Santorum surges into the lead (National poll Santorum 38%, Romney 23%)

Public Policy Polling ^ | 02/11/2012 | Public Policy Polling

[Rational Thought]

Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP's newest national poll. He's at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul.

Part of the reason for Santorum's surge is his own high level of popularity. 64% of voters see him favorably to only 22% with a negative one. But the other, and maybe more important, reason is that Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich. Romney's favorability is barely above water at 44/43, representing a 23 point net decline from our December national poll when he was +24 (55/31). Gingrich has fallen even further. A 44% plurality of GOP voters now hold a negative opinion of him to only 42% with a positive one. That's a 34 point drop from 2 months ago when he was at +32 (60/28).

[Lady Lucky]

You’ll have to excuse me, the pros and cons of Santorum’s candidacy are a lengthy discussion and I haven’t time. We shall see. If by some miracle he won the nomination, I’d vote for him. I wouldn’t vote for Romney in November.
But let’s watch things play out over the next few weeks. Consider my opinion as but another feather flying in the worldwide pillow fight in cyberspace.

[American Constitutionalist]

Of course I would take a good guess just exactly the point I was trying to make without you going off on the side road .... the point I was making was that they underestimated the 13 colonies and those 13 colonies beat England in a war... and many Newt supporters underestimate Rick Santorum and over estimate Newt in his ability to beat Romney and win this November..

[TexasFreeper2009]

well.. I don’t get to vote until this gets to Texas anyway. I will just say right now that my vote will go for whoever is polling highest against Romney when this gets to Texas in a couple of months

[Gene Eric]

>> Talk about melodramatic, boring and pointless!

Knock ‘em dead with all those platitudes, Ross Santorum!

His aspirant ascendency is depressing.

[TomGuy]

Remember Reagan in 1980 was 70 years old and one of the single greatest issues in that campaign was his age and how he would be the oldest President ever elected.

Nancy ran a lot his 2nd term. Recall that he had early stage Alzheimer's then, but that was not revealed until years later.

Then we have current McCain who might have been in the WH, had the voting been different. Some of these bills he's pushed even since 2008 makes many wonder whether he is just nuts or whether old age has 'infirmed' him.

Age does have a significant part. Look at the old codgers in Congress. Look at the old codgers on the Supreme Court.

[TitansAFC]

Good strategy. You aren’t alone (though here in IL, Rick isn’t even an option)

[Lady Lucky]

I did not mean to imply equivalency

I know you didn't, i was just being hypersensitive, per the doctrine, "When in Rome.."

Gotta watch what you say around here, huh? :)

[C. Edmund Wright]

Pro labor.
Pro more spending on welfare.
Pro more spending on AIDS in AFrica
Pro Campaign Finance Reform
Pro more spending on Education

His 06 campaign would make Olympia Snowe look like Ronald Reagan. Get over your obsession with what you think cost the 06 election. That was not my point ever and is not my point now and will not be my point tomorrow.

My point is that the tenor of his campaign was that of a meely moderate and he claims now the opposite was true, making him a meely moderate in 06 and a liar in 2012. Case closed.

[JudgemAll]

Forget voting.

I think we need a divorce. At this point in time, voting for the right guy has become a crime in this country, warranting government seizing of assets because our government does not want to pay its taxes, ie. it does not want to do its job.

However, RINOs and others, are going to the cliff of civil war instead of civility in separating ourselves for this and sueing ourselves away from this mess into a new government separate from this government telling us under Civil Rights banners what kind of people we should befriend everyday.

This needs to be demonstrated to the world how we handle things in AMerica when some terrorist takes power like clever little lice.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Yes, and I should have been more careful, especially since I’ve been one of the biggest promoters of the non equivalency issue myself.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

1. I’m a long-time Santorum supporter. I’ve had his bumper sticker on my car since last summer. For me, he’s not simply “the last man standing”. He’s my first choice. I’m very happy to see these results.

2. In the heat of a primary, we sometimes forget who is on our side. In spite of the comments that are typical and necessary during a campaign, Newt and Rick are on the same side (as are Rick Perry, Michele, Herman, Tim P., and many others). I even appreciate Ron Paul’s stands in Congress—although I have obvious reservations about him in some areas. As for Mitt, I don’t want to be too cruel, but I see him as the enemy—the embedded liberal within the Party that intends to take us where we don’t want to go and don’t need to go.

