The answer to that is easy enough to document. But it's Mitt and the establishment doing all the whining, now, because the Gucci loafer is on the other foot.
Newt Gingrich took great pains not to attack his rivals for the nomination. And what did it get him? A barrage of negative ads about him in Iowa that dissolved his lead and his momentum. Some have calculated that 45% of all the ads in Iowa were attacks on Gingrich. That's amazing considering there were a half dozen candidates in the race. Notably Mitt Romney and the Super PAC supporting him were the biggest spenders in the Gingrich attacks.
How many favors will be returned to some of the candidates if mittens wins? We have been had.
As L.T. famously said:
I was set up like a mother blanker.
Posted by: sickofrinos | Friday, January 13, 2012 at 05:57 PM
As we used to say in the military...
payback is a mother flucker.
Posted by: Ragspierre | Friday, January 13, 2012 at 06:03 PM
I would hazard a guess that one of the big reasons Newt was supported (upon second look....) was the fact that he DID sound positive with actual ideas took the fight to OBAMA (and the media) rather than against his rivals. Of COURSE many went negative on him. OF COURSE it worked.
But, the MAIN THING, his veneer of rationality and reasonablenes - his seeming change from the Grinch to something other than an attack dog - was discarded very quickly. I doubt that, unless the other "not Romney" candidates drop out, Newt can sufficiently recover in time from this attack. Had he remained positive in his ads (and truthful) bringing the attack on Obama while pushing his ideas - he may have recovered in time for SC. He's already creeping up pretty well considering where he was right after NH.
Posted by: Huey | Friday, January 13, 2012 at 06:05 PM
SC is winner take it all - 25 delegates. Hoping that a non-Romney wins SC, except for crazy uncle Paul.
Posted by: Ricky | Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 02:48 PM
I don't think Newt's attacks were in vain. Thanks to the help of the Arctic Fox, Romney is now forced to tell the truth about the number of jobs he has created (Bain) and it doesn't look good. Soon he'll be talking about "jobs created or saved!"
I like the bad Newt, good Newt is too cheesy, I hate him!
Posted by: Ricky | Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 02:53 PM