Definitely No Straight Talker
Via Memeorandum comes something that sounds about right to me: ‘McCain has distorted the meaning of a nine-month old quote from Romney. While Romney has mentioned “timetables and milestones” to be met by the Iraqi government–some secret, some public–he has never proposed setting “a date for withdrawal.”‘
Justin Gardner comments:
What’s more, these attacks seem to be hurting McCain as the Republican base begins to rally around Romney. He has pulled ahead in Florida and he’s gaining on McCain in other bellwether states as well.
Also, I’ll give Mitt this, he knows which way the wind blows and will follow it without apology. Now he has refocused on the economy and that seems to be helping him and hurting McCain. I think John knows this, that’s why he’s attacking Mitt right now. And it’s unfortunate to see him mischaracterizing Romney’s stance because this is hardly “straight talk.”
This story has been debunked now. What Romney needs to do is to put the focus back on the economy. If he doesn’t do so, he could very well lose… even though most people know that McCain was lying about Romney’s stance on timetables.
As for McCain: the attack is utterly dishonest, but politically quite smart… I think. It could blow up in his face, sure, if people say “that’s a lie” and start rallying around Romney, but if it works it could help him greatly. They’re fighting over 1 perhaps 2%. 1 or 2% could make a major difference here.
Everybody hates negative campaigning, yet it works… which is why McCain does it.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
Duncan Hunter said the same thing about Romney months ago.
http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/04/03/duncan-hunter-attacks-romney-over-iraq-plan/
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/04/romney_absolute.html
I stopped reading when I read: "Duncan Hunter said the same thing about Romney months ago"
Not quite relevant is it
It’s relevant because Hunter used the same tactic to label Romney as a "Demonocrat defeatist". It didn’t get much of a response because Romney was ambiguous about Iraq before he officially entered the race. When Mitter jumped in he swerved hard right. While refreshing my memories about Hunter, I found Human Events also being critical of Romney. Maybe this is where the cynisism comes from.