Posted by
Bert Chapman on Saturday, January 21, 2012 8:30:18 PM
South Carolina's primary results are disappointing but we must remember that this is a long-term battle for the party's nomination. Gingrich's impassioned debate performances seduced enough of the Palmetto state's voters to give his campaign an additional resurrection. Gingrich's energetic debate responses to annoying questions from journalists are not enough to produce presidential credibility. The former speaker's indulging in George Soros and Occupy Wall Street rhetoric to bash Mitt Romney's business accomplishments plays into the Obama Administration's campaign strategy and will, as Romney asserted tonight, come back to bite us in the fall campaign if Gingrich is the GOP nominee.
Mitt, unfortunately, made some mistakes in South Carolina. His debate performances were insufficiently passionate and he needs to be more aggressive in defending his tenure at Bain and the moral superiority of free market capitalism. He also seriously failed by not releasing his tax returns and should do so as soon as possible as the campaign moves to Florida.. Frankly, many of us could learn some could tax deduction tips from seeing his returns. Romney also needs to get more aggressive in pointing out Gingrich's manifold character flaws, his undisciplined leadership as House Speaker which would be reflected if he becomes President, and ruthlessly exploit Gingrich's tendency to shoot from the hip by point out the dangers this poses in domestic and international leadership. Gingrich's tacit acceptance of Ron Paul's conspiratorial fantasies about the Federal Reserve Board in his victory speech tonight is a good line of attack for Romney to pursue. It's time to drive a stake into Gingrich's heart and keep this primary season from going on for to long because we must put the bulk of our passion and financial treasure into defeating Barack Obama and his billion dollar agitprop machine.
Romney also needs to continue appealing to Americans best aspirations and demonstrate that his policies will restore economic prosperity and enable individual Americans and their families to reach their optimum God given potential. He needs to work to improve his connection to average Americans and demonstrate that his brand of conservatism is more likely to produce desirable economic improvements and enhance our standing in the world than Newt Gingrich's rambling and undisciplined rhetorical flights of fancy and xenophobic appeals to regional prejudice such as calling Romney a "Massachusetts moderate." Such regional insularity and hostility toward New England should have died with the Civil War and are unworthy of educated southerners and America's rich conservative tradition. Despite the Bay State's descent into liberal folly over recent decades, Romney demonstrates that conservatism still plays a role in the northeast and he has been supported by other northeastern conservatives such as Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and Harvard law school professor Mary Ann Glendon.
It's on to Florida and, hopefully, Mitt will regain his momentum and passion and win a victory to take a step closer to winning the GOP nomination and begin reclaiming our country from the disastrous Barack Obama experiment.