"You Didn’t Become A Career Politician Because You Lost To Teddy Kennedy"

[Yank2133]

Could that quote be Mitt's waterloo? It is not totally devastating, but Newt did hit him with a zinger that could stick for the rest of the campaign.

[Reginald]

If anything from tonight sticks, it'll be that $10,000 bet.

[Yank2133]

True, that is going to be in some ads next week.

[Sam Spade]

Could that quote be Mitt's waterloo? It is not totally devastating, but Newt did him with zinger that could stick for the rest of the campaign.

I tend to doubt it - the quote would have been much better had it been "you didn't become a career politician because you lost to Teddy Kennedy while trying to run on his platform".  The $10,000 remark will do much more damage.

[RI]

I loved this line. It's the simple truth, and the hypocrisy Romney displays when he attacks "career politicians" was finally exposed. Romney would have been one if he could've.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

I loved it... especially since running for President for 6 years and reinventing yourself with every office is much worse then fighting for your principles in Washington for 40 years

[Simfan34]

I've been waiting to hear someone say this for a long time.

[Politico]

Romney is a successful businessman, which is the only reason why he was capable of spending millions on a campaign against Ted Kennedy in 1994. For the record, it was the one and only time Ted Kennedy was forced to seriously campaign for his Senate seat and spend family dollars on it.

Newt Gingrich lost his first political race, too (and, unlike Romney, Gingrich also lost his second bid at political office). The difference: Gingrich has been running for office since 1974, a full twenty years before Romney tried his hand at politics. And what word is usually used to describe a politician like Gingrich who is slammed with a $300,000 ethics violation fine?

[Averroës Nix]

Romney is a successful businessman, which is the only reason why he was capable of spending millions on a campaign against Ted Kennedy. For the record, it was the one and only time Ted Kennedy was forced to seriously campaign for his Senate seat and spend family dollars on it.

True, but despite millions of dollars in spending Romney went on to lose to Kennedy by a Santorum-esque margin of nearly twenty points in a wave year for Republicans.

[Politico]

Romney is a successful businessman, which is the only reason why he was capable of spending millions on a campaign against Ted Kennedy. For the record, it was the one and only time Ted Kennedy was forced to seriously campaign for his Senate seat and spend family dollars on it.

True, but despite millions of dollars in spending Romney went on to lose to Kennedy by a Santorum-esque margin of nearly twenty points in a wave year for Republicans.

Beating Ted Kennedy in any year, even 1994, would have been like beating Strom Thurmond in any year, even a hugely anti-Republican year like 2006/2008. Just not happening.

[Lief 🗽]

1996
Strom Thurmond (R) (inc.) - 620,326 (53.38%)
Elliott Close (D) - 511,226 (43.99%)

[Politico]

1996
Strom Thurmond (R) (inc.) - 620,326 (53.38%)
Elliott Close (D) - 511,226 (43.99%)

Thanks for proving my point. Elliott Close, a wealthy textile heir, had a boatload of more campaign funds than Strom Thurmond, and ran a great campaign with only one minor bump along the way. He still lost big-time. Give Thurmond the kind of funds Kennedy had in 1994, and it would have been a 25 point shellacking.

There were some folks in the Senate, like Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond, that were truly unbeatable.

[Averroës Nix]

There were some folks in the Senate, like Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond, that were truly unbeatable.

Wikipedia:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Bull Moose Base]

The ding on Romney is not that he couldn't beat Ted Kennedy but that he's trying to pass himself off as a non-politician despite this being his 4th time as a candidate in the past 17 years.

[Lief 🗽]

There were some folks in the Senate, like Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond, that were truly unbeatable.

Wikipedia:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

boom headshot

[redcommander]

The ding on Romney is not that he couldn't beat Ted Kennedy but that he's trying to pass himself off as a non-politician despite this being his 4th time as a candidate in the past 17 years.

How exactly are you a career politician when you haven't been elected to political office for the past 17 years? There's a difference between trying to get elected, and actually being in Washington D.C. in various elected and non-elected positions like Gingrich has for the past 40 years.

[Lief 🗽]

Just because he's a bad career politician doesn't mean he's not a career politician, broski.

[redcommander]

Just because he's a bad career politician doesn't mean he's not a career politician, broski.

No he's not. If you want to attack him for being a constant candidate fine, but calling him a career politician is not true.

