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smackdown
"A phony, a fraud" - it's panic stations for the Republicans as Mitt Romney takes a major pop at Donald Trump
The 2012 Republican presidential nominee’s outburst is being seen as a sign that the Republican party is deeply concerned about Trump’s meteoric rise.
7.06pm, 3 Mar 2016
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Mitt Romney and Donald Trump PA
PA
FORMER REPUBLICAN WHITE House nominee Mitt Romney excoriated Donald Trump as unfit to be president this afternoon, in a deeply personal attack that exposed party panic at the billionaire’s political success.
Baldly stating that “Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud” Romney said his party’s frontrunner “has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president”.
Romney offered a litany of pejorative descriptions of Trump, saying he was greedy, dishonest, bullying and misogynistic.
His outburst is highly unusual in a party that has long sworn by Ronald Reagan’s ’11th commandment’: “thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”.
But Trump’s shock electoral success has provoked utter panic among the Republican establishment, who believe he will destroy the party if he wins the nomination.
Warning of “profound consequences for the Republican Party” Romney said that “if we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished”.
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Trump and Romney pictured together in 2012 when Romney was the Republican nominee for the presidency AP / Press Association Images
AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
Grassroots anger
It’s as yet unclear what effect Romney’s intervention will have on Trump’s meteoric rise.
The real estate mogul has defied expectations in winning nine of the 15 state-wide primary contests held so far, garnering more than three million votes.
Using seemingly unlimited free media coverage, Trump has tapped into deeply felt grassroots anger at the party leadership.
Romney was quick to scotch suggestions he may use the speech to back a rival or throw his hat into the ring.
“I am not here to announce my candidacy for office,” he said.
I am not going to endorse a candidate today.
Romney heavily lost the 2012 election to incumbent president Barack Obama.
Diplomatically, he listed Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich and said “one of these men should be our nominee”.
There’s a growing instability in the North these days. Strong leadership is needed North and South, to prevent the outbreak of violence, and to maintain the peace.
@Frog Náireach: There is peace and there is no chance of the violent past returning. These types of attacks are being carried out by Loyalists against immigrants or other loyalist gang members. They dont threaten the stability of the North.
You see the craziness in the way they drive down here alone. And in their laws where guilt is presumed and innocence must be proven. It’s sui generis. A place apart up there beyond the bogs and rushes and abandoned wastes of North Cavan and Fermanagh. Leave them where they are another 300 years might be fit for civilised company then.
@John O’Driscoll: You on the sauce early tonight then? You sound like a teenage girl trying to imbibe the spirit Seamus Heaney in a bid to sound intellectual. The only abandoned waste here is your own grasp of reality. If you’re an example of this “civilised company” that is lacking everywhere North of Cavan ; then god help us. Pompous little man.
More renewable hate initiatives. Never let them in they are different from us. Been too long and would be a disaster. They remember 400 years ago like it was yesterday and every carefully planned insult murder and wrong done since. Done by the “other side” that is. Never their own. Or “mines” as they say in that curious argot.
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