Mitt Romney is in trouble — he's losing to Newt Gingrich, the worst presidential candidate in history who isn't named Mitt Romney. What sort of indignant attacks will he pull on Gingrich tonight, now that he's vowed to stop being such a baby? Let's watch and discuss, together, in this Open Thread. The debate starts now at 9:00, on NBC.
On tonight's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took stock of the latest issues hurting the campaigns of the Republican candidates. Newt Gingrich is dealing his ex-wife's open marriage claim, Rick Santorum never shared a couch with anyone but his wife, Mitt Romney didn't really win in Iowa, and things got so bad for Rick Perry that he bowed out this morning. Even Colbert has some problems: the Jon Stewart-lead Super PAC rolled out an ad attacking him yesterday. Who could have known that an off hand remark about Rosa Parks could ever be used against him?
This has already been the best day of shallow political horserace infotainment in the election cycle, and the evening bill of events hasn't even begun. There's a Republican debate between four candidates in South Carolina on CNN right now. It's going to be filthy and nasty and an embarrassment to humanity, hooray. At 11:30, ABC's interview with Newt Gingrich's second ex-wife, Marianne, will air and you perverts will love it. Here's your open thread, which we're trying out instead of a liveblog because why the hell not? Enjoy.
On tonight's Colbert Report, Stephen took a little time to delve into Mitt Romney and his evasive answers to questions about releasing his tax returns. The guy made nearly $375,000 from speaking engagements last year which is almost as shocking to Stephen as Romney getting speaking engagements at all. As usual, Stephen gets the last laugh as he appears to be leading the Republican field with a 36% approval rating, one percentage point ahead of Romney.
The calls on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns at first seemed to be just another desperate last-ditch move from all of the candidates who were trailing him by 50 percentage points in every poll. But, thanks to his unusually ill-prepared responses, the story isn't going away. Are we learning anything about his rich-person accounting tricks, though, that couldn't be predicted by simply looking at a picture of him for half a second?
Like any plutocrat worth his salt, Mitt Romney makes sure to get all painted up in portrait form every few years.
Now that Stephen Colbert is officially exploring the possibility of running in South Carolina, his Super PAC, under the direction of Jon Stewart, has begun running attack ads. The first spot targeted Mitt Romney, who was likened to Jack the Ripper, and may have had an exaggeration or two. But that's not on Colbert's shoulders, after all, like all the other candidates, he isn't coordinating with the Super PAC.
Newt Gingrich is running yet another attack ad on Mitt Romney in South Carolina, this time simply throwing spaghetti at the wall: He's donated to Democrats, voted for a Democrat once, loves abortion, yadda yadda yadda. Also, Mitt Romney is John Kerry, in that they are both from Massachusetts, where the official language is French. Watch Mitt Romney speak French in 2002, like a fool.
The Republican presidential nominating contest is blowing wide open, as candidates move from the boring grassroots-organizing lowlands of Iowa and New Hampshire to the broader markets of South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Colorado, and everywhere else. So we've compiled a list of collectibles that you — the resident, reporter, operative, thief, cad, provocateur, etc. — can procure for your beloved Gawker Political Desk in return for fair compensation. What are we looking for?
Yesterday we brought you a C-SPAN prank caller who asked New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Wayne MacDonald whether Mitt Romney had a large penis (he does). Turns out it was not an isolated incident. Here is a compilation, via Mediaite, of C-SPAN callers—actually one caller, it sounds like—working in references to Mitt Romney's penis over the air. The last one is positively brilliant. Mitt Romney has a huge penis.
By now we're all very familiar with that one photo that Mitt Romney probably wants destroyed — the one where he and his buddies are erupting with cash money — since it appears in most anti-Romney campaign ads and articles and blog posts all the time. But what about this other one, which your Gawker Political Desk had not seen until yesterday?
Mitt Romney has had five or six years to formulate his response to a full onslaught on his record as corporate efficiency dweeb at Bain Capital, and here's what he's come up with: YOU PEOPLE ARE JEALOUS. Stop it. Go away!
Stephen Colbert just isn't in love with the idea of Mitt Romney becoming President of the United States, which his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire obviously foreshadow. But, that doesn't mean Colbert can't get used to the idea. When Stephen and Andy hash it all out over cosmos, Stephen learns that, sooner or later, everyone has to settle.
On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart gave us his thoughts on the results of the New Hampshire primary. He took a swipe at Mitt Romney's victory speech and the results spin by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. And Stewart had time for a couple of shots at Jon Huntsman and the victory speech that accompanied his third place finish. Get the jokes in now, Jon, who knows how much longer you'll have Huntsman to kick around.
Newt Gingrich already has ads running in South Carolina attacking Mitt Romney as "pro-abortion," and his Super PAC is planning to drop a socialist neutron bomb on Romney's career at Bain Capital, thanks to a large donation from a viciously anti-labor casino magnate billionaire. And here's yet another, lighter attack: A compliation of Mitt Romney saying ludicrous things. (Newt Gingrich, see, has never said anything ludicrous in his life.) Who can resist? Especially since it includes the "Who Let the Dogs Out" MLK Day moment of 2008, the pinnacle of Romney's career.
The rest of the Republican nominees took Mitt Romney to task over his "I like firing people" remark, but Stephen Colbert is standing behind old Mitt. On tonight's Colbert Report, Stephen made his clear his feelings about Romney's words: they were taken out of context in a way that was completely different from Romney taking President Obama's words regarding John McCain out of context in November. The point is this: as long as Romney is happy firing people, Stephen Colbert is happy to see them fired.
It's time to cover the results of the First Primary in the Nation, New Hampshire — that famous outlier among the Republican coalition that doesn't tell you much about anything! Mitt Romney is expected to win, but will he win by enough? That's how we're sucking you in tonight. If Mitt Romney doesn't get 52% of the vote, or let's say 100%, his campaign is over. Grab your assault rifle and poor a beer down your ear, as we watch — together.
With "nothing left to do" on the campaign trail, the Romneys went to the movies this afternoon, where Tagg demonstrated the worst way for a pale-eyed family to pose for a picture: In a dim theater in front of a camera with a flash, which will turn all of their perfect blue eyes into glowing orbs of horror.
What does Chris Christie even mean when he waddles up to these New Hampshire hecklers — females, primarily — at a Mitt Romney event and tells them, "You know, something may go down tonight but it ain't gonna be jobs, sweetheart?" He's responding to their chants of "Christie kills jobs!" and "Mitt kills jobs!" So, we have three options.
