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PORTSMOUTH N.H. -- With just a week to go before the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney said Newt Gingrich's failure to qualify for the Virginia GOP primary ballot indicated a disorganized campaign effort.
“I think he compared it to Pearl Harbor. I think it’s more like Lucille Ball and the chocolate factory,” Romney told reporters at a campaign stop at Geno's Chowder House. “I mean, you got to get it organized.”
Romney was referring to an episode of "I Love Lucy," during which Lucy has trouble keeping up with an accelerating chocolate candy assembly line.
This was the second time today Romney swiped Gingrich. This morning in Londonderry, Romney called Gingrich's Virginia primary miss "not the best hour" of his bid for the White House.
"He's running his campaign in a way he thinks best," Romney said. "Obviously the Virginia setting was not the best hour of his campaign."
Gingrich failed to collect the necessary 10,000 signatures required to appear on the ballot in Virginia, where he lives. When Virginia state primary officials announced it, his campaign manager Michael Krull likened it to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
“Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941: We have experienced an unexpected setback, but we will re-group and re-focus with increased determination, commitment and positive action,” Krull wrote in an email.
This also comes just one day after reporters unearthed a 2006 memo penned by Gingrich, praising the health-care reform law Mitt Romney championed as governor of Massachusetts.
The barbs are the latest in a back and forth, beginning last week when Romney questioned Gingrich's ability to survive a general election against Barack Obama. Gingrich hit back, saying, he could indeed "take the heat" and challenged Romney to a one-on-one debate, which Romney declined.
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Good GAWD!!!
1950's sitcoms?
Seriously?
Can we expect Newt to fire back with a Leave it to Beaver reference?
Perfect spot for a Chowder head!
PS: The Lucy & Ethel grape stomping episode is by far the BEST!
L-u-u-u-cy, are you listening? Mitt, to put Pearl Harbor and Lucille Ball in the same train of thought, you cant be serious. It sounds like a school yard fight.
Good Gawd is right Feisty, even he must be shaking his head at this bizarre thought.
You'll note Romney is not calling for a return to the policies of the 50s. A top marginal tax rate above 90%? Communism!!!!!!!
Now I know why it's called 'silly season'! lol
What's next, Willard giving Newt a 'wedgie'?
Feisty, I think you're right. The stomping on the grapes is probably considered the funniest of all the episodes.
I have to go with three of the episodes she did while they stayed in Hollywood - the William Holden one; the stealing of John Wayne's footprints; and to me the funniest of them all - when Lucy needed an actor to play a fake producer to make Ricky look good, and finds someone down at the pool who she doesn't want for the part, but out of desperation she hires him for cheap money because "he doesn't look like a producer". And of course unbeknownst to her, she ends up using a real producer - Dore Schary, the biggest bigwig at the time @ MGM. (I believed he replaced Louis B. Mayer, he was THAT big!) The outfit they find for him out of Fred's closet is priceless.
Schary was hilarious playing along with the gag until Lucy realizes he's the real deal and Lucy turns to Ricky and says - Well, goodbye Ricky, it was nice being married to you. So so funny.
I guess Mitt would say Newt has some 'splaining to do!
That Mitt is so hip----an analogy from a 50s sitcom is what popped into his head first!
If Willard is going to bring up 1950's sitcoms, then he needs to answer for his father's crime bringing those ugly 1950's two tone pink Rambler station wagons into the msrket.
It looks like Romney has some 'splainin to do...like where his campaign bus was manufactured...
Frankly I thought it a good come back. Almost everyone over the age of 18 has at least seen a clip of the episode showing a very desperate Lucy unable to keep up with the chocolates moving past her. The comparison of her desperation and ineptitude with Gingrich are very fitting.
Mitt Romney knows that Newt Gingrich is (or should be) an experienced politician who, if he truly does want to be President of the United States will need to have his A game from day one. The fact that Newt Gingrich didn't qualify to be on the ballot in his home state shows that he is not qualified. Gingrich deserved to be slapped down. Time for the clowns to leave the circus and get down to the real candidates.
IMO, the nomination race will come down to Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. If Paul pulls out a strong first in Iowa, that will hurt Romney, who has put more stock in Iowa.
Here's the animated version of Newt in Lucy's Chocolate factory with wife #3 standing in for Ethel, Newt In The Chocolate Factory:
(Head beating against wall) I knew it (thunk), I knew it (thunk), I knew the GOP wanted us to go back in time!! Next we will be hearing about the Donna Reed show, Hazel, or Ozzie and Harriet! (thunk)
phinephancy: isn't that the promise: to "take back America." Be very careful dealing with politicians, Ronald Reagan promised to have things trickle down from the wealthy to the rest of America, he just didn't say what would be trickleing down.
It did trickle down dirp.
Right down our backs.
And all this time the repiglicans have been telling us it's raining.
I believe the phrase that best fits the repubs is "p**ing on our legs while telling us its raining". America wake up we should be leaning in a progressive direction.
Oh my lefty friends....
I hope you all continue to underestimate Mitt right up to the end. Not alot of people saw Mitt's speech at the Republican Convention in 2008 but it was rolling in the aisle funny stuff. It's ashame the country did not heed Mitt's warnings about how truly unprepared Obama was for the job. Our economy would be back in full swing by now.
