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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Gingrich Unloads on FOX News in Private Meeting By Scott Conroy - April 12, 2012 DOVER, Del. -- During a meeting with 18 Delaware Tea Party leaders here on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich lambasted FOX News Channel, accusing the cable network of having been in the tank for Mitt Romney from the beginning of the Republican presidential fight. An employee himself of the news outlet as recently as last year, he also cited former colleagues for attacking him out of what he characterized as personal jealousy. I think FOX has been for Romney all the way through, Gingrich said during the private meeting -- to which RealClearPolitics was granted access -- at Wesley College. In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of FOX, and were more likely to get distortion out of FOX. Thats just a fact. Gingrichs contract as a FOX News contributor was terminated last spring as he geared up for his White House run. The former House speakers blunt remarks came in response to a question from one of the state Tea Party leaders about the manner in which his campaign has been treated by conservative media outlets. Gingrich did not pull his punches in accusing Rupert Murdoch -- the chairman and CEO of News Corp., FOX News parent company -- of pushing for Romney behind the scenes. I assume its because Murdoch at some point [who] said, I want Romney, and so fair and balanced became Romney, Gingrich said. And theres no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches FOX. He saved his strongest condemnation for syndicated columnist and ABC television commentator George Will, who has been critical of the former congressman throughout his campaign. Gingrich said that Will was among the conservative media figures who harbored personal jealousy against him. In the case of Will, I was on [George] Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning with him, and it was kind of a Youre not allowed to run for office -- I mean, if you could run for office, why am I not running for office? Gingrich said. And its almost like they were personally offended. You know, This cant be real, and how can this guy go do that? I got that reaction from Will a few years back about writing a book because Im supposed to be a politician. Hes supposed to be the writer. Well, Ive now written 24 books, and 13 of them are New York Times bestsellers. I mean, theres a morning when George ought to just get over it. Gingrich said that despite serving two decades in Congress, he was the least establishment candidate since Ronald Reagan -- another reason why he said he had not endeared himself to conservative media figures. They know I dont care about their opinions, he said. I dont go to their cocktail parties. I dont go to their Christmas parties. The only press events I go to are interesting dinners when the wife insists on it, so were going to go to the White House Correspondents' dinner because she wants to. And were actually going to go to CNNs table, not FOX. At one point in the meeting, Gingrich left the room to conduct a satellite interview with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer before returning to take further questions from the activists who sat at four tables that had been pushed together in the middle of a room. Gingrich said that last June and July -- a time when his campaign was widely considered dead in the water by political analysts -- were the two hardest months in 53 years of doing this, and he lamented that people he knew personally at FOX News had written him off. The sense of being shocked that somebody Id talk to and worked with for 10 or 11 years would say some of the things they said, if you go back and look at the transcripts for June, it was amazing to me, he said. They all said, Hes dead. This is part of why I laugh at them now. I say, Is this going to be like the fourth cycle where Im gone? The former speaker also took a direct shot at the political party whose presidential nomination he continues to seek, calling the GOP a party thats inarticulate. The Republican Party is a managerial party that doesnt like to fight, doesnt like to read books, he said. This is why the Tea Party was so horrifying. Tea Partiers were actually learning about the Declaration of Independence. They wanted to talk about the Federalist Papers. It was weird. They could be golfing. Despite having won only two states and continuing to trail Romney by a substantial margin in the unofficial delegate count, Gingrich vowed once again to take his campaign to the Republican National Convention this summer. He said that his candidacy has helped compel Romney to accommodate reality on issues that are important to conservatives. Im prepared to go all the way to Tampa, and Im prepared to make the case for a Republican platform that is dramatically more conservative than the Etch A Sketch comments that Romneys communications director made, he said. Gingrich has singled out Delaware as his best chance of notching a victory among the five states holding primaries on April 24. Several of the Tea Party activists in the room had already endorsed him or said that they were planning to do so. Thats why if you will help me carry Delaware, it will be that big a jolt, because it breaks up their narrative so decisively, and it actually says, Oh gosh, people actually get to make a decision, not just the power structure, Gingrich said. And so Id be very grateful if any of you feel comfortable endorsing me in public, doing it on Facebook, doing it on Twitter -- I mean whatever techniques you want to use -- issuing a press release. I think we have a real shot to pull this off. Earlier on Wednesday, he spoke to a crowd of about 150 people at the Newark Senior Center in northern Delaware, where he did not mention Romneys name until prompted by reporters in a brief scrum following the event. Were working very hard to talk to people here and get as many votes as we can, he said. My experience in history is its not over until its over and that currently its very clear that Romney does not today have a majority of the delegates. Gingrich said that Rick Santorums exit from the race on Tuesday had given him hope of doing much better in places like Delaware, North Carolina, and Louisiana -- a state that already held its primary but is still in the midst of its delegate-awarding process. I just had 15 people say thank you for staying in, Gingrich said. We had 3,500 people send money to Newt.org online after 2 oclock yesterday saying, Please stay in. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
#2. To: farmfriend (#0)
Of course they've been in the tank for Romney from the beginning, just like the rest of the MSM. Newt is trolling to replace Reices Pieces as chairman of the RNC. He's come up with another Con Job on America, to get Jeb Bush elected in '16.
There are no replies to Comment # 2. End Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
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