Mitt Romney and Rush Limbaugh
By Leon H Wolf Posted in 2008 — Comments (43) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Mitt Romney has been criticized here on RedState and in other places for this statement, issued by Romney spokesman Kevin Madden to the Huffington Post, which criticizes Rush Limbaugh on the basis of what he did not say. As regular readers of this site will know, nobody is quicker to knock Mitt Romney than I am, but I was encouraged last night to contact the campaign and get their statement on the matter, in the interest of fairness. I was interested to see if perhaps the campaign was speaking from an incorrect understanding of the facts about what Rush actually said, and if they would stand behind the original statement if they were apprised of the true facts in this case.
The response I got from the campaign directed me to this YouTube link, which documents Governor Romney's appearance on the Hugh Hewitt show last night, in which he discussed the Rush Limbaugh brouhaha. A transcript of the relevant portion of the interview is below the fold. I have been told by the campaign that these statements are the true feelings of Governor Romney on the matter, and should be interpreted as the campaign's actual position. To the extent that Kevin Madden's statement to the Huffington Post contradicts the Governor's own words, of course the Governor's own words should control.
Although the Romney campaign has not said this, I'm guessing that Madden was ambushed with a question that went something like, "Rush Limbaugh said that soldiers in Iraq who are criticizing the Iraq war are 'phony soldiers.' Does the Governor support such rhetoric?" My personal feeling is that if you get a question like that from the Huffington Post, the answer should be, "Let me get back to you," so that I could check to make sure that the basis of the question was accurate, but this mistake - if that is indeed what happened - should not, in fairness be imputed to Romney. I think, in fairness, that what appears below the fold is probably what he would have said all along, if he knew the facts of the case.
More below the fold...
HUGH HEWITT: Morning glory and evening grace, America, it’s Hugh Hewitt, thanks for listening, what a strange, strange year it’s going to begin to be in politics. A week ago, on September 26, Rush Limbaugh, speaking on his program, denounced a phony soldier, a guy who is actually serving time in jail now for pretending to be a veteran and an anti-war veteran at that. He picked up on a story that had been on ABC News two days earlier and then this week, the lefties out there, beginning with Hillary’s front group Media Matters, begin to attack him on it. And then the Harry Reids of the world take to the Senate floor to denounce Rush Limbaugh and Rush has been talking about it. I catch up now with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to talk about new media and this political climate. Governor, always a pleasure to talk to you.
GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY: Thank you, Hugh, good to be with you.
HEWITT: Thanks for joining us. Have you been able to follow this story?
GOV. ROMNEY: Well, you know you sort of follow it from afar as you’re going from place to place and I think anybody who looks at the story, hears what Rush Limbaugh has to say, which of course makes perfect sense; he was referring to this soldier who had doctored up his resume, was a phony solider and he was critical of that soldier and he had every right to be critical of that soldier. And it’s amazing to watch the Democrats turn that into something which clearly he had not intended to make it. And certainly for his explanation people should say, ‘Oh, okay, I understand what you were saying – what you mean – I understand the context, and that’s fine…the truth of the matter is, Rush Limbaugh supports our troops and supports the rights for American to express their views. After all, he does that very thing day in and day out.
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Mitt Romney and Rush Limbaugh 43 Comments (0 topical, 43 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
If we nominate him, we will lose.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
That's good to know and a relief. Seems his campaign needs a few briefings.
Being ambushed by Huffposters is rookie territory. They should take it for granted that any question from a huffposter, or for that matter any article, request for comment, public statement, loud harumph, throat-clearing, sideways glance, or arrhythmic blink from a huffposter is an attempted ambush.
absentee
I posted a request on a popular Romney blog to keep Kevin Madden on a short leash... man I wish Tony Snow was healthy and open for employment ;)
[97.99% bot free]
The Democrats are so woefully inadequate even with their majority status in both houses of Congress that all they can do now is attempt to turn Republicans against each other. Particularly by taking one of the best candidates we have and making it appear that he is opposed to the most prominent Conservatives on the airwaves. That's what the Romney vs. Rush brouhaha is all about. Don't buy it -- I didn't. And I also signed the petition.
