Not Newt, Rick

58 posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 9:32:24 AM by CharlesWayneCT: “By objective measures, based on polls, Gingrich would have benefited little if at all by a Santorum withdrawal; Santorum would not have benefited if Newt dropped out; and as far as I can tell, even a Ron Paul exist would have helped Romney more than the others (although interestingly, a Ron Paul exit would help the TWO candidates together more than Romney, while a Newt or Santorum withdraw actually gave Romney more support than the other candidates combined.”

This is very helpful information to respond to those calling for a Santorum withdrawal. If these stats are correct, it means there is no reason at this time for Santorum to withdraw. Of course, things could quickly change in the next few days.

My guess is that the Santorum supporters who would vote for Romney are doing so either 1) because they don't know Romney's flip-flopping on abortion, 2) because they think Romney is a family-values candidate, or 3) because they're primarily anti-Obama and if they can't have the candidate they think is best on principle, they want the candidate they think is most likely to win in the general election.

I do think the Santorum voters could break differently if Santorum does not stay neutral but instead publicly backs a candidate.

Lots of people still don't realize just how bad Romney's flip-flopping is on abortion. Free Republic woke me up, and I believe many really don't know what we on FR know from seeing the videos of his race for governor.

Likewise, punching more holes in Romney's “electability” argument could change things.

A Santorum pullout followed by a strong endorsement of Gingrich combined with some sort of pledge by Gingrich to appoint Santorum to the vice-presidency or something else in the cabinet (maybe HHS?), combined with a very strong condemnation by Santorum of Romney's flip-flopping on abortion and warning of the risk posed to Roman Catholic hospitals by RomneyCare in its ObamaCare version, might result is a significantly larger group going to Gingrich

58 posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 9:32:24 AM by CharlesWayneCT: “In other words, at the moment, based on polling data, we are screwed. Conservatives have so divided themselves, have attacked each other’s candidates so decisively and effectively, that we've driven two out, one other just quit, and the two left have hopelessly divided the remaining conservatives.”

We agree.

I'm unhappy with the entire Republican field and I fear for what will happen this November.

I might be able to explain the Santorum support for Romney as a “value vote”. But how do you explain 63% of the Gingrich supporters choosing Romney 2nd? Newt has been in full-out attack on Romney, so if they support Newt you’d think they would believe him, and therefore would not support Romney. It’s just odd.

Unless of course that’s just how they think they can help Newt, by not admitting they’d really switch to Santorum.

Polls are an inexact way to learn things, but they are all we have right now.

We know that Perry dropped out and supported Gingrich. But we don’t have any real measure of whether that helped or not — Gingrich was surging at that point, so the polls were all changing and we can’t know what thing mattered. And Perry had such a low base of support at that time that it would be hard to see a movement of his supporters anyway.

And when Bachmann dropped out, the same was true — plus she didn’t even bother endorsing. Of course, Cain didn’t endorse, and he had significant support when he dropped out, but his support moved to Gingrich anyway for the most part.

CynicalBear, I think you may be responding to someone else’s post. I've been an opponent of Mitt Romney for most of the current campaign season, once I watched the videos on Free Republic with Romney advocating a "pro-choice" position to get elected governor in Massachusetts. I'm also not sure what you say I'm lying about; my guess is you're responding to something someone else said.

Anyway, try to have a good day... I have a feeling we're both going to be disappointed with the election results in Florida.

63 posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 4:04:42 PM by CynicalBear: “Why would you lie like that? I only had a total of 6 posts on the 30th and only 4 even said anything about Santorum. As for you guys in Missouri, I couldn’t care less what you do. Missouri is a beauty contest which isn’t going to make anyone take notice. As for your choice of Romney I would suggest you go tell the boss here how much you like him.”

On Tuesday, January 31, 2012 12:14:58 PM · 62 CharlesWayneCT to darrellmaurina: “I might be able to explain the Santorum support for Romney as a “value vote”. But how do you explain 63% of the Gingrich supporters choosing Romney 2nd? Newt has been in full-out attack on Romney, so if they support Newt you’d think they would believe him, and therefore would not support Romney. It’s just odd ... Polls are an inexact way to learn things, but they are all we have right now.”

My guess is that there's a certain percentage of voters for both Romney and Gingrich who are saying “anybody but Obama,” really don't care that much about the differences between the four candidates, and if their candidate weren't in the race they'd back the other person currently seen as a frontrunner.

In general, minority candidates have much stronger and more committed support simply because they're appealing primarily to the base or core constituency. If this were a Santorum-Romney race or a Santorum-Gingrich we'd likely be seeing similar dynamics with Santorum’s voters.

But as you said, polls are inexact at best. We don't know for sure, but in large states like Florida they're our only way to understand the electorate. A small state can still be understood by on-the-ground politics, but cities don't have the level of community seen in small towns and old fashioned ward politics simply doesn't work in highly mobile and transient areas.

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