Rick Santorum sounds off on ‘bomb throwers’ Rand Paul, Ted Cruz

Washington Times ^ | January 12, 2015 | David Sherfinski

[SoConPubbie]

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania threw a few elbows at several potential rivals for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, calling possible contenders Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas “bomb throwers” with little experience.

“Do we really want someone with this little experience?” Mr. Santorum said, referring to Mr. Paul, Mr. Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, The New York Times reported. “And the only experience they have basically — not Rubio, but Cruz and Paul because I don’t think Rubio is going to go — is bomb throwing? Do we really want somebody who’s a bomb thrower, with no track record of any accomplishments?”

Doug Stafford, a senior adviser to Mr. Paul, told the paper they would pass on responding to the “alleged wisdom” of someone who lost re-election in 2006 by 18 points and who “has spent the time since then trying to convince people to elect him to an even higher office than the one he was booted out of.”

[fieldmarshaldj]

Dubuque County hasn’t voted GOP for President since 1956.

[Impy]

“Dubuque County hasn’t voted GOP for President since 1956.”

Nasty little bugger. GOP in 1904 (barely), 1920, 1940!?, 1952, 1956, LaFollete in 1924, otherwise rat in every POTUS election in state history.

http://geoelections.free.fr/EU/elec_comtes/1904.htm

Ohter map that properly uses BLUE for Republican

[campaignPete R-CT]

Am I in a time warp? An all-day recap of the 2012 prez primaries ...

there was something about the Newt campaign ... out of touch with reality.
http://www.newhampshire.com/article/20111213/NEWS06/111219972/0/NEWS0602

best local event of the year in New Hampshire .. Newt stayed and chatted individually with each person there who line up. It went on for 90 minutes after he was done speaking. Yet, did his campaign turn these 1000 people into supporters? How many were political tourists from Massachusetts?

A week later, Newt got 7% of the vote in Windham, finishing in 4th place in that town, just ahead of RS. Newts people didn’t like dealing with real details of a campaign ... like getting real votes.

[Impy]

“Am I in a time warp?”

Yes, because the Newt lovers won’t let it go.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Ooooh, I’ve been looking for that type of map for a long time. However, do they have county-by-county actual votes somewhere (prior to 1960) ? I had to go get a 1959 Almanac to get the actual votes for Dubuque County.

[campaignPete R-CT]

A. The Prez event is 50 separate contests. As far as supporting any particular candidate, I would ask, “what state?” .... hard to support somebody who has no campaign in that state.

B. RS focused so heavily on IA that he had no campaign in NH until 5 days before primary day. And in ME, he refused to appoint any body as head of his campaign which made it IMPOSSIBLE to campaign for him. NOBODY spoke for RS at most MAINE caucuses because nobody was authorized to do so! If I were in IA, I would have gone for RS to defeat MITT.

C. In CT, there was an official straw poll 5 days after RS “suspended” ... the RS folks showed up and tried for votes ... Mitt won by 2 votes over Newt. The RS voters who wanted to stop MITT were beyond foolish that day.

D. Before y’all can nominate a conservative, the Bush-Romney wing needs to be DEFEATED. Only then will the field be opened up enough to consider an alternative. A two-step process. 1) Defeat the Insiders. 2) Nominate a conservative. (You cannot do #2 until after #1 is accomplished.)

E. See above. I will support whomever has the best chance to stop Romney/Bush in NH .... which I calculate to be Walker today. But if he develops no campaign there ... I find somebody else.

[Impy]

I found those maps linked from Wikipedia, every POTUS election since 1828, colored coded by relative vote %. Very nice. (Wikipedia has their own map of 1824 so that’s every popular vote era POTUS election covered)

Just maps though AFAIK, no vote totals, unfortunately. A French site, go figure.

Our campaigns has a lot of (but not for all years) county results, but in map form, I recall you saying their map apps won’t load for you.

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=2619

IA 1956, Ike loses only Wapello County. Wins Dubuque with 57.64%

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=2812

Wilkie for wins 51.3% in Dubuque county, every other GOP POTUS win was in a landslide year.

They used to have wonderful county containers were you could click on the country and see who they voted for in any election where data was available, deleted due to lack of space or something.

I should just bite the bullet and pay Dave Leip (I know he’s missing some old county data too though).

[campaignPete R-CT]

IN 1980, the insiders were divided.
1980 Bush vs. Reagan.
1988 Bush vs. Dole.
1996 Dole vs. the field. Dole almost lost it, even with full support of the insiders.
2000 Bush vs. McCain
2008 McCain vs. Romney
2012 Romney alone. Insiders united.
2016 ?

