Month: December 2011

From Mitt, Not-Mitt to Newt, Not-Newt

Buck Banks

And so I think, whereas I would have thought originally it was going to be Mitt and not-Mitt, I think it’s going to — it may turn out to be Newt and not-Newt. And that’s a very different formula than, frankly — I mean we’re having to redesign our campaign strategy because we’re at least 60 days ahead of where I thought we’d be.

— Newt Gingrich, in an interview with Fox News.

GOP Candidates Not Spending on Primaries

Buck Banks

$53 million

Amount the top nine Republican candidates spent through September, compared with $132 million spent at the same time four years ago. The sum is even lower than totals reported during the same period in the 2004 and 2000 primaries — when most candidates still were abiding by campaign spending limits in order to receive public matching money. “Even as experts predict that the 2012 presidential race will be the most expensive in U.S. history, a funny thing is happening on the way to the Republican nomination: It’s becoming one of the cheapest primaries in a more than a decade,” Bloomberg reports.

Romney Self-Destructs During Softball Interview on Fox

Jon Ponder

The spin in the corporate media is that putative GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney wilted under tough questioning during a one-on-one interview with Fox News’ fake journalist, Brett Baier, earlier this week. But that is not what really happened. Baier lobbed a series of tough-sounding softball questions at Romney, but there were no “gotcha” questions. The topics he covered were predictable to anyone who has been following the GOP presidential campaign.

Romney should have been prepared with answers that deflected the implied criticism and steered the interview back onto his campaign talking points. That’s politics 101. Instead, Romney was defensive, over-used his fake laugh and even had the audacity to complain about being taken out of context less than a week after he approved an ad that deliberately took Pres. Obama out of context. His performance has been panned by pundits of all persuasions, and rightly so.

But it wasn’t because of Brett Baier’s hardball interview tactics. Not hardly.

[…]

Oops! Michele Bachmann Promises to Close U.S. Embassy in Iran When She Is President

Jon Ponder

ABC News:

In light of the British Foreign Ministry pulling all U.K. nationals out of the British embassy in Tehran after students stormed the building in protest, GOP presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann told a crowd in Waverly, Iowa, today that she would close the U.S. embassy in Iran.

One small, tiny note: The U.S. hasn’t had an embassy in Tehran since 1980. Following the Iranian Hostage Crisis, where 52 Americans were held for 444 days, the United States cut all diplomatic ties.

According to reports, Bachmann applauded the U.K.’s move, adding, “That’s exactly what I would do [if I were president]. We wouldn’t have an embassy in Iran. I wouldn’t allow that to be there.”

Recall just a few weeks ago when Bachmann bragged to Fox News that she had a squeaky clean record.

“I haven’t had a gaffe or something that I’ve done that has caused me to fall in the polls,” she said.

Now — wait for it! — the walk-back:

[…]

Rick Perry Turned 21 in 1971, the Year the Voting Age Was Lowered to 18

Pensito Editors

21

Age of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (b. March 4, 1950) on July 5, 1971, when Pres. Richard Nixon ceremonially certified ratification of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. In one of the most recent gaffes in his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, Perry indicated he believed the voting age was still 21.