Mitt Romney’s Dirty Tricks
Someone has been violating Reagan’s 11th commandment…
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The race for the Republican presidential nomination just got uglier.
A spokesman for Fred Thompson’s presidential bid accused GOP rival Mitt Romney’s campaign of a “cover-up” Tuesday over a now defunct Web site, which portrayed the former Tennessee senator in an unflattering manner and referred to him as “phony.” The Web site, http://www.phonyfred.org, was created by Wes Donehue, an associate consultant and vice president of the firm Tompkins, Thompson, and Sullivan. A principal of the firm – Warren Tompkins – is a paid advisor to Romney’s presidential campaign.
“Today’s half-baked cover-up attempt by the Romney campaign does not even pass the laugh test,” Todd Harris, Thompson’s communications director, said in a prepared statement. . . .
“The Romney campaign has paid Warren Tompkins and his various firms hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Harris said.
“Wesley Donehue works for Tompkins and is listed on Tompkins’ own Web page as an associate of the firm.”
Romney’s campaign is denying this, but it’s worth noting that this sort of tactic was expressly provided for in one of his campaign’s internal document called, fittingly enough, the “blueprint” for his campaign. From an article about the documents contents:
The document also outlines schemes for “positively branding” Romney while “negatively framing rivals John McCain and Rudy Giuliani,” according to the Globe, which obtained the plan that had been prepared in secret by the Romney campaign’s media adviser, Alex Castellanos, and others.
Displaying an instinct for the jugular that would warm Karl “Swift Boat” Rove’s heart, the 77-slide PowerPoint presentation suggests that the Romney campaign mount personal attacks on potential rivals for the Republican nomination. With seeming delight Romney’s hit men argue that Arizona Sen. John McCain should be portrayed as something of a nut—an “uncertain, erratic, unreliable leader in uncertain times”—not to mention a “mature brand” who, at 70, is too old and sickly to be president.
The blueprint proposes that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani should be attacked as an ethically challenged libertine whose multiple marriages have saddled him with “personal political liabilities.”
It’d be interesting to know what the presentation’s suggestions for Fred Thompson were, as we’re obviously seeing the manifestation of them now.
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