The Romney Smear Machine in Ohio

In a way, you have to feel sorry for Mitt Romney. His record is nothing to brag about. He was the Founding Father of Obamacare, his fiscal record in MA is a mixed bag, and he's flip flopped on nearly every issue that conservatives hold near and dear. In some ways, he's become the GOP's affirmative action candidate. Everyone knows he's not at the top of the conservative class, but because he can (allegedly) attract the underrepresented independents and moderates, he is given a pass on his shortcomings and a leg up from the GOP establishment and many in the media.


And so, all eyes are turned on the battleground state of Ohio tomorrow. If you live here you, like me, you probably want to throw something every time you hear the name "Mitt Romney." That's because he has outspent Rick Santorum 12-1. My phone has been ringing  constantly the past week—up to 8 times a day— almost all of the calls from the Romney campaign or his superpac, Restore our Future.  The calls are nasty. Many of them start with, "I have an urgent message about Rick Santorum..." They have the feel of teenage girls gossiping about the head cheerleader at school.


The TV ads are even worse. In one, quotes from Santorum about Title X are taken out of context to give the impression his pro-life credentials are not to be trusted. This was rolled out the weekend before the primary, too late for Santorum to respond.


The ads from Camp Romney have been overwhelmingly negative attack ads against Santorum. Romney is not trying to convince us to vote for Romney—he's trying to convince us to vote against Santorum. Judging by recent shifts in the poll numbers, it appears this vicious carpet bombing strategy is working. Yay for Romney.


I'm not sure how Romney's defenders can defend this. To me, it is a reflection of the candidate's character. Romney's squeaky clean image stretches the bounds of credibility when his almost single-minded campaign strategy is to severely disparage and destroy his opponents. The ability to perform a severe character assassination is not a characteristic I'm looking for in a president. This is the domain of the Left. Our side should be better than this.


If you live in Ohio, I'm asking you to vote for Rick Santorum. Others have made the case for why Santorum is the best candidate here and here. But on the eve of the Ohio primary, as a simple matter of strategy, we must vote for Santorum to stop Romney from being the nominee. Newt has no chance of winning Ohio or any of its delegates. He hasn't campaigned here, I haven't received a single call from his campaign, not a single mailing, and there are no Gingrich signs in Ohio.


A vote for Gingrich is a vote for Romney. Don't waste your vote.

Best Answer in Any Debate Yet

Rick Santorum had an excellent debate tonight. He left Romney curled up in the fetal position sucking his thumb after his take-down of Romneycare and while Romney and Gingrich were scratching each others eyes out, Santorum stepped in and reminded them that there were actual, real, important issues in the campaign. He was the adult in the room with the squabbling brats.


But there was one moment near the end of the debate where Santorum clearly defined the differences between what we, as conservatives, believe and what Obama believes. Wolf had asked the candidates how their faith would affect their decisions as president. Santorum pointed to our founding documents:

‎"Faith is a very important part of my life and it's an important part of this country. The foundational documents of our country-everyone talks about the Constitution, very important-but the Constitution is the 'how' of America. It's the operator's manual. The 'why' of America, who we are as a people,  is in the Declaration of Independence. 'We hold these trust to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.' The Constitution is there to do one thing, to protect God given rights. That's what makes America different than every other country in the world. No other country in the world has its rights based in God-given rights, not government-given rights. And so you say, well, faith has nothing to do with it. Faith has everything to do with it [applause]. If our President believes that rights come to us from the state, then everything government gives you, it can take away. The role of the government is to protect rights that cannot be taken away. And so the answer to that question, I believe in faith, in reason in approaching the problems of this country. But understand where those rights come from, who we are as Americans, and the foundational principals by which we have changed the world." [bold emphasis added]

Can we just stop for a minute and imagine what Obama's pathetic rebuttal to that might be? Because that's at the heart of the debate we need to have in this country.


I think declarations that Newt is the one and only candidate who can take it to Obama in a debate have been both premature and misguided. Santorum has turned in several strong debate performances; the more time he's given, the stronger he gets. And he's able to articulate conservatism without apology. I've said in previous diaries that Newt is an unstable and untrustworthy candidate. I think we saw tonight that he's beginning to crumble under the pressure. I would like to see Santorum given a shot at the title now,  before it's too late and we're stuck with one of these other two poseurs.



