Daily Roundup

Posted by : Gary Gore November 23, 2007 - 5:50pm

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From 'round the sphere:

On the trail...

* Thompson, Romney Praise Stem-Cell Breakthrough, Others Silent – Cybercast News

* Thompson to Guiliani: New York is not emblematic of the rest of America - Yahoo

* Romney Condemns Judge’s Decision, Cites Need for Capital Punishment - FoxNews

News:

* Democrats, Party of Rich Says Study – Washington Times

* Illegal Steals Identity to Become Police Officer – FoxNews

* Holloway Suspects To Remain Jailed - CNN

* Virginia Abstinence Initiative Funding Cut, Though Successful - Agape Press

Opinion:

* MoveOn.org Continues Use of 2005 “faked” Thanksgiving Ad – Michelle Malkin

* Clinton and Obama Mum on Stem Cell News - Mark Imponeni / AOL News

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Mark Hemingway's Latest Negative Piece on Romney Does Not Go Unchallenged

Posted by : Gary Gore November 19, 2007 - 7:03pm

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Mark Hemingway of National Review has somewhat of a history when it comes to taking a negative slant regarding Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. From his earlier pieces where he erroneously wrote that Romney’s accomplishments show “style over substance” to a later article where he mentions Romney’s “controversial religious beliefs”, Hemingway has truly been no friend of the former governor.

In his latest along those lines, titled “Did Mitt Romney Push Poll Himself?”, Hemingway poses the question of whether or not the Romney campaign may have initiated the negative phone polls against himself in New Hampshire and Iowa. The preponderance of proof for giving cause to this speculation is a convoluted relationship between a communications firm, Western Wats, who Hemingway seems to implicate in the calls, and Target Point Consulting, which Romney ’08 is contracting for the campaign for consultancy work.

Hemingway’s “smoking gun” seems to be the fact that Target Point may have used Western Wats - one of the nation’s largest telephone research outfits that “conducts 7000 projects a year” (according to MyManMitt.com) - on a previous occasion. This is the be all, end all for what he feels gives him cause to demand that Western Wats and Target Point detail all of their previous projects to “exonerate” Romney and “end (his) speculation”.

Both Western Wats and Target Point Consulting have responded with unyielding denials that there was any involvement in the polls, as has the Mitt Romney campaign, itself.

Of note, is Target Point Consulting's response, to which National Review Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez added: “EDITOR’S NOTE: NRO did not contact TargetPoint and should have – KJL”, regarding the lack of homework put into the story before launching the speculative piece.

Alex Gage, President of Target Point, states in his Letter to the Editor, “I am not sure what, if any, motives the author may have, but now that it has been published, this piece has unfairly smeared me, my firm and the Romney campaign.”

Looking back at some of the past contributions that have come from Hemingway can shed a lot more light, possibly, on those motives than the dots he mistakenly attempted to connect sheds light, certainly, on any involvement by Romney.

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Rove's Rookie Op/Ed Favorable For One GOP Candidate in Particular

Posted by : Gary Gore November 19, 2007 - 12:13pm

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Karl Rove’s inaugural Op/Ed piece for Newsweek, already available for viewing on the web, definitely did not disappoint. He swung for the fences with “How to Beat Hillary (Next) November – Republicans who think she’ll be easy to defeat are wrong. What they should do.”

In his editorial Rove gives several points that the Republican candidate nominated for the general election should embrace as he reintroduces himself to the American people in his run against the presumptive nominee on the Democrat side. In one of the only direct suggestions towards policy, Rove brings up the “kitchen table” issue of healthcare as one that should be addressed by the nominee.

Upon reading this suggestion, it immediately brought to mind Mitt Romney’s appearance on Glenn Beck last Wednesday and his answers regarding his healthcare record and his success in tackling the social issue by offering a private, free enterprise, personal responsibility approach to this issue without raising taxes – taking ownership of this issue from the democrats.

As Romney said (in paraphrasing), we’re already going down the road to socialized medicine when any patient who walks into an emergency room without insurance will receive treatment that ultimately, by default, gets paid by the rest of us. And Romney’s Heritage Foundation-backed solution did what Hillary’s highly publicized, highly scrutinized, and highly unsuccessful attempts were never able to accomplish, in remedying the issue.