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).

[FresnoRobert]

Unintended triple post. Sorry.

[ohioWfan]

So then, if Santorum is the nominee, what will you do? Vote for Obama, or stay home (and vote for Obama)?

You're kind of in a tough spot as a so-called conservative with that ultimatum, I'd say.

[JohnBovenmyer]

You just unintentionally won "Typo of the Year!"

I think his leadership with the Contract with America and later promotion of American renewal ideas and particular “Drill her, Drill Now!” have been brilliant and wonderful.

Your "quote" brilliantly summarizes the platform of the Kennedy/Clinton wing of the Democratic party. Alas your summary won't be useful, to our side, this fall. Obama's surrogates might try to use it against one of our options. It's been weakly alleged that Obama's wing might be summarized with a... h'm... slightly different typo, but recent history suggests we'll have to wait 50 years before the MSM will allow it.

[JohnBovenmyer]

You just unintentionally won "Typo of the Year!"

I think his leadership with the Contract with America and later promotion of American renewal ideas and particular “Drill her, Drill Now!” have been brilliant and wonderful.

Your "quote" brilliantly summarizes the platform of the Kennedy/Clinton wing of the Democratic party. Alas your summary won't be useful, to our side, this fall. Obama's surrogates might try to use it against one of our options. It's been weakly alleged that Obama's wing might be summarized with a... h'm... slightly different typo, but recent history suggests we'll have to wait 50 years before the MSM will allow it.

[PreciousLiberty]

"And unlike Newt, he’s an establishment candidate who endorsed Specter (who voted for Obamacare), and Romney in the primary of ‘08. He’s on record saying he’s against the tea party."

Well, there are two sides to that story... The following was released by Santorum's campaign in response to 0bamney's claim regarding Santorum and the Tea Party:

"Rick Santorum has been praised for being a Tea Party candidate when there was no Tea Party, and has been a staunch supporter," Gidley told Fox News in an email statement. "The reason the Tea Party exists is because of government health care mandates, job-crushing cap-and-tax legislation, the big bank bail outs, and forms of amnesty. Those issues were all supported by Newt Gingrich, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama."

That left a mark!

Full story at: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/02/09/gingrich-vowing-national-campaign-jabs-santorum

[Yaelle]

Maybe you didn’t read exactly what I said. I said that I decided against Newt NOT FOR HIS PAST, but for his character / personality flaws that he still has to this day. Not his marital exploits but for how he to this day behaves. He is an emotionally needy person, and even his religious conversion has not cured it. There is a chance that he might steady himself as President, but there is a far greater chance that he will perceive slights and be distracted by fighting back for the sake of his ego. There is a chance that he will be working more for his own legacy than for us, the American people. There is even a chance that he will fall prey to a moral slip up again.

You can support him, that’s fine. No candidate is perfect. It is MY choice, though, to support Santorum because even if he isn’t as grand and exciting and brilliant as Newt, he is a better chance at a strong steward of the presidency and the nation for now. And he is as conservative as I am, or more so.

[altura]

Huckabee explained a brokered convention to me this morning and it sounds like a hellish nightmare with the person who is most cunning and has the most promises to give winning.

Somebody who is not a candidate now would be an extremely long shot of being brokered in.

[altura]

Newt made a good speech; so did Perry.

Breitbart was a little tipsy but he was fun to listen to. Can’t wait for his videos.

I agree ... Newt is a much better candidate.

[ohioWfan]

The dork optics are overwhelming. I watched his speech with the daughter and wife behind him, and I cringed. They forced a few smiles and then defaulted to grim American Gothic. The daughter with her small head on enormous body, her face puckered up with the same dyspeptic look her father sports most of the time — “I just swallowed a live squid!” — and the I-smell-something sneer on the wife — these things unfortunately matter a great deal, usually on a subliminal level.

I need to remember your screen name.

You seem to be a really disgusting, shallow person. I may be wrong about that, but even if I supported whatever non-dork you support that results in such disgusting rhetoric, I would find these words nauseating.

