Newslinks for Tuesday Jan 24: Romney takes Mitts off in video attack on Newt, but dogged by his own tax affairs
Posted on 01/24/2012Romney now has the support of 29% of Republican registered voters to Gingrich's 28%, according to Gallup - USA Today
VIDEO: New Romney ad hits Gingrich has someone who "cashed in" on America's housing crisis
Mitt Romney paid $3M in taxes in 2010 - USA Today
Romney paid a 14% Effective Tax Rate for 2010 on $21.7 Million in Income - WSJ
- Obama paid 25 percent of his gross income in federal tax, compared to Romney’s 13.7 percent - Politico
- "The fact that someone like Romney could amass a fortune in the hundreds of millions of dollars while paying a lower rate than people of lesser means is one symbol among many of how badly the code is broken." - USA Today
- The Romneys gave away $7 million in charitable contributions over the past two years, including at least $4.1 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - Washington Post
- "There’s no headline from this debate that will obscure the news out of the release of his tax returns Tuesday" - Politico
- "Tuesday morning’s headlines out of the Romney tax returns are likely to be plenty uncomfortable for the former Massachusetts governor: by any measure he’s a very, very wealthy man." - Politico
They say Romney is the establishment candidate but the establishment is slow to endorse him...
- More via Nate Silver
- "Romney remains a tremendously weak frontrunner, whose strengths don’t compensate for a style that leaves conservatives cold and a background that will leave him open to attacks across a variety of Democratic-friendly fronts in the general election." - Ross Douthat
- "Mitt Romney was born and raised in Michigan and has ties to Utah. Yet he chose to make his career, both in business and politics, in Massachusetts. Nearly every political problem Romney has today, at least those involving his policy positions, stems from that one decision." - Byron York
Meanwhile, Gingrich’s former firm releases Freddie Mac contract - Washington Post
Romney levelled a searing attack against Newt Gingrich’s character and raised pointed questions about his ability to lead - New York Times
- "Romney wasted little time before laying into Gingrich on an array of potential vulnerabilities in advance of the Jan. 31 Florida primary, including a challenge to Gingrich’s conservative bona fides on the environment, his condemnation for which he later apologized of Paul Ryan’s entitlement reform plan as “right-wing social engineering,” and his consulting work on behalf of failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac." - RCP
- "unlike Gingrich’s memorable moments from the two South Carolina debates, nothing in Monday’s debate seems likely to alter the race in Florida in any serious way, either by boosting Romney or slowing Gingrich’s momentum." - Weekly Standard
Romney advocates 'self-deportation' for illegal immigrants - LA Times
- Defeat in SC will be good for Romney if he now discovers passion - George Will in the Washington Post
- Ten suggestions for Romney to get back on track, beginning with DON'T PANIC - The Hill
Now it's Santorum's turn to take aim at the mainstream media - WSJ
- Santorum misses opportunity to emerge between Mitt/Newt scrummage - NRO
- Santorum fails to correct woman who says Obama is a Muslim - Joe Klein
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said a quick end to the presidential primary battle would be best so the GOP can unify around the nominee - Roll Call
Stephens and Gerson see support for Gingrich as a desire for excitement
- Voters instinctively prefer the idea of an entertaining Newt-Obama contest—the aspiring Caesar versus the failed Redeemer—over a dreary Mitt-Obama one - Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal
- "Currently many conservatives are exercising not just their franchise but their imaginations. They picture a debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, and they yawn. They envision Gingrich going after the president, the media and the fundamental failures of liberalism — and their pulses race. But Republicans need to imagine just a little further — electing a president with no history of prudence." - Mike Gerson in the Washington Post
Jonah Goldberg at the LA Times reaches similar conclusions: "For whatever reason, Romney seems like a creature put on Earth to blend in with the humans and report back what he finds. He clearly likes earthlings, and they in turn find him pleasant enough, and surprisingly lifelike. Occasionally he finds the right words, but he rarely connects them to the right tone. This dearth of convincing passion in the front-runner makes the passionate base of the party want to look elsewhere — even to Newtzilla."
"Mr Romney's challenge is to talk conservatives down from the ledge without worsening his position by insulting them for climbing up there with Newt in the first place" - Economist
Jonathan Tobin is perplexed that some people are still wanting a new candidate to emerge
"Anyone who really wanted to be president and thought they could win has already jumped in (and in a number of cases they have also already jumped out again). The only realistic possibilities for the Republican presidential nomination are named Gingrich or Romney." - Commentary
Republicans choose Mitch Daniels to respond to State of the Union - New York Times
- "There is much to admire in Barack Obama the man. But his presidency, especially on the domestic front, has been a bitter disappointment to almost everybody—perhaps above all to those who most desperately needed help from the government he led." - David Frum at the Daily Beast
- "If President Obama is really serious about restoring American economic dynamism, he needs an aggressive two-pronged approach: More economic freedom combined with more social structure; more competition combined with more support." - David Brooks in the New York Times
Eric Cantor calls for replacing defense cuts one year at a time, if necessary - The Hill
House GOP: Medicare reform on 2012 agenda... but "scaled back" - Washington Times
Wisconsin Scott Walker's reforms are saving money, which unions cannot forgive - WSJ editorial
Chris Christie made a point of advertising that he’s nominating the first openly gay member of the New Jersey State Supreme Court along with the court’s first Asian-American - WSJ
Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who captured President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat in 2010, faces a difficult recovery from a stroke - WSJ
Thoughts on yesterday's March for Life - Michelle Malkin
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