naipaul firebomb: Reince Priebus: Last Week Was 'Good' For GOP

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Reince Priebus: Last Week Was 'Good' For GOP

Sep 23, 2012 1:32pm

ABC

Republican National Committee chair?Reince Priebus called the past week a??defining week in both campaigns,? describing it as a ?good week? even as the GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney came under fire after secretly-taped comments he made at a fundraiser earlier this year became public.

?I think that we had a good week last week, I think in retrospect, in that we were able to frame up the debate last week in the sense of, what future do we want,??Priebus said this morning on ?This Week.?

?I think we can look back at last week as a campaign in a couple months and say, this was the defining week in both campaigns,? Priebus said earlier, ?where I think both campaigns are crystallizing around a central theme, which is going to be, what kind of future do we want for our kids and grandkids? What type of America do we want for this country??

On Monday, Mother Jones released secretly-taped footage of Romney?speaking?at a fundraiser in Florida earlier this year in which he ?described 47 percent of voters as ?victims,? adding they are ?dependent upon government? and ?believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.? Romney, who subsequently called his remarks inelegant, was bashed by Democrats. A number of?prominent?Republicans, including Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, distanced themselves from the remarks.

During my interview with Priebus, he conceded that last week was not the ?best? of the campaign for Romney.

?I think Governor Romney?s been pretty clear, it probably wasn?t the best-said moment in the campaign and probably not the best week in the campaign,? Priebus said.

I spoke to Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod right after my interview with Priebus and he quickly went after Romney for his ?47 percent? comments.

?I don?t know what prism he?s looking through.? I don?t think anybody else would define it as a good week.? But it was an enlightening week,? Axelrod said. ?The week began with Governor Romney basically slandering 47 percent of America, saying that they were, you know, hooked on dependency, didn?t pay their taxes, and so on. ?

For his part, Priebus went after President Obama for being interviewed by Miami?s ?Pimp with the Limp??DJ Laz from 106.7 WRMA-FM?and?meeting with Jay-Z and Beyonce. He also pushed back against the suggestion that Romney needed to be more specific on the campaign trail.

?We?ve got specifics coming out of our eyeballs,? he said.

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