The Other McCain

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UPDATE: Newt’s Populist Turn

Posted on | January 30, 2012 | 24 Comments

FORT MYERS, Fla.
6:51 p.m. ET: During his speech today at Page Field, Newt Gingrich spun a conspiratorial view of the opposition to him, saying that Mitt Romney’s campaign is using “recycled” bailout money to attack him.

Saying that Goldman Sachs chose Barack Obama in 2008, Gingrich said the giant Wall Street bank — using taxpayer funds from bailouts — had “recycled” that money into support for Mitt Romney’s campaign. Gingrich said that, if elected president, he would request “a thorough audit” to find out “where the money went.”

Gingrich also referenced remarks by international financier George Soros critical of his campaign. Soros, Gingrich said, was “in Europe, and he’s explaining to Europeans the American campaign … And so Soros says, you know, we think either Obama or Romney’s fine, but Gingrich, he would change things.” Gingrich said, “They are uncomfortable with me and they should be.”

I’m sitting here comparing notes with Jeff Briscoe from Port Charlotte, whose site is Report Bucket. Neither of us seems to have the Goldman Sachs conspiracy remarks on video — I switched between photo and video mode during the speech — but during the speech, I provided an open phone link for Pete Da Tech Guy who transcribed much of it live, and he provides these direct quotes: “Goldman Sacks is very uncomfortable with me. . . . Those ads are your money recycled to attack me.”

Gingrich described his campaign as one of “grassroots populist conservatism” versus “The Establishment.” He cited the fact that Herman Cain appeared with him today here and elsehwere on the campaign trail, and also that Todd Palin has agreed to record a message of support for automated get-out-the-vote phone calls.

* * * PREVIOUSLY (2:40 p.m. ET) * * *

Sitting here at a McDonald’s on Colonial Boulevard a half-mile from Page Field, where Newt Gingrich and Michael Reagan will hold a “grassroots rally” at 3 p.m. I’m not expecting much of a crowd for a mid-afternoon event on a Monday, but maybe I’ll be surprised. There were already three TV satellite trucks at the site when I cruised by about 1:3o p.m., and there were lots of cops preparing for a heavy security presence.

Listening to Rush Limbaugh on the way up here from Naples, the commercial breaks were pretty much wall-to-wall attack ads, Mitt vs. Newt and Newt vs. Mitt. It seemed as if the anti-Newt ads were the majority. Ed Morrissey has audio of Limbaugh telling Newt to stop complaining about Mitt’s attacks.

It’s been a bad week for Newt and I frankly don’t believe the Insider Advantage poll showing Newt within five. If you look at the Real Clear Politics average, there are five other Florida polls in the past five days showing Mitt winning by anywhere from 11 to 20 points. The latest Quinnipiac poll, with Romney up by 14 points, is about average. So if Romney wins by less than 10, it would be surprising.

Somebody in the Newt camp tossed an “internal memo” over the fence to Matt Lewis. Long story short, they’re lowering expectations in Florida. And as I pointed out in my American Spectator column, second place in Florida is worthless — it’s winner-take-all. Team Gingrich just blew through about $2 million for nothing.

Well, it’s past 2:30 now, so I’d better get over to the airport. Let’s hope the Gingrich people don’t sic the cops on me.

UPDATE: It’s nearly 4 p.m. and no Newt yet. There are about 250-300 people here and four network satellite trucks. I talked to one network reporter who told me about the war between the press corps and the Gingrich campaign over charter travel:

The Gingrich campaign isn’t taking reporters on their charter flight on Monday to travel from Pensacola to Miami with stops along the way, destinations that are physically impossible to get to by car in a day.
The reason?
Campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond says he’s ticked off after several media outlets opted not to get on a charter Saturday night.
“I have better things to do than complain with you guys about the cost of flights,” Hammond said when asked why the Monday charter was canceled.
The campaign is also not taking press with them to Nevada on Tuesday night after the Florida primary after initially saying they would be included.

Read the whole thing. It seems that the networks thought the charter rates they were being charged by the Gingrich campaign were too high. So there’s a little inside-baseball camapign stuff for you.

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Category: Ed Morrissey, Election 2012, Fear and Loathing in the Sunshine State, Florida, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh

Comments

  • Anonymous

    And Romney blew through $15 million… How long do you beleive the supporters of  Romney can sustain such expenditures especially when they will have to do it all over again with Santorum?  It will be easier with Santorum who will fold like a cheap tent when any light is focused on him because he doesn’t even have $2 million to defend himself. 

    Romney is a man of extremely low moral and character.

  • Finrod Felagund

    C’mon, Stacy.  Limbaugh defending Newt last week against Romney’s ads wasn’t news but him telling Newt to stop complaining about Romney’s ads is?

    I know Newt isn’t your favorite politician, but you’re getting ridiculous.

  • Finrod Felagund

    Indeed.  What would Romney do against an Obama campaign that would out-spend him?  Choke and lose, almost certainly.
     

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Have a tissue, Nancy.

  • Finrod Felagund

    In the words of Dick Cheney, go fuck yourself.
     

  • Anonymous

    Are you kidding? Obama will punch Romney’s lights out.

    Romney’s a squishtard. His campaign won’t be able to handle the fact that Obama is pummeling him with negative ads about Bain Capital in swing states.

    All Bushtards eventually go to Elephant Heaven, some quicker than others. They have no real fight in them. Democrats know this, which is why the fall is going to be a nasty thing to look at.

    Wait till the Bain Capital lawsuits hit him in, oh, say the second week in October. Jesus, it’s painful to watch.

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  • Anonymous

    Finrod — Use Sindar on the toady not old vulgar English.

  • Anonymous

    Nah, use Goblin for Adjoran’s native tongue.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    He said after another swig of that nasty ass RINO flavored Kool-Aid.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple
  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    So Mitt and his Vegas Tong buddy Adelson are shocked and outraged by Romney’s shady financial connections, huh?

    Wonder what kind of jewelry Tiffany’s sells that complement’s Newt’s populist bib overalls?

  • Anonymous

    Somewhere…Herman Cain is sitting down, shaking his head, and thinking.”..I could of won this thing…why did I listen to establishment RINOs about getting out of the race?”

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    We don’t at this point know who Herman listened to. I’m just hoping it wasn’t Colbert.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    You know, Sarah Palin made the reporters chase her bus all over the place and made it look like fun.  Newt just looks petty.

  • Anonymous

    If Gingrich can pull it out tomorrow, this year might turn into something besides 1996 redux at best.

    Otherwise, I’ll probably just ask y’all to wake me up and let me know how many states over 45 Obama wins by.

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  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Hey, I’ll vote for the nominee of my party.  It’s the rest of you guys who are apparently as faithful as Gingrich.

    Suck on it, RINOs!

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Wow, you can clean up on the London book with all your special forecasting abilities!

  • Anonymous

    InTrade, anyway.

  • Anonymous

    I ‘m excited about the State of Georgia keeping Obama off the ballot and showing some power to the Feds who will raise holy hell about the audacity of such an act. I hope they pull it off.

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  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Yeah in a way I hope they do too, but not if its going to throw the legitimacy of the whole election into dispute, and into the courts. It could be a big mess, and frankly its probably only being done because Obama has relatively high ratings in Georgia, probably due to the black population. The last time I checked he had a 48% approval rating in Georgia, and this was according to Rasmussen, arguably the best pollster in the business. And this was back three or four months ago when his approval ratings was at its lowest across the country.

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