[tpfkaw]

Romney is a successful businessman, which is the only reason why he was capable of spending millions on a campaign against Ted Kennedy in 1994.

Romney's father was the Governor of Michigan, which is the only reason why he was capable of becoming a successful businessman.  Romney's father was a successful businessman, which is the only reason why he was capable of spending millions to become the Governor of Michigan.  Romney's father was a career lobbyist, which led to a career as a successful businessman.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Anyone who can spend five years running for President is a career politician.

[King]

It's obvious Newt has been holding on to that line for months waiting for his time in the sun and he showed great patience in finally pointing out the obvious.

Newt must also be delighted in seeing Rick Perry ignore him and go after Romney every time as though the two were still in front.

[BigSkyBob]

Romney does have the resource of noting that while at the time he regretted losing to Kennedy, in retrospect it was the best thing that happened to him since it meant that he didn't become a career politician.

Washington has spawned a corrupt culture among a self-defined ruling class. The longer one is in Washington the greater the sense of entitlement to things such as a compensation greater than the job's salary and reelection as an right rather than a privilege.

Those that defend career politicians need to answer for the national debt that they created, the deficit that they created, Duke Cunningham whom they ignored for years, their outsized investment returns, the lobbying careers of their spouses, and the fact that they draw a salary from the taxpayers yet habitually leave work to cross the street to dial for dollars.

[Politico]

There were some folks in the Senate, like Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond, that were truly unbeatable.

Wikipedia:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Again, Close spent how much? He was a good candidate who spent more than Thurmond and yet was unable to get it close.

Let me rephrase it another way so that perhaps it will sink in better: Beating Ted Kennedy, even in 1994, would have been like beating Ronald Reagan in 1984. Nobody ever did it, and I think nobody could have done it. Even William Weld, the most popular Republican of Massachusetts in the 1990s with connections to the Roosevelt Family through his wife, lost to John Kerry, so how do you really expect any Republican to have ever been competitive with Ted Kennedy? Romney literally had nobody backing him other than his business associates and connections through Bain Capital.

Anyway, Newt Gingrich, unlike Romney, lost his first two political races...back in the early/mid 70s, way before Romney ever ran for political office. And Newt Gingrich, unlike Romney, has never won statewide office anywhere.

[BigSkyBob]

There were some folks in the Senate, like Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond, that were truly unbeatable.

Wikipedia:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Again, Close spent how much? He was a good candidate who spent more than Thurmond and yet was unable to get it close.

Let me rephrase it another way so that perhaps it will sink in better: Beating Ted Kennedy, even in 1994, would have been like beating Ronald Reagan in 1984. Nobody ever did it, and I think nobody could have done it. Even William Weld, the most popular Republican of Massachusetts in the 1990s with connections to the Roosevelt Family through his wife, lost to John Kerry, so how do you really expect any Republican to have ever been competitive with Ted Kennedy? Romney literally had nobody backing him other than his business associates and connections through Bain Capital.

Anyway, Newt Gingrich, unlike Romney, lost his first two political races...back in the early/mid 70s, way before Romney ever ran for political office. And Newt Gingrich, unlike Romney, has never won statewide office anywhere.

He, also, lost his last race to be the Republican nominee for Speaker of the House.

[Politico]

Romney is a successful businessman, which is the only reason why he was capable of spending millions on a campaign against Ted Kennedy in 1994.

Romney's father was the Governor of Michigan, which is the only reason why he was capable of becoming a successful businessman.  Romney's father was a successful businessman, which is the only reason why he was capable of spending millions to become the Governor of Michigan.  Romney's father was a career lobbyist, which led to a career as a successful businessman.

I expect this type of nonsense from a northeastern liberal, not somebody from Montana. Romney's father made his wealth long before running for office, and was not a lobbyist. He grew up in extreme poverty during the Great Depression. Furthermore, Mitt Romney never used his father's funds in business nor did his father have any influence/pull in Massachusetts (Michigan is half way across the country). Mitt's parents did not spoil him, or really do anything for him after he became an educated adult. They helped him get an education, of course, but that is true of millions of Americans, virtually all of whom have never reached a net worth of over $200 million through their business success like Mitt Romney has. And you know what:  this sh**t about "Oh, he has too much money," or, "Oh, he never earned it." That is such f'ing communist bullsh**t that belongs over in Europe. Romney earned every penny under the law and he did so without incurring $300,000 fines for ethics violations, unlike a certain crook who was and still is a national embarrassment.