Money talks in slash and burn nomination race

Alexander Cockburn, a California based political commentator has  his own take on the latest round or the Republican Nomination race, along with some insights into raising funds in Las Vegas.

Writing in The Week He reports:

MITT ROMNEY cantered home last night, thrashing Newt Gingrich soundly in the Florida primary, getting 46 per cent of the vote to Gingrich's 32 per cent. The conservative Catholic, Rick Santorum, got 13 per cent and the libertarian Republican Ron Paul, who barely campaigned in the state, got seven per cent.

Is it all over, with Romney the Republican nominee a sure thing to run against Obama in the fall?

The Republicans rewrote the rules this year, hoping to avoid the situation in 2008 where John McCain had the nomination all wrapped up by the start of March and was so desperate for a headline by convention time in September that he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. This time in each primary (except for Florida) there's no winner-takes-all. Gingrich can push on and pile up at least a few delegates, even if he loses every contest.

What smashed Gingrich in Florida was a ferocious ambush by the Republican establishment.

We've heard a lot in recent years about the Tea Party Republican ultras, Romney-haters to a man and woman. Their big night came in South Carolina, where Gingrich savaged Romney in two debates, and campaign ads financed by the Las Vegas billionaire  Sheldon Alleson  pilloried the Mormon millionaire in pitiless terms.

The contest headed south to Florida where polls soon showed that Gingrich had pulled ahead locally and indeed was topping Romney in national polls.

Big-time Republicans gazed aghast at the prospect of the erratic Gingrich ending up as the nominee, only to self-destruct in the fall race against Obama. Party elders like former presidential candidate Bob Dole were wheeled on to denounce Gingrich.

"If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices," Dole said. "Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway. Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall."

The Republican establishment was even contemplating a draft of Indiana governor Mitch Daniels at the convention next summer, though they'd have to revive Daniels first. In his response to Obama's State of the Union speech on behalf of the Republicans, he gave every appearance of having been dead for at least a week.

But mostly what happened was a tsunami of big Republican money washing into Florida to finance the execration of former Speaker Gingrich. The Romney campaign ran 3,276 TV ads, which were 99 per cent negative, three times as many as Gingrich whose ads were a mere 95 per cent negative. On these ads the Romney forces spent $13.3 million, Gingrich $2.4 million. In short, the Republican establishment blew Gingrich out of the water. By the end, Gingrich was flailing.

My favorite was an ad from the Gingrich campaign charging that the health insurance plan Romney put in place when he was Massachusetts governor somehow disallowed funds for orthodox Jews to have kosher meals when in hospital. The ads gave the impression that Romney had personally forced Goy dreck down the throats of Holocaust survivors.  

In fact there was a turning-point that assured Romney's victory in Florida, maybe the nomination itself, perhaps the White House, conceivably even, as his ultimate reward in the Mormon hereafter, a really nice big planet with lots of beautiful wives awaiting his beck and call. The turning-point came early on in the final TV debate in Jacksonville, hosted by CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

BLITZER (to Gingrich): "Earlier this week, you said Governor Romney, after he released his taxes, you said that you were satisfied with the level of transparency of his personal finances when it comes to this. And I just want to reiterate and ask you, are you satisfied right now with the level of transparency as far as his personal finances?"

Gingrich saw an opening for the sort of grandstanding against CNN's John King in the South Carolina debate that had won him the evening there.

GINGRICH: "Wolf, you and I have a great relationship, it goes back a long way. I'm with him. This is a nonsense question. [APPLAUSE] … Look, how about if the four of us agree for the rest of the evening, we'll actually talk about issues that relate to governing America?"

Blitzer could have taken it on the chin, as King did – but it looks as though he had already decided to take a stand.

BLITZER: "But, Mr. Speaker, you made an issue of this, this week, when you said that, ‘He lives in a world of Swiss bank and Cayman Island bank accounts.'  I didn't say that. You did."

GINGRICH: "I did. And I'm perfectly happy to say that on an interview on some TV show. But this is a national debate, where you have a chance to get the four of us to talk about a whole range of issues."

Blitzer wouldn't back down: "But if you make a serious accusation against Governor Romney like that, you need to explain that."

At which point Romney jumped in: "Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't make accusations somewhere else that they weren't willing to defend here?"

Romney had the better of the subsequent to-and-fro. Then he came out ahead on points in a lengthy spat about immigration, beginning with the stern admonition to Gingrich that "The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive. Don't use a term like that."

I wouldn't have expected "repulsive" to be part of Romney's verbal arsenal. It had shock value, like a pistol shot. Then he whacked Newt in a go-round on personal investments in Fanny Mae. By the end of it Romney was swelling up like Popeye after a mouthful of spinach and Gingrich stayed decidedly subdued for the rest of the night.  

The next day, every inch the schoolyard bully whom someone had finally punched on the nose, he whined about Romney's brutal tactics and "lies." Romney was a changed man glowing with new-found confidence, mocking Gingrich as a loser.

In a match-off between Obama and Romney right now, the President leads 47.5 to 43.2. In swing states they're level, according to Gallup. It doesn't mean much. Americans are slowly regaining a measure of economic confidence, but talk of some sort of vigorous economic recovery is overblown. Democrats tell themselves Obama will wipe out Romney in debate, forgetting that Obama was not a particularly good debater in 2008.

If Gingrich is going to stay in the race he'll have to go back to Sheldon Adelson, who with his wife Miriam has now put up at least $20 million for Gingrich. Some things don't change in Americanpolitics, and rich people sitting in Las Vegas with pots of cash is one of them.

Joel McCleary, a friend, remembers fund-raising in Las Vegas when he was working for the Jimmy Carter campaign in 1976. The crucial Pennsylvania primary was coming up and the Carter people needed a big wad of cash for the final push against Henry ‘Scoop' Jackson of Washington, known as "the senator from Boeing", also running for the Democratic nomination and favored by powerful labor chieftains in Pennsylvania.

Joel was told the go-to guy for untraceable campaign cash was Hank Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. Greenspun was a notoriously tough egg, former gun-runner for the Haganah, the man who, in the midst of the Cold War witch-hunts, outed Senator Joe McCarthy in the Sun as a homosexual.

Joel was told to act manly. Greenspun duly received him in his office. "Why the hell should I get money for Jimmy Carter?" he asked.

"Because Jimmy Carter is going to be president," Joel answered boldly, "and if you don't support his campaign he'll fuck you."

Greenspun told Joel to come back in two hours. He returned to find Greenspan sitting at a table surrounded by other toughs. In the middle of the table was a paper bag. "So the Baptist fuck wants money," Greenspun growled, as he pushed the bag over to Joel. "Remember, this comes from the state of Israel. Don't you ever forget it."

At least Greenspun, who died in 1989, didn't live to know that he invested $100,000 in a man later to denounce Israel as an apartheid state. ·