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Subscribe to RSSDES MOINES, IA -- After the first few questions at tonight's GOP debate, House Speaker Newt Gingrich looked a bit like a kung-fu hero facing multiple opponents.
Mitt Romney jabbed that Gingrich was a career politician. Ron Paul whacked Gingrich for the money he made advising Freddie Mac. And Rick Perry noted that Gingrich (as well as Romney) supported an individual health-care mandate.
Enter the Dragon -- Gingrich-style.
But a funny thing happened as the other GOP candidates tried to pile on Gingrich and as he tried to fight back: Romney became the focus of attention, and not necessarily in a good way.
First, Gingrich was able to turn the table on Romney's career-politician hit by delivering this line of the night: "The only reason you didn't become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994." Direct hit.
Then, when Perry accused Romney of writing in his book that he wanted Massachusetts' health-care mandate to be a model for the country, Romney said he was wrong. "Ten-thousand-dollar bet?"
Perry didn't take the bet, and the Romney campaign says the reason he didn't is because independent fact-checkers -- like the Washington Post -- say that Perry is wrong.
But it was the size of the bet Romney offered -- not the substance of the argument -- that triggered post-debate attacks from Romney's GOP rivals.
"Ten-thousand dollars is three or four months salary" for many Iowans, Bachmann Communications Director Alice Stewart told reporters after the debate.
A Democratic Party strategist piled on. "Mitt Romney is going to rue the day he offered a $10,000 bet in this debate. Talk about a window in to his out-of-touch soul." The strategist added, "You just can’t be more out of touch than Mitt Romney –- and you can’t have a less understanding of what it’s like to be middle class."
To be sure, tough questions about Gingrich's record (about his past divorces, about his views on illegal immigration, and his views on the Middle East) dominated the middle portion of the debate.
But if the debate produced memorable moments, it was the Ted Kennedy line and the $10,000 bet.
And, suddenly, it's Mitt Romney -- and not Newt Gingrich -- in the hot seat.
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All that money from Bain Capital has to go somewhere. Silly bets are quite logical when you make money buying up companies, firing workers, then rehiring them at way less than they earned before. I am sure $10,000.00 could feed many of those jobless families this Christmas.
agree100% frank,but can you actually believe they put this kind of garbage on national t.v.??????????????then you wonder why the rest of the world is laughing about our "HISTORIAN"!!!!!!!
Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.
Ummmm let's see, I'm a Mormon and i have been taught you should not gamble not even buy lottery tickets so i am very surprised at Romney's bet let alone the amount. It takes me 9 months to make that much money thanks to this screwed up economy. I use to make that much in 2 months. Romney is a lying Liberal from Mass. Mormon or not he isn't following church teachings very closely. he is not setting a good example for my church just like Harry Reid and Orin Hatch. The thing I fear most about going to Hell is meeting these guys there.
Seems that Romney is a "convenient Mormon" as well as a rich, lying, liberal, Mass-hole yankee.
Ihateliberals; I guess loving thy neighbor as thyself is not in the Book of Mormon, is it? I gathered this much from your tag. Thanks. I do not think I haveto read the book, just the cover you are presenting.
eh, they all suck. dems and GOP.
need money outta there but good luck with that crap. look at Buddy Roemer. (if anyone knows who he is)
Somebody stick a fork in Romney. He's done.
Even with all his millions he can't buy his way out of this one.
Optics will be terrible, particularly for anybody struggling in this economy, but also for many others.
I'm relatively well to do, owe no debt to any man. But I also don't walk around with $10K in my wallet, and probably won't until I'm ready to buy a new car.
Foolish, foolish man.
Youre not relatively well to do. Even if you were you would never have ten grand on you even when buying a car. You wouldnt have a check either. If you were fairly well to do you would either have your credit card company approve a one time transaction to get the miles and points or the dealer would offer you the car at 0.0 making only monthly payments necessary. So from your previous posts we know that you are a bigot and now we have learnt that you are a lier as well.
slight right:
I have an order in for a plug in prius right now & am going to pick it up in AZ next spring. I plan to march into one of the 3 B of A branches in the city where I'm buying, put $40K in a brief case & march on down to the dealer.
I don't believe in debt, except the kind I use to finance my trading (currency futures). It's just against my DNA. I've never owned a house because when I was in a situation to buy one years ago, $350K for an average one convinced me the whole world had gone insane & I didn't care to join them.
My wealth is in my futures trading accounts, my foreign exchange accounts, my silver bullion in the form of Engelhard & Johnson-Mathey bars, my coin collection (which includes a number of US $20 gold pieces from the 1800's and early 1900's --- uncirculated & slabbed to preclude US Govt confiscation), collection of franklin halves, CC morgan dollars, some large & small pennies, some error coins, and some tetradrachms from the time of Alexander the Great. I may hold as much as $1K in cc debt, but pay it off every month. No more.
