Team Romney panics in SC in wake of Iowa rout

January 4, 2008 in 2008, campaign management, conservatism, election 2008, GOP, Iowa, mitt romney, polls, republicans, romney, strategy
Tags: ambivalence, Charleston, defeat, ennui, Mt. Pleasant, panic, Piggly Wiggly, rout, SC, South Carolina, the promenade around the battery

“Although Mitt Romney denied that last night’s disastrous showing in Iowa would slow down his bid for the White House, it appears that his South Carolina campaign is preparing for the worst,” writes Adam of the Palmetto Scoop in a blog burst titled DeMint takeover of Romney SC campaign?

Sources tell me that for the last week, Luke Byars, Sen. Jim DeMint’s state director, has been working full time out of the Romney campaign’s SC headquarters.Is this a sign that Romney’s state operation is in trouble? Absolutely […]

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

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the high price Romney pays for his aggressively negative campaigning—blogosphere blogbuzz suggests movement away from both Gov. Huckabee AND the hapless candidate from MA, Romney

January 2, 2008 in 2008, argument, campaign communications, campaign management, conservatism, election 2008, GOP, incompetence, Iowa, media, mitt romney, republicans, rhetoric, romney, strategy, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: advertising, ambivalence, blogbuzz, blogging, blogs, ennui, negative, negative attacks, negative campaigning, negativity, new media, political blogs, ROI, wonkokevin, wonkosphere

“The conservative Wonkosphere continued to focus most of its attention on Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, the two front-runners in the upcoming Iowa caucus. Both are kind of hobbling into the finish line though–most of the attention to both of them is strongly negative, and this negativity has gone on for the last 3 weeks,” writes WonkoKevin for the WonkoBlog in a post titled Ennui: Conservative bloggers increase their negative focus on Huckabee and Romney

… IF we assume that conservative bloggers yesterday are of similar sentiment to conservative voters in Iowa, then we might predict low turnout, which helps Huckabee, probably helps Paul challenge for third place … etc.

Pass in review. What happens when your own negatives are high and you go negative? You implode.

Rasmussen Reports: Romney has the least core support, and the most core opposition of all the leading candidates, Republican or Democrat—these findings predict the sudden and fierce backlash against Romney’s negative attacks on other candidates

This explains Romney’s sudden and wild over-spending—on top of his earlier over-spending—in Iowa. He needs to compensate for the collapse of his own support. Evidence: Romney’s ROI for his every campaign dollar continues to plummet; he spends wildly, he spends more and more, yet his numbers are static.

Romney’s Kevin Madden “flabbergasted” at Team Romney’s helplessness against under-funded and un-organized Gov. Huckabee—Romney loses control of his spending says Carr—more on Romney’s fantastically low ROI for his every campaign dollar

yours &c.
dr. g.d.