Reuters is still kicking itself over an article about Republican golden boy Senator Marco Rubio that yielded five corrections yesterday and may have warranted more.
One senior staffer at Reuters described the episode to me as a "fiasco," another as a "disgrace."
It was so bad, in fact, that the editors and writer involved have been asked not to talk about it. (I reached out to editors David Lindsey and Eric Walsh, but have not heard back.)
The article, by David Adams, had intended to detail why Rubio was an unlikely pick for Vice President: "Rubio may not be as coveted as Gingrich or Romney would have it appear as they press for votes in Florida, where more than 450,000 Hispanics identify themselves as Republicans," Reuters David Adams wrote. "Despite his reputation as a watchdog over federal spending, Rubio, 40, has had significant financial problems that could keep him from passing any vetting process as a potential vice presidential choice, Republican and Democratic strategists say."
But after pressure from the Rubio staff, Reuters was forced to issue corrections that quickly became a larger talking point than the article itself.
Rubio's staff reached out to the editors and the writer early yesterday, prompting Reuters to issue two corrections. But the Daily Caller's Matt Lewis, who spoke with Rubio's staff as well, wrote an item suggesting that there were at least seven errors or exaggerations that warranted mention, and Reuters ultimately issued three more.
"It was unfortunate that a story was posted with so much bad information," Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told me. "But [Reuters'] quick response was appreciated."
The piece is now being referred to by various outlets and conservative blogs as a "hit piece" which failed to make the hit.
"There's no excuse for being this sloppy," the Examiner's Philip Klein, a former Reuters reporter, wrote. "Major misfire by Reuters, on multiple levels."
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Mitt Romney ...whose real first name is actually, no kidding, Willard, was governor of Massachussetts and is currently the front-runner for president on the Publican ticket. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's foot is in an ideological bucket because of Romneycare, a state-level experiment that should have been a warning against Obamacare if anyone had been paying attention. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field... has opened up a nine-point lead on Newt Gingrich in a new Florida poll released Friday, just four days before the Sunshine State's primary to choose the Republican presidential nominee.
The Quinnipiac University survey showed Romney, once seen as a shoo-in to take on Democratic US President Barack Obama How's it going, Sunshine?... , leading 38-29 percent over former House of Representatives speaker Gingrich among likely Republican voters.
Only six percent of those polled were undecided, but 32 percent said they might change their mind by Tuesday, when Florida votes in a winner-take-all race for 50 delegates.
The Quinnipiac poll suggested former Massachusetts governor Romney has stopped the rot and addressed doubts over his credentials after an embarrassing loss to Gingrich in the South Carolina primary, where he had once led strongly.
A loss in Florida would leave Gingrich's bare-bones campaign with an uphill struggle to reach the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination as the race opens out into multiple states.
"Newt Gingrich's momentum from his South Carolina victory appears to have stalled and governor Mitt Romney seems to be pulling away in Florida," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"Romney also has a better favorability rating from likely primary voters, which supports his lead in the horse race. Of course, with four days before election day, there is time for another reversal."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Another poll puts them neck and neck. But Newt Gindrich's neck (if he has one) is a lot shorter Romney's.
#4
The FL polls are trending toward a Romney lead, but nationally Gingrich still leads.
Another interesting tidbit is that Romney's national numbers have dropped back to 25% - right where they have been for 5 years. That's not the whole story though. Romney's vote totals in Iowa and NH were actually lower than in 2008. Clearly this man has momentum!
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/28/2012 21:11 Comments ||
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#8
Love the title of Sarah Palin's Facebook Rant: Cannibals in GOP Establishment Employ Tactics of the Left Facebook Link
For those who choose not to do Facebook here is her post:
We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.
We will look back on this week and realize that something changed. I have given numerous interviews wherein I espoused the benefits of thorough vetting during aggressive contested primary elections, but this weeks tactics arent what I meant. Those who claim allegiance to Ronald Reagans 11th Commandment should stop and think about where we are today. Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, the fathers of the modern conservative movement, would be ashamed of us in this primary. Let me make clear that I have no problem with the routine rough and tumble of a heated campaign. As I said at the first Tea Party convention two years ago, I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. Ive seen it before heck, I lived it before but not in a GOP primary race.
I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as facts about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us both the good and the bad.