I hope Rush invites Mitt onto his show so that they can talk about it face to face and just get this pathetic attempt to discredit both of them while propping up the Fairness Doctrine behind both of them, and behind us.
They're so desparate that they're lisening to Bob Shrum again.
unless he's the nominee. Listen closely to Rush: he is no fan of Mitt. He'll vote for whoever gets the nomination but won't be enthused by Mitt. I'm not either, and I absolutely see zero chance for Mitt to beat Hillary!.
First we have Rudy and his co-dependent cellphoneitis with his wife; now we have Mitt's campaign taking potshots at Rush because they are clueless and being led around by the nose by Hillary!'s hacks. McCain's a walking self-inflicted gaping wound already.
The base is not happy.
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
Right now, and for the next couple of days, I think Rush Limbaugh has a golden opportunity to interview Mitt Romney in person on his program and let them answer callers questions and chew the fat. If I was him, I'd devote a full hour to the interview and let it be a wide-ranging discussion to let Limbaugh's audience and Mitt's detractors hear what they both have to say.
In fact I'm sending an email to Rush to urge him to do just that. I hope he can find the time.
When you wait this long it ends up looking more like you are waiting to see the fallout before making a statement. Sorry Mitt, too little too late.
Which I didn't, and neither did anyone with two IQ points to rub together. I happen to like both Rush Limbaugh and Mitt Romney, and I knew from the outset that this kerfuffle came straight out of Brilliant Corners or some other Land of the Lost.
Wait, you mean Mitt might be calculating which the way the wind blows before taking a position??? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!
All of them are calculating which way the wind blows before taking a position. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Including Rudy Giuliani. It so happens that Romney is the candidate the Democrats hate the most, and that's why he's in the center of the bullseye right now.
That defines Romney..
If not, he would have already fired Kevin Madden.
====
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
Even if it was true it wouldn't be such a bad thing, would it? Particularly when you recognize the way Romney has been tacking in response to the wind.
I really do get a kick out of how successful the Democrats in Massachusetts have been at embedding the "flip-flopper" meme to Mitt Romney in this campaign. Of course, it was their only hope to prevent him from winning.
But why in the world would anyone on this side of the aisle object to Mitt Romney moving in our direction? That's what I can't figure out. The only people who don't like it, and who have been most effective at planting the seeds of doubt, are the Democrats. Why is anyone listening to them?
If Romney were like Schwarzenegger once in office, he'd be far, far worse for the country than Clinton would be, thanks to the damage he'd do to our party's ability to unite and fight for things.
I guess the thing that galls me the most about the attacks on Romney's character, his religion, his essential honesty, is that in all of the pile-on there's been very little mention of how hyprocritical some of the other Top Tier Republicans have *actually been*.
Here we have Rudy Giuliani standing up for the 2nd Amendment when as the Mayor of New York....
and people buy that!!
I just don't know what else Mitt Romney can say to convince the people who are listening to the Democrats.
I was beating the drum on 'character used to count' for some time on Red State. You don't have to sell me.
Even assuming that Romney would be "like Schwarzenegger" in office, which I think is a huge stretch, do you really believe he'd be worse than Clinton as the President?
With the power to construct the Cabinet?
With the power to appoint nominees to the Supreme Court?
With the power to fill the ranks of the Federal bureaucracy with Friends of Bill?
Another Donna Shalala? Another Janet Reno? Another Zoe Baird or Kimba Wood? Do you really think Mitt Romney would do such a thing?
That's a pretty serious charge, Neil. I don't think he would.
A President's mismanagement of his job lasts only as long as he's in office. The next guy can come in and reverse course. Our country's tough enough to rebound.
But if a political movement is shattered, it doesn't come back. People move on, leaders find other things to lead on, and it just doesn't rebound.
And I think that after eight years of President Bush, if we have another Republican President who strains our coalition, we could be in for some big time trouble.
The Ds, thanks to favorable press, took six years to rebound from eight years of Clinton. If we have twelve years of coalition straining Presidential leadership, I have to wonder how long we'll end up suffering.
And while I never said, and don't believe, Mitt Romney, John McCain, or Rudy Giuliani would govern like a leftist Democrat, I think that nomating any of them would strain the coalition, possibly beyond repair.
