So just who is the culprit?  Is it Team Romney? or is it Team Rove/Bush?

Well, it is both but it started with Team Romney.  They started the attacks as early as the convention. It wasn’t until later on that Team Rove saw it as an avenue to also clear the path for Jeb.

Need some proof?

With the primary season in full swing and the HBO movie coming out, we have gotten a very clear view of how each candidate conducts their campaigns.  There is only ONE candidate who has a clear MO of nasty, dishonest attacks and rumors using a tactic that overwhelms their opponents to not just have the political lead but to actually destroy the person.

That candidate is Mitt Romney.  He used his trademark MO on Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and there is evidence that he was behind the Cain attacks but his biggest smear campaign for the past 3 years has been against Gov. Palin.

So let’s explore the facts on whether Romney and his staff were really behind the Palin rumors or whether that was just an urban legend as some Rombots like to claim.

We have Mark Halperin who wrote Game Change.  He was also one of the first to report in Time that it was Romney staffers behind the leaks and now he seems best friends with Wallace and Schmidt.  Hmmmmmm….  I think when Mark Halperin himself says that it is Romney staffers that are his sources behind the smears and he is the one leading the charge in spreading the attacks and gossip via print and his Game Change book/movie… that should tell us all something.

Just this summer Romney Spokesman tweeted this.  Really Eric?

American Spectator reported this:

“Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won’t be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,” says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. “The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He’s in charge on November 5th.”

Wonkette via Palmetto Scoop reported this:

Adam Fogle of The Palmetto Scoop:

FOX News Channel reported Wednesday that some staffers intentionally leaked negative information to the media about Palin in the final hours of the campaign that painted the Alaska governor as naive, incompetent, and needy. And my sources said that all of those leaks came from the Romney faction of the McCain campaign.

…[R]egardless of a McCain win or loss, Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016. And that made her a threat to a possible second run by Romney. You do the math.

Mark Halperin (remember him? Game Change?) reported this via ABC:

“She’s not a serious human being,” one Romney adviser told Time’s Mark Halperin. Said a “Romney intimate”: “If she’s standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she’s in trouble.”

 

This was one of my first Erick Erickson experiences:

When I was in St. Paul for the Republican Convention, I heard more than a dozen people say acolytes of Mitt Romney were feeding all the stories to the media portraying Palin in a negative light.

In fact, I heard that one of the biggest pushers of anti-Palin stories, including encouraging reporters to pursue the “Trooper-gate” story was Romney spokes-hack Kevin Madden.

I did not blog on it at the time because I perceived it to be people trying to finish off Romney. It likewise seemed clear to me that if this was going on, it was people loyal to Romney who were still hoping for his come back and not Romney himself.

These days it is hard to miss Kathleen Parker’s savage attacks on Sarah Palin. She, along with several others listed here attacking Sarah Palin were also some of the first pundits in bed with the Romney campaign in 2007/8.

Again, it is hard for me to not place the finger on Romney. It seems to me that these are people who are still convinced he’s the better nominee and don’t want Palin to be in any position to challenge him in 2012.

At this moment, however, it is absolutely clear — there is an effort, organized or not, by supporters of Mitt Romney to harm the reputation of Governor Sarah Palin.

The American Spectator documented it yesterday.

Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers, some of whom are currently working for Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin’s bid for the White House, have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election. “Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won’t be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,” says one former Romney aide, now working for McCain-Palin. “The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney. He’s in charge on November 5th.”

Though I initially dismissed the Kevin Madden rumors, Amanda Carpenter has Kevin in his own words going after Sarah Palin.

And it is not just Madden. It may be hard for you to believe, but there are Romney supporters now working on John McCain’s campaign who are, in fact, indisputably out to damage Sarah Palin’s reputation. I am not just convinced of it. I know it to be fact. That there are “conservative pundits” echoing the same talking points makes me deeply suspicious.

So at some point Erickson was actually a real blogger with solid research (before he was infected with Palin PDS)

Now lets look at her most public GOP critics.

Reading this article we have these people for Palin critics.  Click on their name to see who they support.

Kathleen Parker

Kathryn Jean Lopez

and don’t forget Jennifer Rubin

Could it be coincidence that some of the most vocal opponents of Palin also support Romney?  I think not.

The most interesting thing is that many of the rumors that won’t go away are the ones that question Gov. Palin’s intelligence. They are the very rumors leaked out during the 2008 election, promoted by Romney staffers and Kevin Madden and persist today via Kathleen Parker, Wallace and Schmidt.

However, the two people who actually prepped Palin for debate and discussed foreign policy with her claim that none of these rumors are true. Those two people would be Randy Scheunemann and Steve Beguin. Silly them to disagree with the rumors. After all, they were actually there. What would they know?

Here is what they have to say:

Steve Beguin defended Palin here.

Scheunemann defends Palin here and here.  Here is an email exchange between Scheunemann and Bill Kristol blaming Mark Wallace.

I know conservative bloggers talk behind the scenes. I know how much goes on the record and how much does not.  So for anyone who wants to tell me that it is all “urban legend” I suggest you look at the facts, the people involved and the obvious.

I find it difficult to fathom any Palinista dismissing this but I certainly understand that each person has their own choices to make.

Now some want to say that Wallace and Schmidt aren’t Romney people.  Really?  For sure, they are loyal Bush people and therefore come with their own agenda against Palin but make no mistake that during the 2008 election cycle when they realized that they screwed everything up, they needed a scapegoat. They made a decision to go all in, full cooperation with the Romney people in spreading the lies and smears. So yes, they were working WITH the Romney staffers to accomplish the same goal… destroy Sarah Palin so that she has no national political future and cannot be a competitor in 2012 but the rumors did start with Romney staff.

I simply can not trust any man that is so selfish and narcissistic that he is willing to hand our country over to the liberals and Obama out of strategy to improve his chances in the next election or out of revenge for not getting the nomination or  VP nod from McCain.  Someone who is willing to give away decades of my kid’s childhood and future for political “positioning” is not someone who has our country’s best interests at heart (yes, that means you too Jebbie boy).

So the challenge for Palinistas is to decide how and why we would ever support someone who has made it their mission to destroy our girl?

I believe it will have to start with a very public ass kissing by Romney to Gov. Palin and to the conservatives that support her (hint… it is the other 75% Romney can’t seem to get but desperately needs should he pull off getting the nomination).

Any GOP nominee is going to need us to beat Obama but for Romney, should he win the nomination he better get his chapstick out and pucker up buddy…