2016 is shaping up as a race with serious divisions among the insider crowd ... which provides an opportunity for grassroots to be the decider among the top few competitors. An opportunity that will be lost if the right is fractured into numerous candidates in most states.

2012 was hopeless from the start because the insiders were largely united around Mitt, especially after Perry imploded. Perry was the only one who could have pulled it off, in retrospect. But Mitt was ready to pulverize him with his specialized destroyer commercials.

Here's a nice map. Hopefully, some conservative candidate will hire a real campaign team for NH this year. Unlike Forbes2000 Huckabee2008 RS2012 Newt2012 ... all hired teams that were in over their head.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Actually, for those two pages you linked, the maps did show. I don’t know why it’s so schizo with some working and some not.

[campaignPete R-CT]

http://sos.nh.gov/2012RepPresPrim.aspx?id=12945

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/10/map-new-hampshire-primary-2012-results_n_1195374.html

good links.

. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday announced the hiring of a campaign manager for his likely 2016 presidential bid, part of an aggressive effort to build a national political team as the race for the White House heats up.

The hiring of strategist Chip Englander, who recently guided a gubernatorial candidate to victory in Illinois
Englander, 33, who spent much of his early career working in California politics, last year managed Republican Bruce Rauner’s campaign for governor in Illinois

Michael Biundo, who was campaign manager for former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential campaign, which won 11 primaries and caucuses, is another senior adviser set to run Paul’s New Hampshire campaign.

On Wednesday, Paul will travel to New Hampshire for a series of meetings and events. Later this year, he will release “Taking a Stand: Moving beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America,”

One Romney adviser, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said, “Mitt’s a very restless character. He is not the type to retire happily, to read books on the beach. .. He believes he has something to offer the country and the only way he can do that is by running for president again.”

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the GOP presidential nominee in 2008, was skeptical of a Romney candidacy and endorsed the idea of a “dark horse” run by his longtime friend in the Senate, Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.).

Romney moves to reassemble campaign team for ‘almost certain’ 2016 bid.

we always cannot speak candidly on here. Santorum’s Biundo. Words cannot describe him.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Everything you say is absolutely beltway thinking....Newt’s talent was unparalleled by any candidate on either side - the ability to take down racism, unions, judges, academia nuts, Democrats in office and the media in one debate answer that ties it all up in a bow.

You don’t have any damned idea what Newt could, or could not have done. There is no cult of Newt, there are those of us mature enough to understand that at over 60 years of age, 30 in the public square, Newt has made a lot of mistakes, but he’s learned a lot too.

And he is, and has been for years, when he’s the “good Newt” - a peerless articulator of why conservatism works and liberalism fails. Yeah, the bad Newt might embrace some of that liberalism a tad, so it’s not a slam dunk he would have won. No one said it was.

What we’ve said is this: A Newt candidacy would have made the election highly ideological, which is the only way Republicans win. EVER. There would be no escaping the Tea Party vision v Occupy Wall street vision of America.

Newt might have struck out, but Mitt was out on called strikes. And Santorum doesn’t have the talent to even be considered. Nice guy I guess, but just no talent.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Eddie, you’re WAY too emotionally invested in Gingrich, and that’s why you’ve lost your perspective here. So you say he can debate ? So what. Talk is cheap. I watched him in action when he was Speaker. He brought the GOP to the majority and what did they do with it under him ? He crumpled in less than a year on the job and he looked really bad doing it. He had a spectacular opportunity to hold firm against Clinton like the Rock of Gibraltar. He failed. If he had succeeded, he could’ve had the Presidential nomination in 1996 or 2000 for the taking.

You forget he was tossed out on his ass ahead of the Speaker vote. There would be no comebacks for him. I knew it then and his actions ever since demonstrated that. For anyone who thought with someone whom had toxic approval ratings could make it to the Presidency was and is suffering from a serious case of cognitive dissonance. Democrats might pull that off with their usual liberal amount of cheating and fraud, a Republican can’t.

Newt isn’t 60 or in the public square for 30 years, he’s almost 72 and began running for office in 1974, so that’s 41 years now. Newt is no Reagan, either. Reagan was 55 when he first ran for office (Governor) and within 14 years was elected President on his 3rd try. Reagan didn’t commit colossal foul-ups or have toxic negatives. The media went after him hammer and tong and couldn’t get much to stick. Everything stuck to Newt.

