Or he could have made a symbolic bet, like for a bottle of scotch or the like. The press loves to follow things like that, and it’d be sure to be a story when the bet was settled, and realistically, the publicity is worth more than the money in a case like this. But at the same time, it would feel more like the sort of bet an “ordinary guy” would make.
If Romney had the political instincts of a hamster he would have said something like “I’ll bet you a bowl of Boston baked beans against a bowl of Texas chili”.
I can’t believe this “I bet you $10k” shit is what my brethren on the left are flogging. People - Romney wasn’t actually expecting to either put up or win ten thousand dollars. It was fucking rhetorical.
Going after this is pretty weak tea.
It ain’t the people on the left flogging it.
How subjective would it be to look at two copies of a book and compare the passages in question to see if it was changed? Sounds pretty cut and dry to me, either it was changed or it wasn’t.
Every time I think it can’t descend any further into theater of the absurd, it does:
(One million? Pffft! Get in touch with Newt’s people when you have some real money!)
It was changed, and Romney wasn’t contesting that point. He was contesting his motivation in changing it, which is pretty much impossible to prove either way.
If he’d actually contested some claim that was actually provably false, then I think the headlines would’ve focused on the contents of the bet a lot more (presumably to Perry’s detriment) and less on Romneys wallet.
It’s not gambling if you know you’re going to win.
Yeah, try that one on your wife . . .
I have to say this is shaping up to be a fascinating race. A month back the conventional wisdom was that Romney was going to win in a cakewalk but I was skeptical and believed that a serious challenge had to come from someone on the right. Newt was the last conservative standing so it was him. But can he actually go all the way? A whole range of right-wing commentators like George Will are setting their targets on him and that has to slow him down. What’s going on behind the scenes in the “invisible primary”. Are the more conservative GOP moneymen and operatives moving to him or is he still running a shoe-string campaign?
Gingrich is a target-rich environment but Romney has to be disciplined in his attacks and should mainly attack Gingrich from the right. This makes Romney looks more conservative and in Rovian fashion helps undermine Gingrich’s biggest strength: that he is the last conservative who can stop Romney.
Romney has the money to launch a massive barrage of ads at Gingrich and the weight of mainstream Republican commentary is also against him. That has to to hurt him in the next few weeks ,especially since debates become less important, but how quickly and how much?
I’m wondering why Santorum isn’t getting his week at the top. Sure he’s bonkers, but so what? Pretty much all of them are.
I feel bad for him. But Republican voters apparently don’t like the taste of santorum. Go figure.
Gingrich is fading according to the daily Gallup tracking poll; his lead is just 28-24 compared to 37-22 at the beginning of the month. Not surprising since the debates are over and he is facing a massive ad barrage as well as massive attacks from mainstream conservative commentators. But note that Romney hasn’t moved up much and his support seems to have a ceiling of 25%. If Gingrich can hang on and win Iowa and knock out Perry or Bachmann he could still make a race out of it.
But he needs to change the current trajectory of the race where he is completely on the defensive. Either he needs to raise money quickly online and fight back with more ads or he needs a big endorsement from someone like Rush Limbaugh.
No offense, but I think that was just more fuel on the fire. Hating the State Department is a traditional Republican pastime going back at least as far as Joe McCarthy. I remember when Nixon was gearing up to run for President in 1968, he said he was going to clean up the State Department. The State Department’s reasoned assessments of what’s going on with the various nations tends to work against the perennial desire of conservatives to declare that a given Third World strongman is at the right hand of God, and that another is evil incarnate. And works even more against their desire to have the U.S. take strong action based on those opinions.
Hating on the State Department is simply in the right wing’s blood, and I’d bet a metaphorical $10,000 that Newt’s on record across the decades with plenty of State Department hate.
The Republican old pols seem to be scared of Newt, and they are trotting out the old House veterans to testify as to what a poor leader he was. Be interesting to see if this backfires.
Some Tea Party person was quoted in the Times yesterday as wanting a brokered convention to get a “real” conservative nominated. Both frontrunners have had heretical positions in the past so I can see why the Tea Partiers are having a fit.
I still have this sneaking suspicion that somewhere in Alaska Sarah Palin is plotting to be the dark moose candidate.
Latest buzz is that that seems to be working Voyager, but not as they expected it seems, pollsters are reporting that at least in Iowa Ron Paul is the new “not [del]Mittens[/del] Romney”
I like how this thread (regarding its title) was started when ol’ Newt was way down in the polls; he then skyrocketed to a (brief) peak, and now has come back down again.
crosses fingers
Be still my heart – could my Republican dream ticket of Paul-Palin happen?