Quotes of the day

In the course of a couple of hours Thursday, the Romney campaign sent out unmistakable signals that it intends to fight the guerilla warfare of a presidential campaign with a new aggressiveness and combativeness…

Team Romney views the Boston event as payback. But they also, by striking back bigger and louder, want to send a message to Team Obama that Romney is ready to fight. Romney aides characterize the Axelrod event as a “sneak attack” in Romney’s home territory. “The Obama campaign thought they were going to come into our own turf and launch a dishonest sneak attack on Gov. Romney’s record,” says the Romney aide. “We’re not going to allow that to happen. We are going to hold them accountable every single time.”…

The bottom line is, Thursday marked a new escalation in the day-to-day fighting between the Obama and Romney campaigns. And Team Romney hopes it has sent a very clear message that it will punch, and counter-punch, as hard as is necessary.

One of the most heartening aspects of the early stages of the presidential race has been the Romney campaign’s aggressiveness. Nothing discourages activists more than getting out front of a candidate who, it later turns out, isn’t willing to do what it takes to win. A number of Republicans of recent years could be said to fit that description, most recently John McCain. But not Mitt Romney.

We’ve seen it over and over: the Obama campaign will launch an attack, and in next to no time, the Romney team hits back–twice as hard, as President Obama and Glenn Reynolds both like to say. It happened with the smear of Ann Romney, it happened with the dog on the roof, it happened with the silly “war on women,” it happened with the administration’s clumsy attack on Bain Capital, and it happened again today with the Democrats’ attempt to denigrate Romney’s service as Governor of Massachusetts.

A campaign can resemble a boxing match. Obama thinks he sees an opening and takes a swing at Romney. But before he can do any damage, he realizes he has walked into a counterpunch. Bam! Romney rocks him, and Obama retreats in disarray. Romney has shown himself already to be a top-notch counterpuncher.

Color me increasingly impressed by Team Romney’s refusal to play by Democratic/Media Complex rules of engagement. You know, the ones in which the Republicans are always being asked to repudiate this or apologize for that. The fundamental juvenility of the crybaby left is hard-wired into their hurt-feelings DNA, and it’s fun to watch them stamp their tiny feet in rage…

No more defensive McCain crouch this time out. No more falling for Alinsky’s famous Rule No. 4, “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

As some idiot on the left has written: “Treat us with the same respect we give you, which is none.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

After being asked what grade he would give the president, Romney quickly responds: “Oh, an ‘F,’ no question about that,” adding that the grade applies “across the board.”

Via the Daily Rushbo.