Posted on 04/26/2015 6:56:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Rick Santorum was the returning champion at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition forum on Saturday. But inside Waukee, Iowa’s Point of Grace Church, it certainly didn’t feel like it. After his upset victory in the 2012 Iowa caucus – driven largely by the state’s powerful evangelical voting bloc – many expected the former Pennsylvania senator to be welcomed back with open arms.
But compared to the other eight Republican candidates present at the Des Moines-area conference, Santorum’s speech fell strangely flat. The audience didn’t clap much, and when they did it was usually polite and perfunctory. Lines that felt like they were meant to be showstoppers were at times met with awkward silences.
Part of that may have been due to his choice of subject matter. While speakers like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal emphasized Christian credentials and Rand Paul and Scott Walker pushed muscular foreign policies, Santorum was selling a populist economic message that didn’t seem to land. He called the Republican Party’s supply-side, free trade message outdated and pushed for a minimum wage hike. “We’re keeping down the wages of American families,” he said. “We need to say we’re on the side of American workers.”
Observers believe Santorum may be misreading his audience this time around. “It didn’t resonate,” said Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Des Moines’ Drake University. “Santorum sort of moved to that blue-collar conservatism, populist kind of approach . . . That’s not what will sell this particular crowd.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Is Santorum that ignorant of economics ?
Good. We need this guy out of the race. He’s done nothing to show he’s ready to be president.
Him peeling votes away from Cruz enables someone like Jeb to win.
I like him just fine but I suspect most people are in the same boat as me. I just don’t want anyone who ran last time to run this time.
I hope little saint sweater vest flames out and goes home.
BUMMER. I LIKE HIM. Unfortunately he reached his peak last time around.
I can understand his logic.
Romney was #2 in 2008 results and became #1 in 2012.
Santorum was #2 in 2012.
Running for POTUS has become his “occupation.”
I hope Iowa is sick of him. Send him home early.
The minimum wage is state socialism.
It’s also unconstitutional. There are no constitutional powers enumerated that give the general government the power to meddle in private contracts and private business to that degree.
We need to say... when I read that phrase, I want to puke.
It's not we believe, it's we need to say. What crap.
2012 was
52% Mitt, 20% Rick
In 08 it was
47% McLame 22% Mitt
so you can see his thinking
(I’m not judging here, just commenting)
Free trading in a protectionist world is killing us.
We've sent all of our growth, jobs and opportunity to Asia. He gets that right, but yeah, time to move on.
I wonder...does he still refer to his would-be supporters as “little people?” He bombed at CPAC too. I find him too self-conscious, disingenuous and not particularly bright. Oh, and he’s also a proven loser.
Where’s my sweater vest ?
McCain was #2 in 2000, Dole was #2 in '88, Reagan was #2 in '76.
In recently history, only GW Bush bucked the trend. He never had to wait his turn.
He’s Catholic. Don’t know why Catholics pols are so indifferent to basic economic principles.
Yes but 2012 was a strange Cycle.
The main candidate to Romney was “Anybody but Romney”
Romney never peaked but just about every other candidate sans RuPaul did.
Michele Bachmann was my first choice. But she got “Ed Rollins-ed” and the Palin hopefuls that wanted Sarah to jump in ridiculed her day and night to keep her from stealing the spotlight. Her peak was winning the Ames Straw Poll but then she lost all momentum when Rick Perry jumped into the race.
Rick Perry then got to peak. But there were literally 3 reasons that did him in. That lasted less than a month.
Next up was the guy I moved onto after Bachmann, Herman Cain and 9-9-9. When he became a serious threat the Romney operatives in NJ brought out the false allegations of harassment and such, and he was out of the race by Thanksgiving.
Then for many it was, gasp, Newt. The guy who can give a speech and take both sides at the same time. About a week before Christmas he started attacking Bain Capital and sounding more like a lib.
By the time we got to the IA Caucuses, it was a toss-up as to who the Evangelicals and conservatives were going to support. Sure, about a week earlier Santorum said it was “his turn to surge”, but did anyone really see that coming? Not really. It happened almost in desperation to mount one last challenge to Romney.
It didn’t last long. Newt took SC but when Romney scored WTA FL it looked over, but then Santorum won contests unexpectedly strong in CO, MN, and MO.
But the end of the contest was the debate in AZ before the AZ/MI primaries. That was the one debate Santorum had the best chance to defeat Romney. But answers such as “playing ball” with the GOPe fell flat and the pro-Romney crowd ate him alive. He never recovered and after watching that debate I knew it was over that night. MI was close but he lost, followed by AZ, and then OH fell as well. Had that debate performance been stronger, it may have been a whole new ball game.
This time around though, the bench is stacked. This has gotta be the deepest bench in years.
Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, perhaps Jindal, etc are all light years ahead of what we had available in 2012. Whereas Santorum was the only one standing in 2012 to challenge Romney, there’s so many candidates now that fit that billing this time around it will be hard for him to stand out. Even in 2012, he literally had to wait for the rest of the field to collapse before he got his chance against Romney.
My predictions right now:
Cruz wins IA, finishes 2nd in NH, and wins SC
Rubio/Walker come 2-3 in IA, Walker wins NH, and Rubio comes in 2nd in SC
Rubio wins FL with Walker 2nd, Cruz 3rd
Cruz wins TX, Walker OH,
Cruz sweeps the southern states except FL, Rubio drops out.
Cruz and Walker have a historic battle to the nomination. The Bushies and Supers try to line up behind Walker which hurts him in the remaining primaries.
Cruz wins the nomination at the convention OR gives a 1976 concession speech that makes people think they nominated the wrong person.
He is just one of the creepiest individuals I have ever seen. Something is not clicking w/ him. He has a wife..shiver me timbers............
Post your prediction again after a few primaries.
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