Luntz: “Romney made a ‘big mistake’ by going negative against Huckabee”—how a Faustian Romney rages against the laws of physics

January 4, 2008 in 2008, campaign communications, campaign finance, campaign literature, campaign management, conservatism, election 2008, Evangelicals, GOP, incompetence, Iowa, media, mitt romney, policy, polls, republicans, rhetoric, romney, strategy, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: abuse, bitterness, delusion, faustian, hatred, negative ads, negative advertising, negative attacks, negative campaigning, negativity, political suicide, ROI, salt lake tribune, self-immolation, thomas burr

[…] “Romney outspent Huckabee 20-1 in the state, according to some estimates, yet the advertisements, ground structure and piles of mailers couldn’t help him at the caucuses, the first test of the presidential primary election process,” writes Thomas Burr of the Salt Lake Tribune in an article titled Romney’s big investment in Iowa turns bitter; Evangelicals distrust of Mormons likely factored in Huckabee victory

On Fox News, pollster/commentator Frank Luntz said Romney made a “big mistake” by going negative against Huckabee. Focus groups used by Luntz indicated that Iowa Republicans were turned off by the blizzard of attack ads from the Romney campaign and found Huckabee the “most human of all the candidates” […]

Well, duh.

We have harped on this string for weeks and weeks. You cannot go negative against a rival with lower negatives than yours without doing more damange to yourself than to your opponent. Calling your attack ads “contrast ads” and beginning your personal attacks with “x is an honorable man” fools precisely no one. See:

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

Conclusion: Romney’s high negatives, credibility issues, and icy-cold humanoid demeanor, will not support a negative message. But has Romney learned his lesson yet? No. Romney promises to continue his negative and personal attacks on his rivals.

Morris: “[Romney] doesn’t have to win, place or show”—but: Romney himself has promised to “absolutely” continue airing viciously negative personal attacks on his rivals—so whatever happens in Iowa, the GOP is the loser

Romney is not just at war with the GOP base and its divided and dispersed coalition. Faustian Romney is at war with the laws of physics. He deludes himself that e.g. gravity or entropy does not apply to him, or that he can declare white to be black, or hot to be cold, or negative ads to be contrastive ads, and it will be so. Romney is like a satyric version of a Romantic (anti)hero, raging at the universe like Shelley’s Frankenstein or Melville’s Ahab. Here is the problem for us: Romney may well destroy our party before he’s finished working through his personal issues at our expense.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

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