But no worries Obama is even a much bigger target for the laugh meter these days and the lemmings will be outnumbered vastly because nobody's gonna fall for the media's hope and change storyline.
No one is underestimating him, except those in your own party. Among those would-be's, he's a giant. Democrats (gleefully) know he'll be the nominee. Your boy Mitt is completely and totally unprepared to lead. No our economy would not be in full swing had McCain been in office, because Bush took 8 years to get this country to the brink of ruin...at least it's now growing again, and one war is over, despite Bush's ineptitude. You keep pinning your hopes on the strange one from Minnesota with the kookie persona who is completely divorced from the real world (LUCY comparisons, seriously??? How long has the show been off the air and the woman dead??) No worries...it'll be good practice for you for 2017 and just think, you can spend all of that time on here whining about "sheepie" who somehow just won't fall in line with the party of let em eat cake.
To all my rightie ding-dongs in MA: I know this sounds forced, but I sincerely hope you get what you want and vote for. :o) I hope you reap the benefits of republicanism.
Such as:
I hope you get really sick, and have no health care
I hope your pay gets dropped and given to a republican manager as a performance bonus
I hope your company lays you off, and offshores your job
I hope you have no Social Security benefits
I hope your Medicare benefits are eliminated
I hope any pension you may have is taken away
I hope you take uninspected drugs for your chronic ailments
I hope the meat you eat is uninspected
I hope the water you drink is unprotected from pollution
I hope hope the same for the air you breathe
I hope someone force feeds you republicanism until it squirts out of your eye sockets.
I sincerely do hope all of these things for you.
So the current polls have always bugged me. They omit 1/3 of the potential voting base, because they don't have land-lines. 1/3 of all US households are cellphone-only.
So, i decided to give a freebie. I mathematics for a living, so here you go. This is the REAL list of how things are shaking up, complete with commentary.
33% are unaccounted/unrepresented (the amount of households in the US without landlines).
the majority of these are of the 18-39 bracket, maintaining our current information on the percentage breakdown, we have:
66% Ron Paul
25% Mitt Romney
even breakdown amongst the others (around 2-3%)
So we multiply those by 1/3 (the number of houses without landlines, which are almost solidly 18-39) and we get...
Paul +22
Romney + 8
Everyone else +1
Now we take their current ratings (which only 2/3 accurate polls, since we ommitted 1/3 the population)
and we get
Romney +18
Gingrich + 16
Paul + 8
Everyone else
Now let's add them together to give us a full and complete picture accounting for all voters:
Paul 30
Romney 26
Gringrich 17
Source: RealClearPolitics Composites.
That is the 'true' picture of your electorate in the republican party, nationally.
Have a Happy New Year!
x
It'll be compounded by their willingness to caucus, of course, but that's your starting line. States with a higher percentage of elders will obviously vote romney, states with a higher percentage of young voters will side RP.
Expect those numbers to be reflected in New Hampshire as long as the weather is decent.
Also, expect the Iowa caucus to be a blow-out for RP. Embarassing margin.
/Truth
I'm having fun posting on this board, now, so this is the mathematical breakdown of what we're looking at for the first 4 states;
IA
RP 14 + 22 = 36
MR 14 + 8 = 22
NG 10 + 1 = 11
Ron Paul wins Iowa handily.
NH
RP 12 + 22 = 34
MR 24 + 8 = 32
NG 12 + 1 = 13
Ron Paul wins New Hampshire, or gets barely squeazed out by Romney. Very close race though. Gingrich is crushed here.
SC
RP 6 + 22 = 28
MR 14 + 8 = 22
NG 24 + 1 = 25
Paul takes South Carolina, followed by Gingrich. Closest race between the 3 to-date. This one is 'up for grabs'.
FL
RP 4 + 22 = 26
MR 16 + 8 = 24
NG 28 + 1 = 29
Gingrich takes Florida. Paul and Romney vie for second place. Likely Paul due to the prevalence of heavy left republicans in southern florida.
TO: Rob in ma-3189632 who wrote:
Rob, you don't REALLY expect us to vote for a guy who specialized in downsizing businesses and liquidating jobs at a time when we need more businesses and more jobs, do you?
I KNOW you're not serious.
...
Teknishan: nice recap of the polling issues. Those who don't adjust for the problems in polling get surprised. Kind of like polling Republicans in Chicago on which candidate in the GOP will end up as mayor.
Yeah, its funny how the old polling companies haven't caught up to the 21st century yet. I wonder if they'll start polling by Twitter or Facebook for the next election .
Probably nobody under 50 would have a clue as to what Mitt was referring to.
Newt started it with the Pearl Harbor reference, its not too bad that Mitt kept it close in the time line.
Feisty,
Be still my beating heart. I read that the #1 Republican, Ben Nelson, won't be seeking re-election in 2012! Do you suppose that means we have a chance to elect a REAL Democrat into his vacant seat? I guess it's more chance to get a Progressive in there than we had last week. Gingrich is further left than Nelson is, so maybe we can offer him the seat.