You believe what you want. But even from my perspective, a $10K bet on a handshake over a matter of fact, impresses me as obscene.
Hmmm...similar to most of your own post. But, congratulations anyhow.
Slight Right you are out of touch with the world of monetary transactions. If you don't buy on credit then you have no credit rating which is worse than a bad credit rating since you don't exist as far as the credit bureaus know. So If you want to buy any high ticket item you have to walk in with cash.
Which one's a sleeper?
I'd rather have a beer with Mitt Romney. I'd love to get fall-down drunk with Mitt Romney. I'll bet you ten thousand bucks I could drink Romney under the table in five beers.
yeah wouldn't be hard seeing as Mormons do not drink beer
Rick wants to bet Romney so he can earn 10 grand this year. Probably a surer bet than the economy.
Newt vs Obama. Newt has decades of experience on Capitol Hill pushing legislation and getting things done. The only thing Obama has really done is to further polarize America and put another bullet in the middle class. He certainly didn't do anything as a Senator.
He has decades of experience lobbying. I will agree with that much.
Decades of experience as an historian whose specialty is rewriting history.
Hahahaha...the $10,000 bet, otherwise known as "a derivative."
Yeah...not a smart thing to say. And, other than that, which no doubt finishes either his campaign and/or his spontaneity, he held his own reasonably well.
There folks...in a flash...was the Gordon Kekko of Bain Capital Management. How well did that go with the photo going around of the Young Romney, with his pockets stuffed with cash, celebrating some leveraged buy-out? That was the Howard Dean Scream Equivalent.
On the others:
Gingrich - Nothing spectacular. His denial of accepting "lobbying money" was tortured. And, his statement on the Palestinians sort of cast doubt on U.S. foreign policy since Bush announced U.S. backing for a "two state solution," which Obama has also adopted.
Paul - A minor stumble with his advocacy of Gandhi-like pacifism...but not as bad as his advocacy of the legalization of addictive drugs, as in the South Carolina debate. Paul will be Paul...with the love and devotion of a small minority, who will vote for no one else and a grudging admiration of his blunt honesty by a majority, who will undoubtedly make a point of voting for someone else.
Santorum - He's young. He'll be back in 2016...with a few more supporters.
Perry - a thousand percent improvement. Now, if there were just time for another ten thousand percent improvement. There isn't.
Bachmann - Not a bad showing...will at least keep her in through Iowa. She may make a strong VP candidate for one of the others - ala Sara Palin. She probably ought to leave her hubby and whoever it was sitting beside him, at home next time...or, at least, arrange to keep them off-camera. And, it was thoughtful of her to deliver the Cain eulogy.
Romney committed political suicide tonight.
The Howard Dean screech was quite sane by comparison.
Romney was already under scrutiny for being an "out of touch" wall street money man. Tonight he stepped right up & proved it. Dean didn't have those questions swirling around before.
How is Romney going to repair this one? Lots of ad buys with big bucks? That will just throw more salt in the wound.
No way to repair it. Stick a fork in him. He's done.
I suspect you are right...it was too instinctive a reaction..."I'll bet you $10,000." About ten million voters probably decided at that moment, "no...now is not the right time to elect the wealthiest person in U.S. Presidential history to the Presidency." And, tomorrow, the number will grow.
Wow! And, the guy had been so careful about how he played it...Mr. Robot. Like...the Best and the Brightest of Investment Banking...THE strategic planners...Masters of the Universe!
Yeah...well...look at Corzine.
As you know both of these people will say or do anything to get the votes, but keep this in mind, they both are losers, they have a history that says much about them, they cannot change the past, they have records that say they are losers and one has been married three times, the other is a liberal in sheep clothing, he lies and he wil do anything it takes to win, it is a shame that the choices are so limited, I think a lot of people will stay home because if these two are the best of the best then we have very little to vote for, have you been listening to our leader Rush Limdoper laterly, he will not support any of these guys, why? because he knows that both are a waste of his time and so it goes so it goes.
It seems that all is lose if all we have is these two guys! I hope Michelle can stay the course I am sure the press will find more stuff on both of these losers, they have a lot of junk in their closets, more affairs, more dirt and lies, it is still time for Ms. Michelle to come up in the polls, hang in there Lady you still have a chance!
So the guy used the suggestion of a large bet to make a point. And quite a few of you gadflies are swirling around it like you found something. The liberal media has a ring in your nose and you have long ago given up thinking for yourselves.
