TPM: The General Election, Day One: What Romney And Obama Need To Do
On April 11, 2012, Talking Points Memo reported:
Run The GOP Primary Race On Continuous Loop Republican pundits like to comfort themselves after a long and acrimonious primary by likening the whole thing to the 2008 Obama/Clinton showdown that ended with a Democratic blowout in the general election. But the poll numbers show that comparison’s a sham: Romney has suffered major damage to his favorability numbers and the Republican brand is as weak as ever. Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom suggested the general election have an Etch-a-Sketch-like effect and reset the race. Team Obama is looking to make sure that no one forgets the primary’s greatest hits. In his first major general election speech last week, Obama name-checked an array of golden oldies from the primary, from Gingrich’s denunciation of the House GOP budget Romney supports as “right-wing social engineering” to the early debate where the whole Republican field refused to consider any kind of compromise on the deficit, no matter how stacked in their favor. And Democrats are ready to roll with a host of clips of Romney tossing red meat rhetoric on issues like immigration the second they see him trying to tack to the center. “We are going to have video archive that proves these Republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouth,” Rodell Mollineau, head of American Bridge, told TPM last week.
ABC News: Romney Not The ‘Best Messenger’ For Harvard Attacks On Obama
On April 6, 2012, ABC News reported:
Mitt Romney has made a habit of following up heady Republican primary victories with foot-in-mouth comments – and this week was no exception. He ripped President Obama for spending “too much time at Harvard,” even though Romney logged even more years at the Ivy League school. Oops.
POLITICO: Steve King Flags Concern On Romney Federal Court Picks
On April 5, 2012, POLITICO reported:
Iowa Congressman Steve King, one of the staunchest conservatives in the House and a member whose endorsement was sought by almost all the presidential hopefuls ahead of the caucuses, said he will be an "enthusiastic" supporter of the eventual nominee of the party - but raised concerns about Mitt Romney's potential judicial picks as opposed to those who Rick Santorum would tap at a town hall in his home state last night. He also expressed being "uneasy" about Romney and how he will address the health care law as well during the forum, which was captured by the Democratic outside group American Bridge.
Etch-A-Sketch Redux
Last week top Romney campaign advisor Eric Fehrnstrom's now-famous Etch-A-Sketch remark ricocheted around the internet at warp speed, and many of the stories featured or mentioned American Bridge's Etch-A-Sketch rapid response video. Check out just a few of the shout-outs below.
NY Times: Romney Campaign Gaffe Steps On Good News, Again
On March 22, 2012, the New York Times reported:
nd they will be aided in the coming months by liberal allies who are literally tracking every word Mr. Romney and his associates say. The idea behind groups like American Bridge 21st Century and others is to catch the Republicans in misstatements, flip-flops, embarrassing moments and gaffes.
Romney Flip-Flops On Domestic Drilling's Impact On Foreign Oil Dependence
In recent days, Mitt Romney has claimed that domestic drilling would reduce dependency on foreign oil. It's probably no surprise that he hasn't always said so. On the March 16, 2012 episode of Fox News' Fox and Friends, Romney responded to a question about gas prices, saying:
“Well, the best thing we can do to get the price of gas to be more moderate and not have to be dependent upon the cartel is drill in the gulf, drill in the outer continent shelf, drill in ANWR, drill in North Dakota, South Dakota, drill in Oklahoma, and Texas." [Fox and Friends, 3/16/12]In his 2011 book No Apology, Romney wrote:
“We consume roughly 24 percent of the world’s oil but possess only 2.4 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Even if we were to begin to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the continental shelf, it wouldn’t be enough to appreciably have an impact on our dependence on other nations for oil. And if we were to open the domestic oil spigot too wide and drain our last fields, we would risk leaving America even more vulnerable twenty-five years from now than it is today. But there should be no objection to preparing the energy infrastructure to tap known reserves and to discover more reserves: This is a vitally important insurance policy against future energy shocks or threats to national security. And it is always possible that new, very large discoveries could surprise us." [No Apology, 2011, Pg. 247]
POLITICO: For Romney, It Could Be Worse
On March 15, 2012, POLITICO reported:
“Every campaign has to make decisions about what type of organization they want to build and what their priorities will be. Mitt Romney has been very fortunate that none of his opponents, from Perry to Newt to Santorum to [Tim] Pawlenty, have seemed to place a high value on research. He is an incredibly flawed candidate and every day we see opportunity after opportunity to highlight his hypocrisy,” said Democratic strategist Ty Matsdorf, war room director for the research-savvy group American Bridge. “Yet it seems his Republican opponents can’t even muster the simplest of pushback.”
Mediaite: Iran, Iran So Far Away: Mitt Romney Talks Tough Now, Wanted To Check With Lawyers In 2007
On March 6, 2012, Mediaite reported:
On the heels of President Obama’s tough, well-received speech to AIPAC this past weekend, leading GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is out with a butch new op-ed that continues his self-reinvention as a foreign policy Chuck Norris. However, progressive SuperPAC American Bridge has released a web video to remind Americans that, just like his declaration that “any president” would have greenlit the Osama bin Laden raid, the Mitt Romney of 2007 clucked a different tune.
Romney’s Ties To Lobbyists Highlight His Record of Hypocrisy
Despite his desperate attempts to paint Sen. Rick Santorum as a creature of Washington and a professional influence peddler, Gov. Mitt Romney has bragged about his ability to milk funds out of the federal government, and boasts his own close ties to Washington’s most powerful lobbyists. “Mitt Romney has a bad habit of hypocritically attacking his opponents over issues that boomerang straight back at his campaign,” said American Bridge senior adviser Ty Matsdorf. “If he believes lobbyists are what’s wrong with Washington, why does he court them? If he thinks Fannie and Freddie are evil, why did he invest in them?” “This is further proof that Mitt Romney will say and do anything to get elected -- and then say something else an hour later,” Matsdorf added. See the research below.