Posted on 04/10/2012 6:29:52 PM PDT by samtheman
At one point, Santorum emphasised how important it was "that we win the House back and that we take the United States Senate", omitting the number one aspiration of Republicans across America - taking back the White House from Obama.
Santorum probably hasn't damaged Romney with his graceless speech today - but he has damaged himself. Having run a highly commendable race on a shoestring, he had an opportunity to lift himself straight away into the top ranks of his party's leadership with real prospects of victory in 2016 (if Romney loses in November) or even 2020.
But by making the speech all about him, rather than his country or his party, Santorum ended up looking like the smaller man.
(Excerpt) Read more at harndenblog.dailymail.co.uk ...
One more chance to take a cheap shot at him.
No one who cares about Conservative politics would do or say anything that would help Mitt Romney. Mitt does not have to be the nominee, so why promote him if you don’t believe in his politics?
The timing of the announcement was pretty surprising to me. I guess he thought he was going to lose in Pennsylvania.
I don’t have a problem calling out Santorum, if he’s acting like a douche.
He could have strengthened his brand by being charitable.
I don’t think Santorum wanted to give his support to liberal Romney who ran rabid and dishonest attack ads on him and Newt and caused a lot of anger in both of them and their supporters.
I’d say you make yourself look bad.
maybe he didn’t want to talk about Romney. After he spent millions
of negative ads against him.
maybe he wanted to drop out before PA in his own way.
Talk to his supporters. And his contributors.
I’m sure they’ll be plenty of time to do mending— i’m sure it was
sudden.
Mark Levin said yesterday that the reason Santorum was continuing
was maybe he thinks Romney can’t win v. Obama.
why should rick say anything about scumbag etch a sketch obamney? Obamaney was loaded with millions for negative ads in pennsylvania same as he did to gingrich in florida. obamney helped hussein with the obamneycare, what the hell good is he.
There was one decent not-Romney in the race, Newt, and Rick played the Huckabee-voter card against him and ended up, in effect, running interference for Romney, against the one real conservative in the race.
And then he bows out like this. With a speech about me-me-me-me.
He’s a loser through and through and I think the people of Pennsylvania know that, which is the REAL reason Rick quit.
As dirty as Romney has played in this campaign I wouldn’t blame Santorum if he announces that he won’t support him and he’s running as a write in. He won’t because he’s a member of the GOP like the rest of them but.....
I noticed Santorum said some would say “Game Over” but it is only beginning. Drudge put a vicious headline up “Game Over” just to be a jerk.
I’m not running for anything so go ahead, don’t vote for me.
talk about a douche....
He’s out. Pull the plug on the hatred.
wouldn’t surprise me to see Santorum go to woke for the Obama campaign. Sometimes people become so focused on themselves they lose reality.
Rick is 54. He has PLENTY of time to become President. I am PROUD of him for not talking about reject Romney. Heck with him. He is going to lose so badly in November that the Reagan winning election will look small.
Toby the author of this drivel is an idiot. And Santorum did exactly the right thing. You don’t stand up like a hypocrite and praise the man who’s been lying about you for the past 3 months.
Romney is a disgrace. Sheer disgust should prevent any reasonably thoughtful conservative from ever voting for him.
I don’t really think any of the candidates are worthy of the conservative movement. But I’m not going to pin that on any of the guys who did run. They can’t help who they are. The failure was in ourselves. We did not field a viable conservative candidate. It’s our burden to recruit a candidate or to run ourselves. You don’t accomplish anything by beating the other candidates over the head. You need to offer an alternative, and we did not do that. So we are now left to choose between these several remaining flawed candidates. And I do think that realistically, Romney is the only one that has a chance of beating Obama, and even his chance is not that good.
It’s not about Romney. It’s about how to get things done in the real world. Santorum has never understood that. He played the game of Wrecker in the primary, wrecking the one true conservative’s chance (Newt) and then goes out with a me-me-me-me speech.
Rick Huckabee Santorum all over again.
The speech WAS about him. It was about him suspending his campaign. But that doesn't stop people like this writer from taking one last gratuitous cheap shot.
mikey, you talkin’ to yourself again.
“I’d say you make yourself look bad”
I second that statement regarding this Romney shill. Screw Romney. Go Newt. Anything it takes to stop the CHARLATAN ROMNEY from 1144 delegates. The conservative vote is now united. Delegates UNITE!