Honestly, I was never terribly keen on Romney to begin with. Why? Romneycare has been a disaster for MA. Longest wait times to see a doctor (generalist or specialist) in the nation. Doctors fleeing the state. Maybe he was thinking of it as a model for something national, maybe not. But his people were over at the white house talking to Obama in the planning stages of Obamacare. He doesn't respond like Bush ("when I was young & foolish, I was young & foolish") or Newt ("that was the dumbest thing I ever did") but tries papering over it, and making it seem like it was a terrific thing for MA. Totally unrepentant & unapologetic. Not helpful to his cause. Better to admit an error, talk about how you've grown since & move on. Mitt is just too slick by half.
Despite all that, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat if it's him versus Obama. Despite the clear fact he stuck a fork in his eye tonight, I still would. Obama is so terrible, despite my misgivings about Mitt, he could hardly do worse for the presidency or the nation.
But tonight, he really put his foot in it. In politics, perception is reality. And the perception on Romney right now is putrid. Has nothing to do with liberal media.
You do your thinking and I'll do mine. Thank you.
If this is the best the Teapublibaggers can put forth, you might as well roll out the red carpet for Obummer to reoccupy the White House.
Guess again. Republicans are so repulsed by Obama, they'd go out & vote for a stray cat over him and are energized to do so. At least the cat wouldn't make things worse, would cover its excrement & wouldn't stink up the place with race baiting and class warfare rhetoric. Just 4 years of eating, sleeping, and purring.
The GOP is publicly self destructing and it has abandoned its former core of voters, the moderates, in its unquenchable desire to court the right wing lunatic fringe. That strategy has backfired on the Republican Party and now their candidates are wilting like a prom queen's wrist corsage with the strongest remaining wannabe being Newt Gingrich, a walking time bomb of hidden scandals and dirty deals. By the time the primaries are over, there may not be any of these losers remaining to run against Obama.
Obama vs. Gingrich:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_gingrich_vs_obama-1453.html
The GOP is heading for an epic fail next November. Read 'em and weep.
At least the Republicans are fighting it out on the most trivial issues imaginable, which matches the candidates perfectly.
OCCUPY
I don't get the big deal. If Romney had said "I bet a million bucks..." would people think that somehow reflected his regular gambling behaviour?? Give me a break. Is that the best so called "gaffe" they could come up with?
This guy wants to be President and has no consideration for the recession that we are in and the millions of Americans who are living in poverty, and what does he do, he makes a bet on national television while the world at large is watching to another Presidential candidate for the sum of $10,000 no sweat. Good thing the other clown Perry had a little sense to decline the bet.
These candidates are really lowering the bar for President, where is the class in the GOP field? Just asking.
If Romney had offered a $2.00 bet, you would all be b-tching about how cheap he is. This is truly all about nothing.
I'll take LIES and FRACTURED FAIRY TALES Alex for $10,000.
and the answer is: Romney's health care
When I was a kid, the phrase "Wanna make a thousand dollar bet?" was often used in disputes.
Romney's comment is a slight variation on that. The issue isn't the amount. The issue is, he paraphrased arguing six-year-olds.
j: Exactly! Some are arguing that the amount of the bet shows he's "out of touch" with rank-and-file Americans (and that's probably true, too), but I just kept waiting for the next childhood taunt: "My Dad can beat up your Dad"!
I'm pretty sure that's not the image I want in the presidency...
Just goes to show that all of these Republican candidates have a lost sight of how actual americans live. All of these morons dont stand a chance against Obama. Obama 2012.
The bottom line: Obama will easily beat whoever runs from this bunch.
How hard would it have been to say "Ten thousand dollars...to charity."?
Seriously, who gives a @!$%# if he bet 10 000? The point was that, he was sure Perry was wrong, and in those cases, any amount won't matter for a sure thing. Seriously, they are politicians running for president. They are all rich.. If im not going to support Mitt Romney, its not because he has 100 dollar bills in his wallet, "running for office for petes sake," or touching another man during debate, its going to be because his policies and ideological views (which would be a whole new deba), and he aint Obama.
Bill Maher did a 1 million to 1 dollar bet that Herman Cain would not be the nominee. Thats a lot bigger bet, not to mention the small win for it, and I love the guy! And i certainly dont think he is out of touch, quite the contrary. So come on. Its such a cheap shot at ripping him for this.
News Flash .................. News Flash ......................... News Flash ....................... News Flash
What difference does it make if he bet $10,000.00 $10.00, or $10 million? He could afford all three and he was not gambling. "?" did not know what he was talking about and the Waffler knew it.
The Bigger Story here is the fact that the Riddler has done it again. "?" The politician formermly know as Perry has gaffed again. Didn't He?
You dont get it do you.