Rush Limbaugh on Newt, Romney, & Bain

Very interesting thoughts from Rush. He doesn't seem committed to any candidate, but is defending Romney some. And also knocking Romney.

Today apparently Rush has sharpened up attacks on Newt. Via Twitter, people say Rush said Newt is no longer running for president, but just running a vengeance campaign against Romney.

He then (audio clip) attacked Newt for using Obama's worldview to attack capitalism.

He says he's never heard Newt Gingrich speak this way "It sounds like left-wing social engineering."

He also launched into (transcript only) a very positive screed about Romney being the only candidate out there who's actually defending capitalism.

The point that Nordlinger is making here is that "over and over, Romney defends and explains capitalism." Now, Nordlinger, I'm gathering -- I don't know this, but I'm just assuming from the way he's written the piece here -- that he's for Romney. He says, "Over and over, Romney defends and explains capitalism. And he’s supposed to be the RINO and squish in the race?" The one guy out there defending capitalism, the one guy out there trying to explain corporate profits to the Occupy crowd, he's the squish, he's the moderate, he's the guy that we have the problem with? "That’s what I read in the conservative blogosphere, every day. What do you have to do to be a 'real conservative'? Speak bad English and belch?

"In the Saturday debate, Santorum knocked Romney for being just a 'manager,' just a 'CEO,' not fit to be president and commander-in-chief. This was odd for a couple of reasons: First, Romney did have a term as governor of Massachusetts (meaning he has executive political experience, unlike Santorum). And second: Since when do conservative Republicans denigrate private-sector experience?" And a lot of people are asking, "What is going on, why is Newt denigrating private sector experience?" And then saying what Romney does, put people out of work, is a takeover artist and he slashes jobs? That's what Obama's gonna say. Now, about that, we can sit here and wring our hands and lament that this is happening, "Oh, no!" but it is happening, so we have to deal with that, and so what it does is present Romney with an opportunity to defend himself. We'll see how he does. He's gonna have to. He's being assaulted. It's gonna be very eye opening for a lot of people.

I live in Realville. I'm telling you, what happens is what is. That's literal, that's real. It may be totally stupid, it may be totally unfair, it may be outrageous, it may be self-defeating for these Republicans to start ripping into big business or ripping into capitalism, but it's happening.

Y-Not also linked this bit of Rush -- from yesterday, I believe, making the point I've been trying to.

In 2008, Huckabee stayed in the race only to deny Romney the presidency. Huckabee had been mathematically eliminated; Romney had not. Romney was the only candidate capable of defeating McCain. And I supported Romney then, by the way, because I wanted to defeat McCain -- this constant crap about "you RINOs who forced McCain on us" notwithstanding. That was the socon populist Huckabee's call.

But the point is, history is repeating itself. Just as Huckabee had come to hate Romney, now Gingrich apparently does, and is going kamikazee on him, and blowing up capitalism and simply chalking that up to collateral damage.

Why? Well, as Rush explains, when you go scorched earth on your rivals, you can't be shocked when they go scorched earth on you.

I just got an interesting e-mail, and it reminded me of something. I don't know what it was, 'cause it doesn't say, that spawned the question in the e-mail. The person wanted to know, "Rush, why was Romney so disliked in 2008?" By the candidates he was disliked, I don't mean so much by voters. There's a reason for that. Back in 2008, Romney was the only guy, much as is the case this time around, who had his own independent money. Romney's independently wealthy, and people have forgotten it 'til this guy asked me this question. I had, too.

Now, we talk often about how Huckabee and McCain joined forces, but there was a reason for it. Romney was out running a series of negative ads against every Republican, and a lot of them resented the heck out of it, and he was doing it early in the Republican primary. Giuliani hated it. I mean there were a number of Republicans back in 2008 who thought it was unnecessary and gratuitous. And so Huckabee and McCain joined forces in West Virginia and a couple of other states.

...

But anyway, the reason for bringing all this up, was this question I got from people, why is Romney so disliked? And I think with all of this money that Romney has spent -- Romney hasn't, but his super PAC against Gingrich, it's a multimillion-dollar attack on Gingrich. And I think, I could be wrong, but I think that may come back and haunt Romney because others have learned from him. So people like Ron Paul now and a lot of the other candidates are now engaging in these scorched earth tactics because when Romney did it against Newt, it worked.

I think it's unfortunate it's come to this. I don't like seeing any of this transpire. But this is why Giuliani doesn't support Romney. It's why Fred Thompson hasn't come out for him. It's because they don't like the super PAC spending all this money in scorched earth and they remember it's what Romney did in 2008. Now, it's also fair to say, hey, this is politics, this is what happens and money is the way this is -- and that's all true, too. I'm not condemning Romney, don't misunderstand. I'm just saying that you start this process, you demonstrate that it works, you're gonna cause copycats, and it's now starting to take place. Several others who were dealt this way by Romney or Romney's PACs in 2008 are now starting to respond in kind. The media keeps asking, for example, what's Newt's problem with these attacks? I mean this is politics. What the hell does he expect? And these are not attacks. Newt's engaged in self-defense. Newt was wandering around minding his own business, he got hit, he got hit, and he got hit, finally some people have sent him enough money that he can retaliate now.

It's not Newt that's doing the attacking. It's Newt that's doing the defending. And, you know, Romney took a chance, it helped him in Iowa, he was able to really cut Gingrich off at the knees in Iowa, and he showed the others that it's okay to slam away that way. So they're now slamming away, everybody is slamming away at everybody on the Republican side. It's just once it starts and once it's shown to be effective, then here come the copycats. So Newt now is going after Romney on this Bain Capital business, and you might say that they're not defensive, but I don't know that Gingrich would be doing this had Romney not taken the steps he took in Iowa. But Newt's out there saying, (paraphrasing) "This guy, he's not a conservative. All he does is go in and take over companies and fire people, lays 'em off. This isn't capitalism." He's laying into Romney the way the Democrats are going to. Bain Capital is going to be the Halliburton of 2012 if Romney does indeed get the nomination.

posted by Ace at 02:54 PM

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