The Goat Pen

Bklyn wrote:Hmmm, must be targeted because I get some Capella University ad. Sardis, you filthy, filthy man.

Bklyn wrote:Hmmm, must be targeted because I get some Capella University ad. Sardis, you filthy, filthy man.

A few days before the January 31 Florida Republican primary, a number of Mitt Romney’s top aides took to the pages of the New York Times to brag about how they had destroyed Newt Gingrich. The former House Speaker had beaten Romney badly just a few days earlier in South Carolina; a loss in Florida might have unalterably changed the GOP race. So “a team of some of the most fearsome researchers in the business, led by Mr. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, spent days dispensing negative information about Mr. Gingrich.”

That was an understatement. Team Romney not only dropped oppo research on Gingrich; before it was all over, Romney and his SuperPAC allies spent about $15 million on ads in Florida, three times what Gingrich and his supporters spent. And all — literally all — of it was on negative advertising. Romney’s assault completely dominated the airwaves; 68 percent of all ads aired in Florida were Romney attacks on Gingrich. It worked; Romney won Florida handily.

No matter who they supported, many Republicans felt uneasy as they watched the intra-party war unfold. Many — voters and insiders alike — remarked that when the general election campaign came around, Romney had better attack Barack Obama with the same ferocity he attacked Gingrich. Otherwise, it would look like Romney took more relish in attacking fellow Republicans than in taking on Obama. Romney had won the Republican nomination in significant part by operating a death star — a machine that could rain down holy hell on opponents, if that’s what winning required. He had better give the same treatment to Obama.

Now, the general election campaign is here, and the talk is of the Obama killing machine, not the Romney death star.

Mitt Romney is steadfastly resisting calls to release additional years of his personal tax returns, arguing — not without good reason — that this demand is part of a fishing expedition by the Obama campaign, which hopes to exploit Romney’s personal wealth and successful business career as part of a class-warfare election strategy. Romney argues that whatever he releases will not be enough to satisfy the Obama campaign and its factota in the media, who are, once again, proving their bias and double standards. Romney is right, but he should release the returns anyway. Let them go fish.