Bulk of Romney's campaigning is negativity, not vision

By Mike Thayer

Negative ads work, but only to a certain point.  Have you noticed that's all Mitt Romney and his Super Pac supporters seem to do?

In Michigan, the two big TV Romney campaign/Super Pac ads being run are negative ads attempting to tear down Rick Santorum. 

Where are the ads promoting Mitt Romney and his vision?

Do you really ever hear any details about his economic plan?

No, all you hear coming out of Romney's mouth/camp is something like, Newt Gingrich sucks because.....

Do you really ever hear any details of how Mitt would have handled the payroll tax debate in Congress?  How about how Romney would handle the situation in Syria?

No, all you hear is something like, Rick Santorum sucks because....

When Newt Gingrich was a threat, Romney attacked him.  Now that Santorum is a threat, Romney is attacking him.  Romney did the same thing in 2008.  He went negative against Fred Thompson when he considered Fred a threat.  He did it with Mike Huckabee when Huckabee got some momentum in Iowa, and Romney went negative big time against John McCain.  It's a pattern.  It's a tear down the opposition in order to make your pedestal look higher mentality.

Why does Romney default to negative ads, instead of providing a postive message to promote his vision for America?

Comments

[SDJammer]

This is about the 115th consecutive negative comment about Romney on here without any positive comments. Do we ever hear about the positives that he has to offer? Or is that a criticism that can only be directed towards Romney?

The tagline on this very well intended website is:

"If you're SICK OF SPIN, read the Coralville Courier!"

All of the Republican candidates for President offer some positives and have some negative baggage. I wonder how ALL of the stories about Romney can be negative and all of the stories about Santorum can be positive if there is not some level of SPIN going on?

[doug s.]

This is a conservative website, there's not much positive Romney stuff on this site probably because Mitt Romney isn't a conservative.

[doug s.]

Jammer,

Are you denying Mitt Romney hasn't pretty much gone negative? That's what his ads are doing, going negative. Those are Romney's talking points in stump speeches, being negative.

A quick check of the site show's not all the Romney coverage is negative, so don't get your panties all up in a wad.

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2012/01/newt-gingrich-ads-against-mitt-romney-get-ugly.html

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2011/12/mitt-romney-gives-north-liberty-crowd-a-standard-stump-speech.html

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2012/01/final-results-of-iowa-caucuses-probably-wont-matter-even-if-santorum-wins.html

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2012/02/romney-wins-maine.html

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2012/01/final-iowa-caucus-result-update-114am-romney-wins-iowa-by-14-votes.html

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2012/01/gallup-romney-has-23-point-lead-in-national-polling.html

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2011/12/coralville-courier-predicts-romney-to-win-on-caucus-night.html

http://coralvillecourier.typepad.com/community/2011/12/iem-traders-now-favor-gingrich-romney-in-iowa-romney-for-nomination.html

[SDJammer]

Doug S. - I have never said that Romney's ads were not mostly negative. I agree with the statement that he is running a highly negative campaign in the primary and don't find it encouraging. Unfortunately, much of the negativity is accurate.

What I said was there was hypocrisy being exhibited on here. To have an article titled: "Bulk of Romney's campaigning is negativity, not vision" but having almost every article with editorial content being mostly negative about Romney is hypocritical.

As for your links, I see there are a few of the ones you listed that have some very minor points that are not negative. However, to imply that they were positive articles is not accurate.

And to say that Romney is not a conservative is a complete distortion of the truth. Is he as conservative as I would like? NO -- Is he more left leaning on some issues? YES -- Does he have a record of sponsoring some progressive leaning legislation? YES -- However, to say that he is not a conservative is simply not accurate. He is a conservative in training much like Ronald Reagan was in his early years. We should be doing everything possible to have others pull him more to the right, NOT TRYING TO DESROY HIM.

Santorum has some of the very same problems, maybe to a lesser degree, but none the less still the same type of problems.

What are you guys going to do "IF" Romney gets the nomination? You will have ZERO credibility if you try to support Romney just because he is NOT Obama. We often wonder why the progressive liberals win so many elections. However, we only have to look at our actions to understand why.

[randy crawford]

SDJammer either doesn't get it, or is working hard to play deaf and dumb. Romney is just a clone of Obama. They work for the same interests. Mutt & Jeff, Tweedledee & Tweedledum, arsenic & strycchnine. Take your pick-- as I showed at
Randy Crawford on The notion that Santorum is the flavor of the month is liberal-minded talking point nonsense
they are flunkies of the same masters. And, anybody else can google "Obama top contributors" and "Romney top contributors" to see the same data from opensecrets.org. If Romney weasels his way past the brain-dead apathetic cattle to become the Great Hope of the Self-Condemned, it's only because the mass media, totally victorious with millions of gullible Democrats, has foisted the same garbage off onto millions of gullible Republicans. But just because somebody wants to become shortsighted, selfish, stupid, lazy, and irresponsible doesn't mean you have to jump off the same cliff with them today. You might as well at least wait until tomorrow.