It was not a matter of if Newt might’ve struck out as the nominee, the matter was by how much. Willard was execrable, but Newt was already a proven negative and he never turned it around. You gotta take off the fanboi glasses and smell the coffee. What you think he is and what he is are two different things. That he has a deep-seated emotional need and want for the media to like him (something WAY too many Republicans suffer from) is one reason why he never did “get it.” It’s one reason I’m looking forward to a Cruz candidacy, someone who doesn’t give a damn about the adulation of leftists. That’s someone who will present a real ideological choice, not Newt’s squishy Stay-Puftiness which was only some number of degrees starboard of Willard’s.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Not invested in Newt per se at all - which is said many times in my best seller election book - in hundreds of radio interviews and TV interviews - I’m invested in IDEAS - and Newt was the only one to deal in the idea of conservatism v liberalism. Well, Cain for a while, but mainly just Newt.

I’ve said that anyone in the field carrying Newts message would have been great and would have won. But no one in that field was willing or capable to do so. I’m all about IDEAS and only interested in people in politics relative to their ideas. PERIOD.

Like most people called Field Marshall....mostly dead Nazis.....you don’t know half the shit you think you do.

You are just spouting off what the estab hacks at Fox and inside Rove’s super PAC and inside Romney’s campaign are doing. You just quote blah blah blah conventional wisdom because you’ve never had an original thought...not one I’ve seen.

[C. Edmund Wright]

The worst part of the campaign was Newt’s Super PAC buying that damned Bain Capital movie and making ads out of it. I was in that Super PAC, and proud to say that I was the only consultant to say NO NO NO WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING. I was out voted.

As for Newt being a RINO, that’s not correct, it’s too simpolistic. He’s had some RINO tendencies over the years - TRUE....BUT BUT BUT...and this is important:

Everything he’s actually accomplished is pure conservatism...the 94 election, Contract W America, Welfare reform, Congressional reform. And he’s clearly the best politician on the planet at explaining why conservatism is superior to liberalism.

There’s a good Newt and a bad Newt. The bad Newt is RINOish....but that’s only a small part of who Newt is. Remember, he’s been relevant for decades. Someone like Santorum has not....so Santorums flaws, and there are many, are not as well known because no one gives a damn about him outside his little cult.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Like most people called Field Marshall....mostly dead Nazis.....you don’t know half the shit you think you do."

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Did you just seriously go there ? I don't know what's more insulting, being compared to Nazis or accused of mouthing Karl Rove or Willard talking points. If you knew me at all, which you don't, you'd know I'm about the most anti-establishment/anti-beltway and anti-Willard poster on Free Republic. I've spent almost a decade exposing that fraud from Massachusetts (which you seem to conveniently ignore in order to rant on) and gone toe-to-toe with his similarly brainwashed trolls or paid agents on this board (ones who, btw, attempted to hijack and/or leverage this website you're posting on).

Frankly, given your comments here, and your derangement at the slightest critique of Gingrich, I'm shocked anyone takes you seriously. You responded to precisely none of my specific points in my prior posts, and certainly nothing you've said directly to me could be described as particularly reasoned, but a litany of insults and "I'm better than you because I have a best selling book." I know a few published authors get a swelled head, but yours makes the Graf Zeppelin look like a microbe.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Everything he’s actually accomplished is pure conservatism"

Utter and total cognitive dissonance.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Am I in a time warp? An all-day recap of the 2012 prez primaries ...”

My thoughts exactly. I find those memories a bit painful.

Speaking of time warps I noticed on MSNBC the libs sound sure that Romney is running again due to activity with potential fundraisers.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You do miss the genius - because it fits...Field Marshals are always fighting the last war - they are obsolete by the time they rise to that rank - they make incredible blunders that cost the chance for current victories. That’s you to a tee...it just went over your head.

Besides: you went there with Eddie...you moron, YOU started this shit. You’re just a pusillanimous internet pussy hiding behind some fabricated name. Therefore, you lose any name calling battle by definition, period, end of discussion. Especially a discussion that’s over your head.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Genius ? I wouldn’t ascribe such a title to you. Petulant child and sore loser who can’t defend his hero Newtie without subjecting the entire thread to a trollish and psychotic poo-flinging episode.

Godwin’s Law, Eddie. You started the “Nazi” crap and no one else. You lost the argument. Now grow up.

[bert]

The loser Rick, has no place at the table with office holders