3. There are a few anti-Santorum posters who post repeatedly and tend to dominate the conversation. I think, though, that most people in the Newt camp are not that way. The polls also indicate that Santorum has more support than his detractors would want to admit. The half-dozen or so posters (out of hundreds of posters) who have obviously lost it are almost funny to watch—but sadly pathetic, too.

4. Go Rick!!

[C. Edmund Wright]

Well we know who would wear the pants in that duo.

[FreeReign]

Nancy ran a lot his 2nd term. Recall that he had early stage Alzheimer's then, but that was not revealed until years later.

You really do buy into all the propaganda.

Post after post.

[Steelfish]

With un-favorability ratings this deep and with Gingrich trailing women voters by 20-points, this is not a candidate that can be seriously considered as electable even if his agenda is dyed-in-the-wool conservatism.

[TitansAFC]

-—”Newt supporters underestimate Rick Santorum and over estimate Newt in his ability to beat Romney and win this November.”-—

No such thing is happening. It is Santorum supporters who overestimate their candidate’s chances:

Here in IL, Rick will field no delegates.
He will field none in TN, either.
He is not on the ballot in IN
He is not on the ballot in DC
He is not on the ballot in VA
He will not field any delegates in ND
He is not on the ballot in 20% of OH

He could not even try to compete in the first big state of FL, and has already said as much about CA and NY.

The talking point from Rick supporters goes something like this: Through our sheer willpower, we will convince the states where Rick won’t field any delegates to just give them to Santorum anyway. Even though that never happens, it is only because nobody befire has been Rick Santorum!

Here’s the bad news: delegates are going to be pledged; and no matter how much you beg, they aren’t going to be assigned to Rick Santorum later just because you really want them to be. And really, in that above scenario, TN is the only one that assigns them later, anyway.

Rick CANNOT win the nomination. He CANNOT. There is no path to 1140+ delegates for him, period.

[TitansAFC]

-—”Newt supporters underestimate Rick Santorum and over estimate Newt in his ability to beat Romney and win this November.”-—

No such thing is happening. It is Santorum supporters who overestimate their candidate’s chances:

Here in IL, Rick will field no delegates.
He will field none in TN, either.
He is not on the ballot in IN
He is not on the ballot in DC
He is not on the ballot in VA
He will not field any delegates in ND
He is not on the ballot in 20% of OH

He could not even try to compete in the first big state of FL, and has already said as much about CA and NY.

The talking point from Rick supporters goes something like this: Through our sheer willpower, we will convince the states where Rick won’t field any delegates to just give them to Santorum anyway. Even though that never happens, it is only because nobody befire has been Rick Santorum!

Here’s the bad news: delegates are going to be pledged; and no matter how much you beg, they aren’t going to be assigned to Rick Santorum later just because you really want them to be. And really, in that above scenario, TN is the only one that assigns them later, anyway.

Rick CANNOT win the nomination. He CANNOT. There is no path to 1140+ delegates for him, period.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

You have been repeatedly corrected on some of these points, such as He will field none in TN, either. You know that it is not true. That makes one wonder about the purpose of the post.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Wrong again. If you will listen for a change, you just might learn that there are actually some people here that know everything about Santorum, of which you choose to block out.

To put this in simple terms that you would better understand, it means that few of us here are “underestimating” Santorum. He struggled for 7 months during the beginning of the campaign season and could not get over 5% support. And since it was people like myself who were mostly fueling the the early part of the season, we knew a great deal about Santorum, which is exactly why he could not gain an ounce of traction or popularity.

It’ mainly because of ignorant voters like yourself, those “fair weather” voters who are not only ignorant, but are compulsive, who are now in a mad scramble to pick a candidate a bad as Santorum without knowing much at all about him.

I hope this explains it to you somewhat, but I have little faith that you will fully understand exactly what it is I am saying. It seems that Santorum zealots are painfully ignorant as well as opinionated.

[little jeremiah]

Why do you hate Santorum’s family so much and why do you feel compelled to carefully write up such word pictures of loathing? It’s very, very, very odd and somehow nauseating to read your comment.

[Nextrush]

I’ve seen Rick Santorum in action for the last 18 years and he’s a businesss as usual politician with links to the local Pennsylvania GOP “machine” and the national GOP-E through National Right To Life.

Rick’s the kind of “pro-life, pro-family” candidate acceptable to the “machine” that Sarah Palin talked about in her book “Going Rogue.”

I want Romney to lose everywhere even if it means voting for Paul in Virginia which is the only option there.

Romney needs to be knocked out, but Santorum is not the alternative to replace him in any way, shape or form.