I think it is a well meaning friend.
By Erick Posted in 2008 | Mitt Romney — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Friends can be so well intentioned, yet so dumb sometimes. I'm talking about these anti-Mormon phone calls in New Hampshire and Iowa. I suspect close friends of one of the candidates are behind the calls. It would not surprise me if a friend of Mitt Romney's, thinking it'd do some good, was behind the calls. That's not to say it was a Romney friend, but I think that is just as plausible as a Huck friend, McCain friend, Rudy friend, or Thompson friend.
I know some of you might think I'm crazy for saying that, but I say it based on personal experience. Back in 2002, when I was really getting into running races, a friend hooked me up with a Congressional race that needed a lawyer for the campaign. It was right up my alley. As the campaign went on, however, I found myself more and more in a management role and less and less in a lawyer mode -- eventually having to get another lawyer involved.
Anyway, my guy was a small businessman and Baptist minister. We were running in an area of the country that is extremely religious with a large contingent on home-schoolers, many of whom were volunteering on the campaign. And we were doing well.
Read on . . .
Finally one of the other campaigns in the three way primary discovered my guy's vulnerability. He had affiliated, early in his career as a small businessman, with a very lefty set of Baptists. He himself was far to the right, but the lefties had helped him with his business. And so the opposition attacked. They pegged our guy so directly as a poseur that the home-schoolers and the church folks who loved my guy got really cold feet.
That's where the friends come in. Luckily I caught it in time to shut it down as there would have been all sorts of problems, both real and potential. As we started going down in the polls and the attacks started increasing, these friends, who were the top contributors to the campaign and members of a loosely composed kitchen cabinet, decided to use autocalls to go negative — negative against my guy, their friend.
In essence, their plan was to throw every bad thing out there they could think of, outrageous stuff. Some would echo the attacks, but most would paint our guy to the far right -- a position that would help him -- while doing so would be done like it was the opponent attacking.
The plan was to throw all this stuff out there and make it sound really nasty, but, to the person called, they'd have one of two reactions, either: "Hey, that descibes my position" or "Good grief, that's so offensive I think I'll support the guy just to spite the folks going so negative." The fringe benefit was that then the candidate, when confronted with the negative stuff, could use the "that's old news" strategy coupled with the "this is what my desperate opponents are anonymously attacking me with" line. He'd also be able to embrace lots of the attacks proudly.
Again, luckily I found out about it and shut it down.
But that's why I also think this is a friend's doing. I think it could even be a well meaning Romney friend. It has that feel to me based on personal experience. Well meaning friends will do dumb things to help a friend in need. And sometimes they get to.
Now, my candidate? He went down in flames in a runoff. We were never able to counter the attacks credibly. He went on to get elected two years later and has since proven his conservative bona fides.
[NOTE: Feeling the need to reiterate here, I'm *not* suggesting a Romney friend, only that it would not surprise me just as it would not surprise me that it was a Huck friend or anyone else's BBF trying to be helpful. I do, however, find it unlikely that the Tarrance Group, a *very* respectable firm, would engage in this tactic.]
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I think it is a well meaning friend. 12 Comments (0 topical, 12 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Regardless, the current line of reasoning to link Romney to the calls is silly and unfounded.
Sorry Erick- looks like your reiterations were not enough. I guess you should said it a few more times in a few more different ways.
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"I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
It could be a Hillary "friend" why you say?
If Mitt gets great sympathy because of the event than perhaps he will than win NH creating an opprotunity to defeat Guiliani.
In all the polling he is the only one who is matching up and or beating her.
This is why politics is dog eat dog because you never know who is doing what and to what lengths they are willing to go to see their candidate win the ulitmate prize.
Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion
I agree that a Democrat campaign could be in on this. Perhaps some Democrat big wigs see Romney leading in Iowa and New Hampshire and think, "Let's make sure that no Republican runs away with this. Let's keep this race chaotic."
Also, if you are allied with the Hillary Clinton campaign, what's your biggest vulnerability? Immigration.
If that's the case, why not try to boost up McCain, who co-sponsored legislation that would have provided citizenship to illegal aliens while helping to magnify a religious dispute within the Republican party.
Remember in the 2004 Iowa caucues? Howard Dean was ahead. Then some mysterious ads appeared with Osama bin Laden on the television screen, warning that Democrats had to nominate someone with credibility on national security.
It turned out that former New Jersey US Senator Torricelli had some leftover campaign cash and allowed it to be used for the purpose of sinking Howard Dean in Iowa.
The Left thinks that the "axis of evil" is Wal-Mart, Haliburton and Enron.
Go this website:
http://www.tarrance.com/
Look at the top, you will see a link for Rudy Giulianni.
