Romney on Palin Besting Him in ‘Late-Night Primary’: ‘I’ve Got to Come Up with Better Material, I’m Afraid’
EmailABC News' Teddy Davis and Matt Loffman report:
During his Friday appearance at the National Press Club, Mitt Romney was asked about Sarah Palin drawing bigger ratings Tuesday night on Leno than he did on Letterman.
"I've got to come up with better material, I'm afraid," quipped Romney.
Throughout his prepared speech and Q and A, Romney stuck to the core theme of his new book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," and once again criticized President Obama for saying that the US has "dictated" to other countries.
On the domestic front, the former Massachusetts governor said the US needs to take action to: (1) reduce the deficit, (2) make entitlements sustainable, (3) achieve energy independence, (4) reform health care, and (5) improve education.
Repeating a line that the Democratic National Committee has criticized him for, Romney said that he was disappointed in the way in which Obama has scapegoated insurance companies during the health-care debate.
Romney added that some insurers deserve blame while adding that the cost problem stems from a lack of sufficient market signals rather than from insurance companies hungry for ever larger profits. He noted that the largest insurer in his state, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, is non-profit.
Asked if the US was founded on "Christian principles," Romney, a Mormon, said that US culture draws on Judeo-Christian principles contained in the Old and New Testament. He noted, however, that the US also draws on principles from other great religions.
"I don't believe that we as a nation have ever adopted the stance that a particular religion or even branch of religion is an aspect of being an American," said Romney.
Romney was asked about having recently told the Boston Globe that the Republican Party needs to resist the temptations of populism.
"Populism means different things to different people," said Romney. "If by populism you mean appealing to the public and to the majority of Americans, that's something we're all in favor of. We want to elicit the support of the great majority of our fellow citizens."
"There is another, if you will, branch of the word populism, which I'm referring to," Romney continued. "There are some people who are scapegoating, who look for someone to blame for more fundamental problems that we have as a society. It may be a politician. It may be a Wall Street banker. It may be immigrants. It may be a certain ethnic group …"
Romney laid out the dangers of scapegoating but did not identify anyone in his own party as engaging in the practice.
The Republican presidential hopeful did, however, say that Obama had engaged in scapegoating with regards to insurance companies.
"I watched the president go after the insurance companies: 'let's scapegoat them,'" said Romney, attempting to describe the president's stance.
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Maybe Mitt should have had his lines written for him like Barbie. Most of everything she says is written/scripted for her.
Posted by: Bernie | March 5, 2010, 3:55 pm 3:55 pm
Mitt, it doesn’t matter what you say or how you say it…you will never be “vetted” by the Christian Right. That is why so many of us with brains have left your Party. Too much “extreme”, too much “fear”, too much negativity, too many small minds.
Posted by: CND FOX | March 5, 2010, 4:08 pm 4:08 pm
CND FOX- And the “athiest left” is better?
Romney is another elitist politician who had all the right connections from birth. He is deeply entrenched in the political establisment, just like Gore, Bush, hillary clinton, nancy pelosi Kerry, McCain and Obama.
Palin is the only really selfmade person of the group and the only one who has adamently taken on corruption within her own party.
Obama went to the most expensive private school in hawaii and still no one knows how he paid for his ivy league education because there is no record of him holding a job prior to going to school. Other then being ACORN’s lawyer when he worked for Tony Rezko’s law firm, his resume of ever working in the private sector is non existent. On a side note, Tony rezko is still wearing an orange jump suit in prison from all of the corruption he was involved with. I wonder why the media never mentioned that rezko was head of obama’s senate finance committee? I bet they would have ignored that little piece of info if it were Palin’s friend- yeah right.
Posted by: Dave | March 5, 2010, 4:45 pm 4:45 pm
dave…people like you are amazing. You have a great knack of taking “people’s strengths and achievements” and turning them into negatives. But I guess (based on the latest RNC documents) that that is what they teach you to do, isn’t it?
Posted by: CND FOX | March 5, 2010, 5:22 pm 5:22 pm
@CND FOX – there are plenty of atheists like myself left in the Republican party. I disagree on some social issues but the rampant spending of the bread & circus dems is unsustainable. Claiming the intellectual high ground and then attacking ad hominem your opponents rings hollow.
Posted by: Ryan | March 5, 2010, 6:50 pm 6:50 pm
@Dave If “corruption” were the biggest of our problems right now I might be inclined to say Palin were the better candidate. Unfortunately our employment rate is at 9.7% and we are still shedding jobs. Romney is far more experienced in the PRIVATE sector than Palin and therefore likely to make a better candidate IMO. That being said, Palin’s rise is commendable.
Posted by: Ryan | March 5, 2010, 6:57 pm 6:57 pm
The only people who support Romney are people he pays to show up in straw polls, and people on his payroll like Sean Hannity and the rest of the Neo CONS on Clear Channell that Romney just happend to buy last year.
Posted by: jafo | March 5, 2010, 7:02 pm 7:02 pm
I dont have a small brain, Romney has never paid me for anything…..so you guys are all showing a little intolerance and ignorance…..Its funny because thats what the conservative people are always accused of but the liberals are just as bad…..it’s amazing what a little spin can do
Posted by: mb | March 5, 2010, 7:24 pm 7:24 pm
ryan…I think you have lost your sense of rationality of which party is conducting “the attacks”. Hate to tell you this but it is the conservatives and the right, simply because they have zero leadership and zero solutions. You can “demonize” me about “intellectual high ground” all you want but those of us with common sense understand you do that because it is a “distraction” and because you have no solutions of your own. And when that doesn’t work, you just “get louder”. There is a very good reason why “your side” isn’t in power.
