the 3 who first abandoned running against Obama and ran against Newt”
THIS point is spot on. Newt didn’t run against the other Republicans. He ran against obama. And that was the right approach.
I don’t know if Newt would have won the general. But we know NOW, that he couldn’t have done worse. Hell, we should have gone with McCain and hoped that everyone who voted for him in 08 just showed up. Do that, we win. We didn’t even do that.
Let me give you some inside info that will probably make you sick. I was in the Super PAC that bought that stupid Bain film and started running against Mitt. I argued, bitched, cussed, and called the folks writing my checks crazy and out of touch for doing that attack.
I told them to just keep running against Obama, and we’ll peel off the soft (at the time) Santorum support, the Cain and Palin folks who have not landed, and the undecideds craving an attack on liberals. I begged, cajoled, reasoned, and told them that running Bain would bring down a hell storm of derision from Rush, Levin, Hannity, etc.
And it did. Newt got back on track in SC, and routed everyone. Went to Florida, and listened to his stupid consultants again. Before the Florida debates, out of SC, I thought we were looking at America’s Churchill: fat, frumpy, pompous, brilliant, but perfect for the times. It was over 10 minutes into the Monday Florida debate, and Mitt was nominee at that time in effect.
I so so so wish Newt had kept doing what he did in Iowa early and then in SC. He did not.
You have a short memory. Newt launched some of the most vicius attacks against Romney and Santorum and basicaly created the blueprint for the bain attack ads that Obama ran against Romney during the summer.
The primary process is always vicius on both sides but only republicans seem to think that if they don’t vote in the general election they will somehow get everything that they want when the next cycle comes around. The sitouts are killing the republican party and are basically turning the country over to the democrats.