Then, read this article,
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071116/NEW...
about the Tarrance Group paying for push polling in Iowa and New Hampshire.
They paid Western Wats to do the polling, the same group that Rudy Pays.
YET, Rudy denies doing anything.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071116/ap_po/romney_push_polling_2
HORRIBLE.
My first reaction to all of this was that it was probably a friend of Huck's trying to be helpful. My second reaction was that it could be a friend of Mitt's.
I don't know who did it. But the friend of a candidate theory fits for me.
I really can't see Tarrance Group doing something like this.
it was anyone in the Romney camp. Some of the stuff resembled the swiftboat adds... more negative in orientation. It really could've been just about anyone. Anyway, I have no problem as long as the stuff is factual, just like I had no problem with the swiftboat adds. To clarify my "having no problem with it", I mean that I accept it as a part of the political process.
Having said that, it would be great if this kind of stuff wasn't in politics, but it has been around longer than any of us and will certainly be around long after were gone. Anyone running for politics who is unaware of or unprepared for this kinda stuff probably shouldn't be running.
These push polls are different from the Swift Boat ads against John Kerry in 2004 because the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had been trying for months to get the Mainstream Media to pay attention to them. But the media only wanted to cover the "story" about how John Kerry and his "band of brothers" were just a tight-knit group of soldier buddies.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth believed, correctly in my opinion, that this whole story line was false. So, they ran their advertisements.
I didn't like it when John McCain called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "dishonest and dishonorable" when it was actually John Kerry who testfied in 1971 about how American soldiers acted like Ghengis Khan when he had no basis for these accusations.
So, I see these push-polls are a different kettle of fish completely. The people behind the push-polls, unlike the Swift Vets, prefer to be unknown. Still, I agree that this is all par for the course in a presidential campaign.
The Left thinks that the "axis of evil" is Wal-Mart, Haliburton and Enron.
I don't know who did it either, but I can say that whoever did it is an idiot and shouldn't be allowed access to anything sharper than a Q-tip and shouldn't be allowed near any computer connected to a public network.
I can state that from the moment the Romney campaign had my email address, I have not received a single email or phone call of this tenor. It is true that there have been off-the-record conversations regarding what bonafide news organizations have reported in print about other candidates, but nothing more.
Now this is important, because I'm not a member of the campaign in any sense and I'm not a political operative for any of the other candidates, either. And yet I am kept well-informed by both the Thompson and Romney campaigns of their upcoming events and what the media is saying about them and their opponents.
So if some numbskull started this in Iowa, thinking it was going to help Romney, let's be clear right at this moment: It doesn't, and it won't, and if it turns out to have originated from within a Romney circle and can be proven as such, it's going to mek me seriously think twice about supporting him.
And that goes for the rest of the Republican field as well. I refuse to even wade into the cesspool and cast about and spin theories about who else it might have been other than someone from Team Romney. But I will say that if someone is trying to bring Big City or Washington-style negative politics into the campaign in Iowa, especially to attack a fellow Republican, they've earned my Evil Eye.
Dirty Tricks of this kind work only to the extent that the perpetrator considers the listener to be stupid and furthermore believes that the intended beneficiary is so amoral that they would condone it, or look the other way. It has no place in a Presidential race.
This is the kind of thing liberals do to each other when they're conducting a Dean Search, fellas. It's beneath you all. Now play nice, and play fair.
This ought to be left to the pro's, as it can distract from the best laid plans, of mice, men, or Mighty Mouse.
Why is it so hard to believe that there are people not in his campaign that would do this? I was watching a special where they asked 20 people who did not support Romney why, and nearly 1/3rd responded that it was because they had a problem with the Mormon church. Some were so adamant as to be practically militant.
So, once again, I ask why is it so hard to believe that these people, who are very numerous, would not do this? I've seen some ministers be almost militant in their urgings to their members to do everything to stop the Romney campaign.
All other things being equal, the most likely solution is the most obvious or simple one. The proposed tactic is neither simple nor consistent with the Romney crowd and supporters.
It very well may be some rogue Romney consultant... but I doubt it. Regardless, the current line of reasoning to link Romney to the calls is silly and unfounded.
Western Wats, the firm in question, the largest data collection firm in the world. If you are a political entity wanting to conduct this type of research they would be at the top of your list.
Some have tried to make some connection between Romney and senior leaders of the company. This is also silly. The Lindorfs, who founded the company, have no interest the company. (They divested it years ago) While there have been some employees who have given money to Romney so have countless other Utahns.
The firm itself employs 1500 people across the country and has call centers in numerous states (not just Utah). As noted elsewhere, competing campaigns have used them in the past, so its not unprecedented.
I'm not saying it wasn't a friend of Romney's but the current evidence to demonstrate the link is nil.