I will remember the name "Lady Lucky" and dismiss any further posts I happen to accidentally read....

[altura]

You make a lot of sense. And it’s refreshing to see.

This thread has been depressing in the extreme.

People are digging up every single Obama argument against our candidates in order to pit one against the other.

Obama could just sit back and read this thread and coast to victory.

I hate to even say I’m for Newt but I am.

But I’m not going to kick Saintorum to the curb. We may need him.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Also, if you take out just one of the notRomneys in this poll you get a notRomney to the endMitt level of 50% nationally. Maybe I’m forgetting one, but I don’t recall any prior polls, with any of the ten prior national leaders, achieving that level. Luckily for the fans of said taken out candidate its leading notRomney doesn’t believe in encouraging drop outs.

[PreciousLiberty]

"As I see it, in a Romney-Obama matchup, Romney will lose much of the conservative vote, who will stay home or avoid that lever by his name. In a Santorum-Obama matchup, Santorum will lose the moderates, the mushy, the independents. And there are more of those."

I think you're wrong. Santorum is polling better in Ohio against 0 than either Gingrich or 0bamney, and Ohio is an absolutely critical swing state. This poll was also before his triple win last Tuesday.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/01/santorum-strongest-against-obama-in-ohio/

"Romney would lose big. Santorum would lose bigger.
Neither one is strong on anything but platitudes that serve to fig-leaf their shortcomings of record."

Again, I think you're wrong. Santorum has the strongest foreign policy credentials in the field, in dangerous times.

Further, Santorum has a lifetime 88 conservative rating, versus 90 for Gingrich - but in his last year of Senate service Santorum posted a 96. Also, unlike Gingrich, he opposed 0care, the bailouts, cap and trade, and amnesty.

"But in a couple of weeks Santorum is going to be hamburger anyway. He’s just the anti-Romney du jour."

Based on what exactly? Gingrich is an easy target for many reasons. Santorum is much more difficult, plus his principles hold up very nice compared with 0bamney.

[Lady Lucky]

Based on what exactly?

As they used to say in Red Square, "remains to be seen."

[GulfBreeze]

LOL. And you would have to double post my error!

[Kazan]

He’s on record saying he’s against the tea party.

When did Santorum say anything like that?

[C. Edmund Wright]

Santorum is phony, just not charismatic.

[Mountain Mary]

If Mittens is the nominee, I’m going to bed until Nov.4.

[xzins]

Capitalfreepress comes to a different conclusion. They say that both Gingrich and Santorum have plenty of room to capture sufficient delegates to win the nomination.

Good. My intent is to keep the nomination from Romney.

Conclusion

In summary, it appears as if in a worst case scenario for Santorum, his ballot access problems will cost him a shot at up to 111 delegates. In a best case scenario where his challenge to ballot status in Indiana succeeds and he could convince other candidates delegates to support him in Illinois, he would only be missing out on 74 delegates.

All of this assumes of course that Santorum would win every delegate in all of these states. Given the proportional awarding of the delegates in many of these states, it is virtually impossible that he would have done that anyways. Being ineligible for the 49 delegates of Virigina constitutes at worst almost half the damage to Santorum’s delegate winning prospects. However, if he wouldn’t have won there anyways, he really is losing very few delegates from not being on the ballot.

Of the 1144 delegates Santorum would need to become the nominee, not being eligible for all of the delegates he could be certainly won’t help him, but the number of delegates he can’t receive are far from enough to stop him from being the nominee. If he gains momentum and continues to win states, he will have no problem amassing enough delegates to win.

[Kaslin]

Also she was dating Newt when he was still married to his first wife, and don’t tell me she didn’t know

[Mountain Mary]

I want Newt to have a comeback too.

When Santorum made that cringe worthy comment about women in the military being emotional, I thought, “uh oh”.

But for now, both Newt and Rick are shaking Mitt’s confidence which is a good thing.. and hopefully, he’ll have a meltdown at the next debate if they push the right buttons..
He is wired so tightly anyway. Has he not heard of Xanex?