Cross-posted RedState

Who Hates Rick Santorum?

For those not familiar with the name, Dan Savage is a homosexual activist and cyber-bully who spends a pathological amount of time trying to take down Rick Santorum and other social conservatives. He has engaged in rampant, vile cyber-bullying and has even publicly threatened to kill and rape them - all in good fun, of course.


He has hijacked Santorum's name and created a sexually oriented website that is the first search result for "Santorum," thanks to Google bombing - all in good fun, of course.


Savage also supports public outing of his political enemies, including the outing of an 18-year-old who worked on Tom Tancredo's campaign in 2007. All in good fun, of course.


Molotov Mitchell at Worldnet Daily, an avowed "Ron Paul guy," whose "second choice is "Rick - Santorum, that is," thought it might be a good idea to expose "the hollow life form known as Dan Savage."

"Dan Savage is the perfect representative for the gay lobby. A filth-spewing hate activist that claims same sex marriage is beautiful, but then actively brags to the New York Times how he cheats on his spouse. He's a miserable creature, Dan Savage, and in 2003, he went after Rick Santorum."

All in good fun, of course.

Chris Wallace interrogates and lectures Santorum on DADT

I was originally going to use the word "debate," but when one party gets to ask all of the questions and has the advantage of throwing in "gotcha questions" it's no longer really a debate. On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace decided the most pressing issue facing the country must surely be the repeal of the military's policy on Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), which allows gay soldiers to serve openly in the military. Because everybody almost nobody is talking about it. I say this because in a 13-minute segment with presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Wallace spent over a third of the time asking interrogating Santorum about DADT.

Clearly, Wallace is passionate about this issue and wasn't happy with Santorum's answers.

Before you watch the video, read the following question/comments and heavy duty opinionating by Wallace, from the transcript:

WALLACE: Senator, you say sexual activity has no place in the military. Heterosexuals have been open heterosexual for centuries in the military without any problems. And you talk about gays not being given, that they shouldn't be given special privilege. All of the "don't ask, don't tell" and the repeal of it does is say that they are given the same rights as everybody else has had forever.

WALLACE: No, wait a minute. Are you saying, you think that homosexual gay soldiers are going to sit there and go after the male counterparts in the barracks?

Wallace then reads a quote to Santorum and ask if that "sounds right" to him.

Santorum, smelling a rat, says, "Roughly, yes."

Wallace, thinking he's the most brilliant journalist since Dan Rather, hones in on his prey. (Santorum, like everyone in the viewing audience, knows exactly what's coming.):

WALLACE: Senator, Colonel Householder's[who is in the Army Adjutant General's Office in 1941, arguing against racial integration in the military] and I read -- Senator, I read Colonel Householder's comments yesterday. Everything that you said, living in close proximity, sharing bunks and showers, being in close proximity, what -- he used exactly the same arguments you use to argue against racial integration in the military in the 1940s.

WALLACE: I mean, it is a fact that your biology -- obviously, it's one thing if somebody is coming on to somebody in a room, but the sheer fact that somebody is a homosexual, are you saying -- I mean, these are all volunteers. They are all defending to protect our country, sir.

************************

Great job, Chris. Did you miss any talking points from the HuffPo? Everyone who watches Fox News knows Rick Santorum is the social conservative. And that he's against DADT. THIS IS NOT NEWS. Setting it up with the gay soldier question from the [ancient news] Fox News debate doesn't make it any more relevant. We expect this from MSNBC and the ever passionate Anderson Cooper. We expect better from the Fair and Balanced channel.

It's one thing (an appropriate thing) for a news anchor (or whatever Chris Wallace calls himself) to conduct an interview with a candidate and ask questions related to the candidate's positions, votes, and statements he has made. It's another thing entirely to turn the "interview" into an interrogation and condescending lecture designed to put the candidate in his place and explain to him (and the viewers) how backward - and practically racist - his views are.

That's just lazy, lousy journalism and I'm getting awfully tired of certain Fox personalities treating social conservatives this way. When they treat Rick Santorum this way, they're by proxy, looking down their noses at every SoCon in the viewing audience.

Meh. I can still turn the TV off and listen to Levin. Ratings are the only things these people understand.

(Fox wouldn't let me copy the embed code so I had to grab it from another site)

Crosspost:  Red State