About a month ago, it looked as if Mitt Romney's presidential campaign had the worst surrogates ever -- several of the former governor's highest profile supporters had no qualms about saying how wrong Romney is on major issues of the day.
Associated Press
Chris Christie went off-message with Oprah.
Five weeks later, Romney's surrogates appear to be even less on-message than before.
Gov. Chris Christie told Oprah Winfrey in an interview broadcast tonight on OWN that a lot depends on whether he'll run for president in 2016, but one thing's for sure: "In terms of me, I'll be much more ready four years from now," he said.
Wrong answer. Four years from now, President Romney is supposed to be seeking a second term, at least according to Christie's preferred scenario. For the New Jersey governor to be talking to Oprah about his possible 2016 intentions is to work from the assumption that President Obama will win re-election.
And that's not what leading Romney surrogates are supposed to say on national television. [Update: Politico reported this last night, but Christie made the remarks in January, three months after he made his Romney endorsement.]
Similarly, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a likely Romney running mate, conceded yesterday, "There are a lot of other people out there that some of us wish had run for president -- but they didn't."
Can't you just feel the passionate support? On Wednesday, Rubio threw his support to Romney, and on Thursday, Rubio admitted he's only backing Romney because better candidates didn't run.
While we're at it, let's not forget that shortly after Bob Dole endorsed Romney, Dole said the former governor "has to answer to" the party over his support for health care mandates. Moreover, former Virginia Rep. and NRCC Chairman Tom Davis endorsed Romney, but noted on the record, "He may not be Mr. Personality. You know, he's the guy who gives the fireside chat and the fire goes out."
This is a Romney supporter.
The list of off-message surrogates just keeps getting longer.
Rep. Joe Heck (R) in Nevada is a top Romney backer in the Silver State and a campaign surrogate, but he doesn't mind talking publicly about how wrong Romney is on housing policy. Randy Pullen, a former Arizona Republican Party chairman and a top campaign backer in the state, offered this assessment of the race: "Santorum connects with people. Unfortunately, my guy has a hard time doing that."
What's more, Rep. Fred Upton (R), a top Romney backer in Michigan, said Romney was wrong about the auto-industry rescue, while Sen. John McCain (R), a very high-profile supporter, told a national television audience Romney's position on Taliban negotiations isn't his position.
Then there's Romney's other group of surrogates: the ones he doesn't want to talk to anymore. Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu was a top campaign surrogate until his recent scandal, and Rep.Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) was a leading surrogate before he was caught up in his own ethics controversies.
And in case all of this weren't quite enough, Romney backer Jon Huntsman argued support of "some sort of third-party movement or some alternative voice out there that can put forward new ideas."
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
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Romney to Christie: You are so un-friended!!!
"Haha, I have a funny story about how my dad once unfriended 200 factory workers..."
The real Republican Party has been focussing on 2016 since January, 2009. Everything else has been an amusing sideshow for the rubes.
I agree. This has been amusing and it just keeps getting funnier!
Agree, the "inner circle" of the GOP machine does not want the Presidency in this election as they have nutten to cure the ills they created - let it fall on the Dems and "we'll help them fail" is the plan in that regard - then the country will be ready for a Regnicant for Prez in 2016!
NO, what the inner circle of the GOP machine is after in this election is to distract WE, the People with stuff and nonsense while they go about winning more and more local elections as well as senators and representatives and if, along the way, they score a victory with health insurance that's icing on the cake.
This way they can destroy the country one state at a time and maybe no one will notice!
Do all the Republicans that were in favor of a mandate have to answer to Bob Dole? There's a pretty good sized list. Oh, yeah we are supposed to forget about that. Maybe their betting on the chance that people won't remember this and they are RIGHT to some extent. Thank you MSNBC for being our memory. Would this be taking advantage of people and their memory or just plain lieing? I wish all the people in the Republican Party could have total recall maybe the ones that do are the ones that switched parties or don't vote at all.
@Shumuwada - excellent! You beat me to it.
The candidate that has done the most damage to Mitt Romney will ALWAYS be in the race. Because all of the most telling damage has been self-inflicted
Except Christie and a lot of other presidential wannabes seems to be ignoring the fact that if mittens runs and loses the story line is going to be see... we should have gone with Santorum or a REAL conservative and the party of crazy will tack even further right . Cristie actually said some reasonable stuff I recall. Should be enough to eliminate him.
This could be one of the greatest political insults ever. Why do I envision Voldemort sitting in front of condenser mike?
This could be one of the finest political insults ever. For some reason, I envision Voldemort sitting front of a big old condenser mike. But seriously, I don't recall a major presidential candidate ever getting this much pushback from his own supporters. It's delicious.
(Sorry for duplication above - new registration issues)
... and on the flip side, I thought "Christie would be the kind of guy who gives the fireside chat and someone says, 'careful-- who put the gasoline on there?'"
I thought about voting for Mitt but remembered I like people.
Steve what do you expect? Mittens has the most self-inflicted wounds, so why wouldn't everyone else just join the bandwagon....Besides, come Aug./Sept. they'll just shake up the Etch-a-sketch and NO ONE will remember....
Christie had a Freudian slip because he, like many other Republicans, do not believe Romney will win. If that happens, the Republican primaries in 2016 are going to be just as crowded as these Republican primaries. Jeb Bush is going to have a lot of competition so Daddy Bush is going to be calling in every political favor to insure Jeb gets the nomination. We may see a lot of dirty politics among the Republicans as they jockey for 2016. Sex scandals, corruption charges, and anything that damages the competition will narrow the field. Politics as usual.
Romney, is a pile of dung, A frat minster, A loose cannon, And most of all he is gun happy, And would be bad for public to be president as much as, Nixon, Bush, And Reagan, We the people wouldn't serve this presidential creep, Ever!!!!