I am glad Rick did not pretend RINOmney has been honorable in this race - or worth of support.
I respect Santorum more because he didn’t bow the knee to the evil one.
What a pointless attack on Rick.
romney is a disgrace, well said!
I agree. Why should he mention Romney? A candidate has a responsibility to address his supporters, not his opponents, especially a nasty one like Mitt. Anything he might have wanted to say goes without saying, and it’s better that way.
Toby Harnden from the Telegraph is pro=America, and I have read his articles since 2009 since he was one of the foreign media who questioned Odumbo’s socialist crap and the UK media until now is persona non grata with the WH.
However, I do question the cheap shot. Eventually, Rick will cool off for a bit and give Romney some props later which is the right thing to do.
The exact opposite is the csse. Newt’s been a spoiler since Super Tuesday.
Take off your blinders. Newt will continue to fade. Deservedly.
It’s not hatred, though I do confess to a certain amount of bitterness. It’s the Huckabee phenomenon all over again and this time the Actor was Rick Santorum.
It’s like we never catch a break. We have our liberals, we have our conservatives, and then we have these Huckabee clowns who come in, stir up the muck, end up on the bottom with the liberal of the hour (McCain in ‘08 and Romney in ‘12) on top.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is hate. Now that I think of it.
Its going to be hard to support Newt if he’s anything like you
Go rot
He’s not going to work for Obama, give me a break. I think that realistically, he’s finished, except as a possible Romney cabinet member.
Wrong. Mittens’ campaign has been the most “graceless” campaign I’ve ever seen. Mendacious negative ads are his trademark. Why should Santorum mention kindly that enabler of baby-killers, sodomites, the AGW hoax, and many other things dear to the hearts of leftists everywhere?
Rush liked his speech today.
Santorum is out. Leave him alone.
I guess we could say “now you don’t have him to kick around anymore”.
Who does that leave?
What planet is this guy on??
Good grief....you RINOs are way too sensitive, The Kenyan and his media are going to have a ball slapping you around.
Actually, more like a Newt-shill. That’s the thing about the Newties. They invest far more energy into vitriol against everyone else, even after they’ve quit the race, than they do in positive plumping for their guy. That’s because their guy has faded even more than Santorum, he just won’t admit it.
Enter stage right... Sarah.
Newt faded because Santorum ran interference using the same block of voters who Huckabee used in ‘08 to run interference for McCain.
You’ve been spewing hate here for quite a while with your FRgringrich crap.
Newt Gingrich isn’t a quitter and he won his home state.
GO NEWT. He has surely faded, but he took the first and worst from Romney, but he’s still standing.
You have the roles reversed. Had Santorum bowed out early, we would already have nominee Romney. Had Newt bowed out early, there is a decent chance of a nominee Santorum. Even with the number of people against Romney, Gingrich’s +5 approval was never enough to pull him into contention. Newt’s PAC savaged Santorum as much as Romney did, at least here in Tennessee. By not supporting Romney, he leaves Newt one last chance to pull off a miracle. That seems rather charitable to me.
Speaking of graceless...
Mitt who? Oh, the guy who’s left of McCain.
Now Romney will spend his bucks going after Newt instead of Santorum. LOL
And all the Newt wants to do is debate.
What was Rick supposed to do, congratulate Romney on his dishonest and sleazy campaign? Good for Rick for refusing to do so.
Toby Harnden from across the pond is almost always very astute but I think he got this one wrong.
Today was not about offering praise to Romney or even mentioning him.
so true, set Romney aside for a second - Rick was always over his head and always the beneficiary of amazing good luck and timing. He showed it again today.
You can’t fix mediocre, and that’s what his talent level is.
Now, to let the other half of the Republican party in on the action, let's resume the primaries ~ and this time it looks like Newt, on an even slimmer budget, may be able to relegate Mitt and his evil Mittbots to the meaningless nothingness they bring to politics and themselves.
“Santorum probably hasn’t damaged Romney with his graceless speech today - but he has damaged himself.”
I disagree. I think “dissing” Romney was the only good thing about his announcement today. I’m sorry he couldn’t stay in the race and force an “open” convention where a better candidate than Romney could be selected. No one really wants Romney, many of us so much so that we won’t vote for him in a general election. This is a sure fire path to GOP decline. The convention needs another pick than Romney. Santorum’s leaving may have ended what little chance there was of that happening.
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