Looking at the three GOP Presidents prior to Ronald Reagan, I see a common, unifying theme. They were more liberal than I would like a GOP President to be. An argument can be made that Ford was ideologically destructive to the GOP.
An argument can be made that Nixon was destructive, but that involves more his ethics than his ideological purity.
I'd be hard-pressed to find any credible argument at all that President Eisenhower was ideologically destructive tot he GOP.
While I tend vote for more conservative candidates in the Primaries, I don't feel split off from the coalition if someone less conservative is the ultimate choice. It takes two to destroy the coalition.
Freedom Fighter in Occupied VA
Pre-Gingrich, Pre-Reagan comparisons are completely irrelevant. That was a different coalition, one that was less Southern conservative and more Northeastern liberal.
1980 and 1994 were the bookends of a shift in the party though, as we grabbed the Reagan Democrats and made them into Republicans.
And they helped us win more elections than the old coalition did; after all, the old liberal-leaning coalition could never take the House, and rarely took the Senate, so I'd rather we kept the coalition we have now, rather than try to win back the old Northeastern liberals at the expense of the Southern conservatives.
If you want to talk pure, unadulterated politics, then look at the results. One coalition is a winner, one is a proven loser. Take your pick.
I can understand Dobson going after Rudy on abortion and homosexual marraige. He's 180 degrees against Dobson's beliefs on these issues and these are the issues on top of Dobson's list. Surprisingly, Rudy is pretty far left of Ron Paul on abortion.
The thing I don't toally get, is Dobson's attacks on Fred Thompson. Yes, he like Tammy Fae Bakker, and Newt Gingrich, has married more than once. Unlike Guiliani, he's not 2/3 of the way to tying Henry VIII on the count of his ex-wives. Thompson is not inimicable to the Right For Life and has never championed gun control or civil unions.
I don't get Dobson's personal vendetta unless this is a power grab. He strikes me as being similar to the Ron Paul supporters who will only vote for the GOP Candidate who believes in 9-11 Trutherism. Just where do we draw the line on this ideological purification deal? I'd like to see us win a few more votes this time out than The Peace and Freedom Party.
Freedom Fighter in Occupied VA
Other than the huge 9-11 Truther coalition that backed us to the hilt in 2002-2006.
We lost moderate voters in 2006 because the Iraq War was unpopular and because the Congress spent too much money, too carelessly. We ran the risk of losing the anti-immigration vote until GWB's amnesty bill got killed. The Dems have lately helped us out on that score by bringing the so-called Dream Act up for Congressional Hearings.
This S-CHIP deal helps us out as well. The American Public wants the GOP to be heartless and not care about the children. They know who's money will pay for that sort of fiasco, and in time, will applaud GWB's veto on that one.
Dobson is the only one with a large following who has said he will intentionally let Hillary win to makus more ideologically pure.
Freedom Fighter in Occupied VA
When I say coalition I mean a coalition of voters that the party candidates are successful at reaching, I don't mean some cabal of activists who claim to speak for those voters.
You're worried about figureheads. I'm worried about the base of this party cracking up.
I'm not that concerned about the base of this party cracking up in response to any of our Presidential candidates right now. In my view John McCain is the biggest instigator of crackups amongst the base and although Rudy Giuliani has some cachet left over because of his response in New York to 9/11, he's less of a Conservative than *anyone else* in this field. That's a fact, not a wish.
If the base wants to crack up and vote for him, hey, what can I do?
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think Mitt Romney is necessarily the person among our candidates who would cause "our political movement" to fragment.
And if you kick out Mitt Romney, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, who do you have left?
Newt Gingrich isn't running. Fred Thompson is running but so far he hasn't exactly lit the world on fire with his public speeches.
Realistically speaking, who's left? Let's be honest, here: Sam Brownback isn't going to be the next President of the United States. Neither is Duncan Hunter. Neither is Mike Huckabee. Neither (and I say this with a big smile) Ron Paul.
If the "coalition" is strong enough to have survived this far it's strong enough to survive a President who isn't precisely what anyone wants. But if you look at the big picture: the competence in running a large government which is often hostile to your interests, the ability to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone in the world and not be made into a laughingstock, and most importantly the willingness to not just court but to actively persue the interests and agendas of people he might not have been expected to pursue, Mitt Romney stands at least equal to any of the others, and ahead of several of them.