Gingrich praised Mitt Romney's health care reform, eh? Good to see our old boy is finally starting to come around. That 2006 memo of his was one that escaped the shredder.
Romney says Gingrich's campaign resembles the Lucy candy factory episode? I'd say it more closely resembles the scene in Deliverance! After all Gingrich seems to be screwing his campaign staff badly enough to make them all jump ship like maggots off a rotting corpse.
Hope your Christmas / Chanukah was an enjoyable one.
Do you get this growing sense that 2012 will be a disaster for the regressive party? Bad news just keeps coming and coming for them, and we are not even close to November yet. This election will be a confirmation of America's rejection of the repiglican agenda. And to think it all started in Wisconsin. How yummy.
You bet I do!
Which is why the right becomes more unhinged with each passing day...
It's gonna get fugly out there!
Christmas was awesome - hope yours was too!
Can I have some more... please? ;o)
unfortunately the heads of the extreme in both parties had their head explode a long time ago. Why people insist there is this difference in the parties is beyond me. Doesn't matter who is in charge, we'd still be in the same mess. Its the people behind the scenes who matter and they never change. As an independent I see both parties making the same stupid mistakes and blaming the other side as if they aren't doing it too. Its ridiculous.
there is a difference. WE insist there is because we look at the data.
the "extremes" of both parties are so different because our entire political system has tilted to the right.
There is only one Socialist in congress. He's pretty well respected by collegues on both sides of the party. I guesss he's the most extreme to the Left
on the right...mainstreme Right candiates for President are now saying that a woman who has a life threatening pregnancy (inc very common tubular pregnancy) and/or is raped, must be forced to carry the child even though she could die.
Try that on. Most women's heads spin and men who have wives girlfirends daughters should be alarmed as well.
Hey Willard, I'd rather be associated with a funny character as opposed to a cowardly character.
If you've ever watched "The Wizard of Oz," you probably remember the cowardly lion. Displaying false bravado, roaring to cover his fear and shaking and quaking when confronted were all trademarks of his cowardly behavior. While he was a fictional character, his actions were right on the mark when it comes to defining cowardice. Look for similar signs in people you know to identify a coward.
*****************************************
Washington Post: Mitt Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007 as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret. Doland said that in her 23 years as an aide to successive governors, "no one had ever inquired about, or expressed the desire" to purchase their computer hard drives before Romney's tenture. Those actions erased much of the internal documentation of Romney's tenture as governor, which ended in January 2007. Precisely what inforamtion was erased is unclear.
Talk about a cowardly act!
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Of course Romney, there is also Pinocchio - a term used to describe an individual who is prone to telling lies, fabricating stories and exaggerating or creating tall tales for various reasons.
Mitt Romney acts like a short-circuiting Borg trying to behave normally and run for president. I mean, he a part of that Mormon "collective"...you know, those Mormons who raise tens of millions to fight same-sex marriage and do nothing to stop fundamentalist Mormon polygamy in their own backyard. Yep, gay couples are BAAAAAD but Child Brides and Lost Boys are OK. Game over for Romney if more folks watch the documentary film "Banking On Heaven".
Romney's eradication of MA State records will also be another nail in his political coffin.
Romney doesn't get it. Newt's playing to the GOP base that thinks "organized" is just another term for "communist takeover". Unions organize. Obama was a community organizer. No true, government hating conservative is going to vote for a potentially competent manager to run things, especially if they seem [gasp] "organized".
I like it - good one Mitt!!! At least it's better than the Pearl Harbor analogy (Virginia fail) from Blingrich.....
I never realized how hip Mitt is. He is so cool. I Love Lucy? Mitt, I bet you even listen to Pat Boone. You are so, so..today, so now!
Mitt is trying to be funny huh??!!! I guess people are trying to really get him to listen up.
Bottom line Romney remains like that creepy uncle who tries to get you to sit on his lap !...
Well, that analogy is actually hilarious and apt! too bad no one under 40 (as far as I know) might get it!
OK GOPsextinct, Thank you for helping us realize that we dont want socialism as you have clearly described it. We want the free market to work freely without the govt. telling me everything from where to buy medicine to forcing me to wear seatbelts and where I can post the ten commandments. Big govt. is the problem. And how brilliant is the mind of Romney who comes up with clean episodes of lucy in his mind. Can anyone possibly vote for gingrich who divorced his wife on her sickbed and then cheated on his second wife? And how can anyone vote for obama the socialist who is ruining this country.
And Mitt has his greased like Rickie's. Actually, give Mitt an accent, and he could portray Rickie. Give him a set of bongos, and before you know it, Mitt will be yelling "babbaloo, babbaloo"!
America cannot tolerate a president who uses references of fantasy towards another opponent. The very ploy shows that Romney is reaching for something that is not there and his leadership as president would reflect his apparent in ability to cohesively form and complete any type of political campaign message.
Romney's message is just like the Lucille Ball show. A mirage, an illusion meant to cover up his inability to lead.
It's also very funny that Romney WVa. is voting red for the mere fact that they are hoping that if Romney becomes president that they will rise from the ground to a glory higher than they are currently at.