super PAC.

A team of some of the most fearsome researchers in the business, led by Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, spent days dispensing negative information about Mr. Gingrich, much of it finding its way to the influential Drudge Report, which often serves as a guide for conservative talk radio and television assignment editors and to which Mr. Rhoades has close ties.

The effort hit a peak by Thursday, when the site was virtually taken over by headlines assailing Mr. Gingrich, whose advisers said they eventually gave up on trying to persuade the Drudge staff to spare them, acknowledging, in the words of one aide, that “very little can be done.”

The Romney team was also carefully tracking Mr. Gingrich’s every utterance for a potential opening. What an aide described as a “eureka moment” came just hours before the debate on Thursday night. At a Tea Party rally in the Central Florida town of Mount Dora that day, Mr. Gingrich had opened a new line of attack, noting that Mr. Romney had investments in funds that included shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage lenders.

Mr. Romney’s opposition-research team in Boston quickly dug into Mr. Gingrich’s own publicly disclosed holdings to find that he, too, had mutual funds invested in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The information was quickly fed to Mr. Romney during his private debate preparation session at a hotel in downtown Jacksonville.

When Mr. Romney delivered the attack against Mr. Gingrich that evening, Mr. Gingrich was left with no substantive response, a killer blow [....]

I tend to suspect  in the case of Drudge, it's a case of smart P.R, knowing what kind of juicy inflammatory stuff Drudge likes (i.e, "food fight!") rather than Drudge being won over to support Romney. It's no guarantee he will support him in the future. Even though Rutenberg & Zeleny say Rhoades "has close ties" with him.

Nate Silver has updated with two posts today, (as well as changing his projection for Florida to Romney's chance of winning at 95%):

January 29, 2012, 12:54 pm
Gingrich Upset Chances Dwindle in New Florida Polls
By NATE SILVER

Based on the polling out through Saturday evening, Newt Gingrich had become a clear underdog to Mitt Romney in the Florida primary. But you could at least make the case that the downward trajectory in Mr. Gingrich’s polling had stopped, leaving open the possibility of a last-minute comeback.

Now, that case has become much harder to make. Four polls released Sunday morning — from NBC News, Mason-Dixon, American Research Group and Rasmussen Reports — each give Mr. Romney a double-digit advantage in Florida....

January 29, 2012, 7:00 am
Advantage Romney in February, but Risks Abound
By NATE SILVER

Conventional wisdom holds that the handful of states that vote in February are favorable ones for Mitt Romney. Still, Mr. Romney could be vulnerable in several of them.

Seven states will vote next month, although that includes a “beauty contest” primary in Missouri that will not affect delegate allocation and several caucuses with nonbinding results....

We have not released forecasts for the February states, but we will if they are polled more. In the meantime, here is a general lay of the land....