Santorum’s opening words were devastating to Romney. If Romney was so proud of his record, Santorum asked him, why did he not run for reelection? “Why did you bail out?” What a hit. Then he noted that when he ran for the Senate in 1994, he “ran to the left of Ted Kennedy.”
Normal.dotm
0
0
1
126
720
National Review
6
1
884
12.0
0
false
18 pt
18 pt
0
0
false
false
false
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
It was a strong opening.
Romney’s answer wasn’t bad, though: “Politics isn’t a career.” He had other things to do.”
To which, though, the answer should be: Oh, really? Then why didn’t you go back into business after his governor’s term? He didn’t. Instead, he immediately started running for president, and hasn’t stopped for five years.
Then Gingrich absolutely nailed him, along the lines I just typed, but much more directly: “Can we stop the pious baloney? … You’ve been running since at least the early 1990s.”
What a great three-way exchange to start the debate! Highly entertaining.