We know that Newt fought in the trenches during the Reagan Revolution. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Newt was among a handful of Republican Congressman who would regularly take to the House floor to defend Reagan at a time when conservatives didnt have Fox News or talk radio or conservative blogs to give any balance to the liberal mainstream media. Newt actually came at Reagans administration from the right to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future. But this week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan and isnt conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race. (I know, it makes no sense, and the GOP establishment hopes you wont stop and think about this nonsense. Mark Levin and others have shown the ridiculousness of this.) To add insult to injury, this anti-Reagan claim was made by a candidate who admitted to not even supporting or voting for Reagan. He actually was against the Reagan movement, donated to liberal candidates, and said he didnt want to go back to the Reagan days. You cant change history. We know that Newt Gingrich brought the Reagan Revolution into the 1990s. We know it because none other than Nancy Reagan herself announced this when she presented Newt with an award, telling us, The dramatic movement of 1995 is an outgrowth of a much earlier crusade that goes back half a century. Barry Goldwater handed the torch to Ronnie, and in turn Ronnie turned that torch over to Newt and the Republican members of Congress to keep that dream alive. As Rush and others pointed out, if Nancy Reagan had ever thought that Newt was in any way an opponent of her beloved husband, she would never have even appeared on a stage with him, let alone presented him with an award and said such kind things about him. Nor would Reagans son, Michael Reagan, have chosen to endorse Newt in this primary race. There are no two greater keepers of the Reagan legacy than Nancy and Michael Reagan. What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst.
But this whole thing isnt really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Newt is an imperfect vessel for Tea Party support, but in South Carolina the Tea Party chose to get behind him instead of the old guards choice. In response, the GOP establishment voices denounced South Carolinian voters with the same vitriol we usually see from the left when they spew hatred at everyday Americans bitterly clinging to their faith and their Second Amendment rights. The Tea Party was once again told to sit down and shut up and listen to the wisdom of their betters. We were reminded of the litany of Tea Party endorsed candidates in 2010 who didnt win. Well, heres a little newsflash to the establishment: without the Tea Party there would have been no historic 2010 victory at all.
I spoke up before the South Carolina primary to urge voters there to keep this primary going because I have great concern about the GOP establishment trying to anoint a candidate without the blessing of the grassroots and all the needed energy and resources we as commonsense constitutional conservatives could bring to the general election in order to defeat President Obama. Now, I respect Governor Romney and his success. But there are serious concerns about his record and whether as a politician he consistently applied conservative principles and how this impacts the agenda moving forward. The questions need answers now. That is why this primary should not be rushed to an end. We need to vet this. Pundits in the Beltway are gleefully proclaiming that this primary race is over after Florida, despite 46 states still not having chimed in. Well, perhaps its possible that it will come to a speedy end in just four days; but with these questions left unanswered, it will not have come to a satisfactory conclusion. Without this necessary vetting process, the unanswered question of Governor Romneys conservative bona fides and the unanswered and false attacks on Newt Gingrich will hang in the air to demoralize many in the electorate. The Tea Party grassroots will certainly feel disenfranchised and disenchanted with the perceived orchestrated outcome from self-proclaimed movers and shakers trying to sew this all up. And, trust me, during the general election, Governor Romneys statements and record in the private sector will be relentlessly parsed over by the opposition in excruciating detail to frighten off swing voters. This is why we need a fair primary that is not prematurely cut short by the GOP establishment using Alinsky tactics to kneecap Governor Romneys chief rival.
As I said in my speech in Iowa last September, the challenge of this election is not simply to replace President Obama. The real challenge is who and what we will replace him with. Its not enough to just change up the uniform. If we dont change the team and the game plan, we wont save our country. We truly need sudden and relentless reform in Washington to defend our republic, though its becoming clearer that the old guard wants anything but that. That is why we should all be concerned by the tactics employed by the establishment this week. We will not save our country by becoming like the left. And I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didnt see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in 08 and let Obama escape unvetted. Oddly, theyre now using every available microscope and endoscope along with rewriting history in attempts to character assassinate anyone challenging their chosen one in their own partys primary. So, one must ask, who are they really running against?
- Sarah Palin
Posted by: Water Modem ||
01/28/2012 21:24 Comments ||
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#9
I think she was using those tactics herself earlier in the campaign. She certainly gave the appearance of backing Michelle "I wanna be Mitt's VP Soooooo Badly" Bachmann's Tardasil attack on Perry.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