Posted by: CND FOX | March 5, 2010, 11:25 pm 11:25 pm
“Obama went to the most expensive private school in hawaii and still no one knows how he paid for his ivy league education because there is no record of him holding a job prior to going to school. Other then being ACORN’s lawyer when he worked for Tony Rezko’s law firm, his resume of ever working in the private sector is non existent. On a side note, Tony rezko is still wearing an orange jump suit in prison from all of the corruption he was involved with. I wonder why the media never mentioned that rezko was head of obama’s senate finance committee? I bet they would have ignored that little piece of info if it were Palin’s friend- yeah right.”
Dave, you forgot how Obama’s funding records for his two State Senate campaigns “disappeared” as did his senior thesis at U of Columbia on US/Soviet nuke disarmament. Funny how none of the MSM mentioned those “absences” in the public record of the callow untested shallow kid who is now POTUS. On the other hand, Andy Sullivan kept us all up to date on how Trig’s parentage was central to the nation’s future. And how Vicki Iseman was McCain’s more-than-lobbying pal.
Now the Dem swamp is running over with toxic slime from all sorts of crooks and entitlement packages, especially in the Corrupt Black Caucus, which still supports Rangel to a man [and in the sincerest form of flattery, imitates his moral squalor.
Posted by: daveinboca | March 6, 2010, 12:34 am 12:34 am
daveinboca…I hope for your sake that you write “conspiracy theories” for a living. Let me give you a hint. Market them to all of your small minded right wing friends. Just like Palin, your financial future will be secured. LOL…LOL…
Posted by: CND FOX | March 6, 2010, 10:32 am 10:32 am
Romney/Palin 2012 would be unbeatable.
Posted by: Frank Lind | March 6, 2010, 2:40 pm 2:40 pm
Romney’s problem in 2012 will be his health care plan in MassachusettEs which has caused premiums to skyrocket. He’ll get hammered on that in the primaries.
Romney/Palin(or vice/versa) will beat Obama. I agree, Frank. But then again, a hamburger will beat Obama in 2012 the way things are going.
Posted by: Adam_ME | March 6, 2010, 2:52 pm 2:52 pm
Palin-Romney Romney-Palin ticket couldn’t be beat… This country would be extremely lucky to get both of these in power..
Posted by: hogtrrashhd | March 6, 2010, 3:04 pm 3:04 pm
One of the things about the Republican Party that annoys me most is – as I have screamed repeatedly about – that its upper echelons are a fraternity of Country Club blue-bloods who are utterly grounded in the faith that the only candidates at the top that they will allow are those who have served their time as party peasants, shown proper loyalty and obeisance to the frat, and have waited until they were told it was their turn to run.
McCain’s blinding fury at Bush was for violating this rule book and he spent years knifing Bush at policies over it.
Tag – Romney is it.
It is likely it is either his turn or Lindsey Graham’s (which is why that dirt bag is playing footsie on Climate Change and Gitmo right now with PharoObama) and everyone else will be told to butt out – especially Sarah Palin (who is utterly unacceptable for her failure to toe the party line – when commanded to be courteous to Obama – until the ends of time to the party powers that be).
Posted by: wayne | March 6, 2010, 3:06 pm 3:06 pm
Mitt just needs to be Mitt and forget all of the suggestions from political consultants. Speak honestly and be forthright, as he lays out his suggestions for curing this nation’s ills. Those Americans who didn’t know from the start that Obama is an articulate, unaccomplished narcissist with a far-left agenda are now waking up and recognizing the bill of goods they’ve been sold.
Posted by: GeneralMalaise | March 6, 2010, 4:14 pm 4:14 pm
I like Mitt, I really do, but just like Jon Stewart said on his show the other night, Romney will always be “Gore to Palin’s Bush” He wants it more, but he ain’t getting it.
Mitt is middle management material. Sarah Palin is a C.E.O. Palin has 20 years worth of successful executive level experience.
People forget that besides being a Mayor and city manager, as well as highly successful Governor, Sarah was also the state’s chief oil and gas regulator.
It was Sarah’s work as Chairman of the AOGCC that landed her in the Governor’s office in the first place.
Sarah was also Commander-in-Chief of the only National Guard in the nation on permanent deployment.
She was also Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska Defense force, a nationally recognized militia that is part of Homeland Security’s strategery.
Not only has Sarah trained with her troops, she’s visited them in Kuwait, Germany, and Kosovo.
Her son, Track, just got back from Iraq where he served in a Stryker Brigade.
Some folks tend to forget that Palin was picked for her foreign policy stance.
Oh, there was more to it, of course, but according to A.B. Culvahouse, the D.C. powerbroker who vetted her, it was foreign policy that made the sale to McCain.
Culvahouse is a former advisor to Ronald Reagan. You can go to Cspan to see video of him discussing what a spectacular pick Sarah was.
Anyhow, a lot of people think Romney is a big financial guy, and yeah, he’s made some money, but “economists” are a dime a dozen.
Plus he will forever have RomneyCare wrapped around his neck like a boat anchor. In this environment, that makes him unelectable.
On the other hand, Sarah Palin is a superb C.E.O. People forget she negotiated the largest construction project in North American history.
Alaskans had tried to make this dream come true for 50 years. It only took her two!
People seem to forget that Sarah is also a successful business owner as well. She is a real deal commercial fisherman, and can tend the nets with the big boys.
Sarah has boots on the ground, skin in the game, real world business experience.
Again, I like Mitt Romney. He is a fine man. He would probably make a fine Treasury Secretary or Fed Chair.
Look for Sarah Palin to choose Texas Governor Rick Perry to be her Vice President.
That will be a winning team.
Posted by: Gary | March 6, 2010, 6:26 pm 6:26 pm