I've been here at RedState for a long time. I never thought I'd see the day when we were seriously debating whether we should support John McCain or Mitt Romney for President. But those are the choices we are faced with, speaking realistically. I have pledged that regardless of who our nominee eventually is that I will fight for them once the process has run its course. I remain extremely impressed with Mitt Romney: he's taken the worst of the backchannel opposition to him and he's still standing. If the Democrats turned their attention to John McCain or Rudy Giuliani in the same way (and they will) I don't know whether either of them could survive the onslaught.
Fred Thompson is still a wildcard in my book. He has the time to make himself into the preeminent candidate in this field. But he has an uphill battle in my book.
When I say that he hasn't lit the world on fire it's because he hasn't -- so far. I'm just being honest about that, not diabolical.
I caught on to the Fredhead fervor when Fred was still more of a glint in people's eyes than a bonafide candidate. The problem for Fred seems to be that the wish was more exciting than the reality.
I don't want to say that I wouldn't vote for him, because I would -- but he's got to be a little more of the candidate that people expected before I'm going to join the Team.
Romney, on the other hand, has been in this fight from the beginning and he's acquitted himself very well, especially as the former governor of Massachusetts. And so in terms of who I think is a better campaigner, right now it's Romney +2 Thompson -1. As always, I am willing to be persuaded.
(Please appreciate the comma). While Arnie has proven to be putz on a lot of conservative things, he is far better than any Democrat overall, as would any contending Republican in comparison to The Witch.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
When you can't talk about our opposition the way a 10 year old talks about his subsitute teacher, I really can't trust your analysis on the matter.
Well, when you talk about the opposition as being better than a RINO flavored President, you don't demonstrate much credibility in your political acumen either.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
I don't debate politics with someone who's just throwing spitballs, which your namecalling rhetoric amounts to.
I was pointing out how incredulous your statement was in hope that you might reconsider it. However, if you think Hillary would be better for the country than some of the legitimate Republican contenders, so be it.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
It's using witch to refer to Hillary Clinton that Neil was referring to. I should say, I think that's what it was.
And while I appreciate your feelings, I must say I also find the mean nicknames for Hillary to be in poor taste.
absentee
However, I will use whatever nicknames I want as long as they meet the posting rules, your tastes notwithstanding.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
No offense intended Tbone, simmah dan nah. It looked like you missed what Neil was referring to. No need to eat your keyboard.
absentee
I have it on good authority that the Democrats in Massachusetts are in fact counting on labeling Mitt Romney with the meme -- if you talk to ANY of the yellow dogs in this state about Romney, the first thing that comes out of their mouths is how much of a "flip flopper" Romney is. It's the expression of what they most hope everyone else will believe. Take a tour.
Per Hewitt, Romney apparently didn't respond until Hewitt alerted him to the fact that he had a PR meltdown on his hands. Hewitt was getting bombarded by emails about Romney, Hewitt's choice of candidate, and Hewitt contacted the campaign office. Then Romney sprang into action.
for Rush the other day. Is he getting a pass? Until Republicans in leadership positions can refrain from answering questions posed by an unfriendly media in ways that can only elicit the response the Dems are looking for, we will continue to have these problems. Most of these presidential candidates or their staff don't even bother to check the facts before they open their mouths. Shame on them and shame on us if this is the field of candidates we can expect from now until November, 2008. We must do better.
didn't quite work on that one. Let's see if we can drum up more support for Romney for Senate!
Freedom Fighter in Occupied VA
I just don't think that he can win a national election. I thought that Fred was a good candidate when he finally entered the race, but now don't think he has enough desire and motivation.I really like Mc'Cain's position on the war effort, but he has taken many stands that I don't agree with. That leaves Rudy, and while I don't consider him a perfect candidate,(who is ?), at this time I will say I'll be supporting him in the S.C. primary . At least Rudy doesn't mind mixing it up with the dems, and that is huge, in my book.
if this is indicative of the people that Romney employees. we've already been through almost eight years of poor White House communications and public relations. Four to eight more do not encourage me.
R.J.