Posted on 01/13/2012 9:52:16 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
(CNN) - With eight days to go until the South Carolina primary, a new poll suggests a close contest in the first southern state to vote in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
According to an American Research Group survey released Friday morning, 29% of likely Palmetto State GOP primary voters say they're backing Mitt Romney, with 25% supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Romney's four-point margin over Gingrich is within the poll's sampling error.
The survey indicates Rep. Ron Paul of Texas at 20%, Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 9%, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania at 7%, and former Utah Gov. and former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman at 1%, with 7% undecided.
The poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday, after Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, won nearly 40% of the vote in New Hampshire, with Paul, the longtime congressman who's making his third bid for the White House, finishing a strong second.
Paul has surged 11 points and Santorum has dropped 17 points since ARG's last survey in South Carolina, which was conducted after Iowa's January 3 caucuses and before New Hampshire's primary. Perry has jumped 7 points since the earlier survey, with Gingrich inching up two points and Romney losing two points. Romney edged out Santorum by eight votes to win Iowa's caucuses. Paul came in third place.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
Noticed how you avoid the facts and the question that I provided you.
Recall those facts? “So you have no problem with him praising traitors, publishing decades of racist vile loony newsletters, blaming the US for 9/11 and pandering to the Truther kook fringe, sympathizing with the Occupy parasites, participating on conspiracy nut shows, working closely with Soros and Barney Frank, supported by Democrats, foilhats, white supremacists, and the fringe of society, trashing of the US Constitution, dope pushing, promoting dangerous isolationism and gutting US defense and support Iranian and terrorist nukes?
Tell me vooch, there always has been, is now and always will be a dominant world military power. What nation or group would you like to see become that power in Paul gets his way with gutting ours?”
Touché!
I think they used to, but dropped them because their track record isn't all that good.
What is WRONG with evangelicals?
Really? Are you that psychic?
So... what's tomorrow's lottery numbers, while we're at it.
How could Santorum have dropped that much overnight?
Rabid evangelicals cannot make a cost-benefit analysis with regard to their issues.
Abortion, gay marriage, and the rest are zero-sum games to them. They must have their way *NO MATTER THE COST*, for it is the Lord’s word.
Which means that if the cost for accomplishing these tasks is to enslave all Americans, lobotimize every woman, exterminate everyone over 48, and amputate every left testicle in order to get it done... they will.
No cost is too great, no burden too large.
And *THAT* is the problem whenever you inject religion into politics. Just look at Turkey and the mideast to see other examples.
Which is not to say that religious men and women should be barred from politics. Just the opposite, religious men and women have basic core beliefs that guide them through the morass that is politics.
It was simply his turn as flavor of the month in Iowa. Now that he’s had a chance in the spotlight, a lot of people have had a better look at his record and don’t like the look of him as much as they once did. Just like Perry, Cain, and Gingrich.
My point was just the opposite. It was in response to the post that reported most of them being for baby-killer Romney and serial promise breaker Gingrich, when they have a good God-fearing brother in the running.
Sorry I wasn’t more specific and unintentionally gave you cause to spout your Christian bashing.
I saw those RNC creeps up close and personal walking around the Hyatt on Wednesday and Thursday, going to their little events and hogging up the Club Lounge with their pulled back creepy wives.
Bunch of good for nothing country clubbers, they need to be taken out like the trash, purge the SOB's.
I wouldn’t waste my time posting to Paulbots, they are obviously either out of their minds, or retarded.
RNC sanctions state GOP for staging early primary
By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune
Published: January 12, 2012
The national Republican Party has approved sanctions aimed at housing, convention floor seating and other perks for the Florida delegation to the 2012 convention.
The penalties are in response to the state’s schedule-busting Jan. 31 presidential primary date.
The exact effect of the sanctions won’t be clear until hotel assignments and other details of the Tampa convention are worked out this summer.
But Paul Senft, one of Florida’s representatives on the Republican National Committee, said the sanctions aren’t severe.
“It could have been much worse than this,” he said. “I think it will have minimal effect.”
Possibly more significant, the party also received a recommendation for another sanction: that Florida’s convention delegates be divided proportionally among the top finishers in the state’s primary, rather than all going to the first-place winner.
That could mean the Florida winner would receive only about 15 delegates instead of all 50, and the second- and third-place finishers could get 10 or more instead of none.
Senft said there’s no indication the party will act on that recommendation until near the time of the convention. If there’s a clear nominee at that time, “It may be moot,” he said.
“But if the nomination becomes a contested issue at the convention, it would become a brass ring for someone to grab,” possibly leading to a contentious legal fight, he said.
Even if the nomination is settled, a small cache of delegates could prove desirable to a losing candidate. Losing candidates sometimes use the delegates they win as bargaining chips for convention speaking slots, appointments, platform language and other political deals.
The sanctions result from rules agreed to by both national parties forbidding any state except the traditional four early ones — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — from holding a primary or caucus before March 1.
Seeking more influence on the nomination process, Gov. Rick Scott, state Senate President Mike Haridopolos and state House Speaker Dean Cannon appointed a committee that chose to set Florida’s primary for Jan. 31. That caused other states, including the four early states, to move up as well.
Florida has lost half its delegation, which would have been 99 delegates, because of the date.
RNC rules also allow the delegation from a state that commits a violation to be penalized in the selection of their hotel accommodations, the prominence of their floor seating location, and the guest and VIP passes distributed to delegates by the party.
A resolution passed by the RNC’s Rules Committee on Wednesday says Florida will get “reduced priority” for its hotel accommodations and floor seats, and that the guest passes and VIP passes that would have gone to the delegates will instead go to the RNC, whose chairman, Reince Priebus, can dispense them at his discretion.
As the host state and possibly the nation’s most important swing state, Florida normally would get the first priority for hotel and floor seating. Reduced priority means not the best, but not necessarily bad, Senft said.
He said he thinks the Florida delegation will still be able to stay in a single hotel in Tampa, rather than being split up or pushed out of town.
“I think we’ll be able to move around Tampa comfortably,” Senft said. “We’ve all been to the (Tampa Bay Times) Forum, and we know where the escalators are. It will have a minimal effect.”
State Republican Party officials say they think Priebus will allow Floridians to use their guest and VIP passes, rather than take a hard line against party activists from such a politically important state.
In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Priebus didn’t directly address that question, but promised, “We’re going to work great with Florida … Those folks from Florida that would like to attend the convention, they’re going to have plenty of opportunity to have a great time.”
At the RNC meeting in New Orleans, where the decision took place, state GOP Chairman Lenny Curry argued that the RNC shouldn’t severely punish the state party, which didn’t choose the primary date, said party spokesman Brian Hughes.
“The legal authority for that rested with others,” Hughes said. “The idea that you would punish the party activists in a state that’s so important on the road to the White House doesn’t make sense.”
I don’t agree. Santorum had campaigned hard in Iowa. There is more to this than the flavor of the month, and I’d bet that it has to do with Ron Paul.
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