Here’s the last time Mitt Romney denied having seen an ad at the center of the campaign debate. That time it was from a Super Pac working on his behalf.
8:11 PM: When’s the fighting start?
8:17 PM: Really good answer there.
8:18 PM: Mittdignation!
8:19 PM: Is Newt actually managing to use logic and understatement this time? That’s total newtjitsu.
8:22 PM: Okay, this may be a problem for Mitt. He just said he hadn’t seen this ad about Gingrich allegedly attacking the Spanish language and doubted it was his. (Here’s the ad.) Well, it’s his ad and actually have the ‘I approve this message’ tag at the end.
Three big dynamics are likely to drive the Florida primary race between now and next the election next Tuesday.
The biggest and most interesting is the growing effort by what we think of as the GOP establishment to knock Newt down hard enough in Florida that he can’t get up off the canvas. Bob Dole’s seering attack on Newt today and Larry Kudlow’s very aggressive interview with Newt tonight on CNBC are the latest examples of the Stop Newt movement. The second dynamic is the $5 million of pro-Newt money from the Adelsons. Does it go toward a ferocious last-minute attack on Mitt? Signs point to yes. The final driving force is tonight’s debate, in a primary season where the debates — nearly 20 of them now — have had sometimes outsize influence.
The debate starts at 8 p.m. ET. You can follow the debate here in the Editors Blog and on TPM Livewire.
A local GOP official who witnessed the exchange between Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and President Obama on the tarmac yesterday gives TPM his different account of the “awkward moment.”
There’s one big fact about the Obama presidency: the US economy has sucked all through it. Who you blame for that is the key to the American political debate. But the reality of the suck is the baseline. The President’s approval on the economy has trended down over the course of the last three years. Read More
Did Gov. Brewer set the President up? I’m not sure. But I do think she wanted to get in his face. TPM Reader JS has another take.
Consider the possibility that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s airport spat with President Obama was anything but ad hoc and instead a cunningly orchestrated – and stunningly effective – tactic to neutralize the President’s message of the day.
As I’ve told people a few times: wake me up when the Romney campaign schedules a press call with a psychiatrist. Then I’ll know things are getting serious. This anti-Newt mailer sent out by the Romney campaign isn’t quite that. But it’s close.