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Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Tuesday he would not call off the dogs in what's become a war of heckling on the campaign trail between his team and that of President Barack Obama.

Asked in a radio interview if he would condemn the practice, the former Massachusetts governor said "it would be a nice thing" for it to end but argued Obama's supporters would also have to stand down.

"I could assure you that we do not believe in unilateral disarmament," Romney said on Fox News Radio.

During the last few days of Romney's six-state bus tour, the Democratic National Committee and other groups supportive of the president have followed the bus path and held protests at many of the Romney stops.

Their tactics came after Romney's team showed up at an Obama speech in Ohio last week and caused a stir by circling the venue and honking. Two weeks earlier, Romney took credit for supporters and members of his staff showing up at an Obama event to make noise and drown out speakers critical of Romney's record as former governor. {"Mitt Romney on Thursday took credit for sending a rowdy group of hecklers to disrupt an Obama campaign event earlier in the day, saying he was merely giving some tit-for-tat."}

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Tuesday he would not call off the dogs in what's become a war of heckling on the campaign trail between his team and that of President Barack Obama.

Asked in a radio interview if he would condemn the practice, the former Massachusetts governor said "it would be a nice thing" for it to end but argued Obama's supporters would also have to stand down.

On Sunday, Obama adviser David Axelrod took to Twitter to condemn heckling by Obama supporters during Romney's bus tour.

"Shouting folks down is their tactic, not ours," Axelrod wrote. "Let voters hear BOTH candidates & decide."

The re-election campaign echoed those sentiments in a statement Tuesday and blasted Romney for declining to take a strong stance against heckling.

"We have sent a strong message to our supporters that this campaign should be an open exchange of ideas, not one where we drown out the other side by heckling and crashing events," Obama press secretary Ben LaBolt said.

Romney, however, said he was less sure both sides could actually come to that agreement.

"I know America has a long history of heckling and free speech," Romney said jokingly in Tuesday's interview. "It would be very nice if we could reach that kind of conclusion. I'm not sure it's possible for us." http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/19/romney-america-has-a-l
ong-history-of-heckling/?hpt=hp_bn3 Obama's team decries heckling and states the campaign should be an open exchange of ideas, while Romney TAKES CREDIT for sending hecklers, including members of his own STAFF!

I know, just more of the same, but it disgusts me nonetheless.

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Protests and incidents of heckling have dogged both campaigns thus far in the election cycle, with anti-Romney protesters forcing the former governor to abandon plans to stop at one Wawa gas and convenience store in Quakerstown, Pennsylvania over the weekend. President Obama was heckled in the Rose Garden by a writer from The Daily Caller on Friday as he announced his immigration reform initiative.

Over the weekend, Axelrod condemned the practice and asked that supporters of the president not engage in heckling for the remainder of Romney’s Michigan bus tour and the rest of the campaign. Romney’s campaign, on the other hand, has issued no such directive and seems, in fact, to be including the tactic as a part of its campaign strategy.

Steve Benen at the Maddowblog wrote, “Keep in mind, we’re talking about a fairly specific, deliberate plan from Romney Campaign HQ. They sent hecklers to disrupt an Obama campaign event in May, and last week, Team Romney sent its bus to circle an Obama event in Cleveland, honking its horn repeatedly, for no other reason than to be obnoxious. It’s presidential politics at a junior-high-school level.”

According to the Globe, the Obama campaign “sent a strong message to its supporters that the campaign should be about an open exchange of ideas, not drowning out the other side by heckling and crashing events.”

Campaign representative Ben LaBolt said, “Campaigns are a reflection of their candidate. Mitt Romney has a different view, endorsing heckling.” http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/20/romney-calls-his-supporters-heck
ling-of-obama-free-speech/

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I see quite a bit of difference between the opposition supporters holding PROTESTS (which ARE a common occurrence) at Romney's events and Romney's camp deliberately SENDING its people to disrupt events. It's more of the Tea Party tactics of interrupting town hall meetings; whatever's going on, the Obama camp has at least CALLED for an end to heckling, while Romney is quite up front about supporting it.

Same old, same old. I'm sure some rightie or other will respond with examples of Obama supporters heckling Romney, but the point remains; the Obama team is decrying the tactic and asking their supporters to stop, Romney is not just encouraging these actions, it is PARTICIPATING in them.

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The two candidates running for office have taken different approaches to the heckle question. The Obama campaign does not heckle, at least in ways that are officially sanctioned. Some evidently unsanctioned supporters of the President do heckle Mitt Romney regularly, but the campaign officially condemns those efforts.

The Romney campaign is so incensed by the unofficial anti-Romney hecklers that they have decided to endorse the act of heckling as a sanctioned campaign strategy. A few weeks back, staff and interns from the Romney campaign in Boston shouted over a press conference by Axelrod in Boston and then bragged about their accomplishment. One aide, Eric Fehrnstrom, gleefully called it the “Boston Massacre,” and Romney expressed pride in his team’s work.

On Tuesday, Romney continued down this same path, saying his campaign team “do not believe in unilateral disarmament.”

This statement is problematic, since the Romney campaign is the only campaign that currently supports heckling. Romney said he would love to see “bilateral disarmament,” suggesting the Obama campaign must first find a way to stop people unaffiliated with the campaign from heckling at his events. Romney also restated his support for the heckle as an all-American tradition. “I know America has a long tradition of heckling and free speech,” he said.

There is a difference between those two things. The idea behind the freedom of speech is that a nation is best served by a free exchange of words, or as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously put it in 1916, “the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas.” This is why we do not generally prevent each other from publishing ideas, or peacefully demonstrating in public. The idea behind heckling is to prevent the speech of another. It is an antidote to free speech, and the stock and trade of the schoolyard bully.

Republicans I speak with, including those in the Romney campaign, say such arguments miss the point. They believe that the Obama campaign is waging a viciously negative campaign.
So, they argue, it is besides the point to focus on such niceties as permitting public expressions by Obama supporters. Republicans also say it is absurd to distinguish between the heckling of Obama supporters (who are condemned by the campaign they support) and the heckling of Romney campaign interns and staff (who are praised by the campaign they support).

It is one thing for a group of Code Pink protesters to show up at a Congressional hearing about the Iraq War to heckle a Senator to prevent him, at least temporarily, from speaking. This is a particularly disrespectful form of protest, but it is disrespect undertaken by protesters who do not otherwise have plentiful avenues for broadcasting their views, or an official role in facilitating that debate. It would be something else entirely if the elected players in the Democratic process–Senators, Congressmen, presidential candidates–adopted the tactics of Code Pink. The day Senators or Congressman attempt to deprive each other the privilege of speaking in a hearing room, and then boast about it afterward, will be a sad day for democracy.

Something similar can be said for what has been happening on the campaign trail. Romney has used his pro-heckler position to show his toughness and rally his troops. And to his credit he did signal that it would “be a nice thing” if he both sides found a way to let each other speak without disruption. But he has yet to ask those who heckle on his behalf to stop. http://swampland.time.com/2012/06/20/decision-2012-to-heckle-or-not-to
-heckle/ it in a nutshell, for me; it shows the measure of the man. Maybe it shows he's "got nothin'" too, I dunno, but I would venture to say it IS the tactic of a bully. Doesn't make him look especially "Presidential"...

Of course, some of us here are quite content with bullying, but then a lot of Americans aren't.