Posted on 11/23/2015 12:42:12 PM PST by dangus
Don't count any election over. In November of 2012, Rick Santorum polled at one percent in national Republican primary polls by USAToday/Gallup (11/13-11/17) and Public Policy Polling (11/10-11/13). He was polling at 3% in Iowa. Seven polls put him at 1% in New Hampshire. Insider Advantage didn't even bother including him as an option.
On the eve of the Iowa vote, the Real Clear Politics average of polls showed him a distant 3rd place, a marked improvement from 5 days earlier, when he was in 7th place. He pulled off a shocking upset. But the national news media incorrectly reported that Mitt Romney won. Nonetheless, he gained enough momentum to triple his poll support in New Hampshire (although Mitt Romney easily won).
Santorum roundly lost South Carolina, Nevada and Florida. But in Colorado, he surged from just 4% in December to win 40% of the vote. Nonetheless, Romney took the lions' share of delegates. Romney also took most of the delegates in Missouri, where Santorum won 55%. And Paul took the most delegates in Minnesota, where Santorum took 45%, to Paul's 28% and Romney's 17%. By now, the media had declared Romney the certain winner, even though Santorum would have been winning had delegates been allocated according to popular votes.
The media and establishment had picked their winner, voters be damned.
But don't let that discourage you in 2016. Many state committees were dismayed by the undemocratic (and electorally disastrous) results, and fixed the primary system.
* Delegates must be tied to election results.
* Florida's winner-take-all primary, which set in stone the media's insistence than Romney was inevitable, has been forced to well after Super Tuesday; 26 states will vote before any winner-take-all primaries are allowed.
* Although Bernie Sanders' campaign can largely be considered desperate, a contested Democratic race should result in only minimal cross-over voting by Democrats seeking to promote beatable, centrist candidates.
Santorum didn’t ignore the evangelicals and little rural flyover towns.
2011 is not 2015.
2011 offered a slate of mostly screwball candidates. In the field of screwball candidates, the one-sweater-vested screwball can be king for a day.
The current campaign has a very clear front runner and three just behind him; only one of those three (Carson) is a bit of a screwball.
What happened in past campaigns has zero predictive power for this one.
That only counts in ‘horseshoes’
and Santorum didn't have a change then and he has none now...He and many others need to drop out of the 2016 running for POTUS...
He didnt almost win.
Because some numbskulls decided to back Santorum when were on the cusp of bouncing Romney after Newt won South Carolina, and ready to take Florida, because the geniuses on our side thought we needed to care more about sweater vests and who was better at reciting bible verses, rather than beating the GOPe when we had them right were we wanted them.
Part of the anti-GOPE broke off and started promoting Rick because they thought that it was a fine time to take a risk with a candidate that was a dull as a rock but said some sentimental stuff.
Now you had two factions that split the right, left a lot of bitterness, and that gave Romney all he needed to waltz into the nomination.
I believe your assessment of what happened in 2012 is correct. I would add that the "numbskulls" were egged-on by push polls pushing Santorum.
The GOPe is not getting anything for their millions, like they did in 2012, cuz we are on to them.
Trump is a once in a generation leader.
This is not like any other primary year since Reagan.
Those that try to glean meaning from 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988... are missing the whole point.
There was no one like Trump running in those primary years.
The very point is that whatEVER you’re seeing now has no predictive power.
Santorum? He’s at 0%. He has no chance to win the GOP nomination.
Jokes about his name literally write themselves.
Why is he running?
“The very point is that whatEVER you’re seeing now has no predictive power.”
And you are very, very wrong!
Wow. I didn’t think anyone would be dumb enough to read that as a plug for Santorum.
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