It seems to be clear now that Newt supporters will never accept Santorum as the nominee, even though he clearly is going to end up with a lot more states, a lot more delegates, and a lot more votes than Newt. Which means at the convention, if they have their way, they will make certain Santorum is not our pick.
Meanwhile, it has long appeared that a good number of Santorum supporters would never accept Newt, and not because he cheated on two wives, but for what he did politically in THIS century, including pre-presidential-run highly publicized positions on global warming, health care mandates, support for the medicare prescription drug plan, tarp, and other less-than-conservative actions.
Heck, last August Rick Perry was totally unacceptable because in 2001 he supported letting illegal immigrants pay college tuition at the in-state level. But now we don’t even TALK about immigration anymore, since it wouldn’t be good for Gingrich if we did.
And since Newt is hardly winning anything anymore, he’ll never enter the convention with enough support to be anything but a spoiler. And he doesn’t play spoiler very well, missing the opportunity to throw his support in Alaska caucus to Santorum to stop Romney (as Paul did in Missouri with Romney), and not having enough support IN Missouri to counter the Romney/Paul alliance).
So you have to wonder, why is this article and others attacking Santorum being posted so regularly now? The “Gingrich Plan” we are told is for both men to get as many votes as possible, but these articles are designed to destroy Santorum, which will only help Romney (even if some votes go to Gingrich, they were already anti-Romney votes, so all this does is push SOME voters to Romney).
So, what happened to the “Gingrich plan”? Was it a ruse all along? Is this scorched earth — “If people won’t vote for OUR candidate, they can just be stuck with Romney”?
Last week, after Santorum won the two southern states, I held out a slim hope that it could be a game-changer, which we needed; something to shake up the race.
But this article pretty much seals it for me. After months praying that we wouldn’t be stuck with Romney, it appears that a good number of conservatives are pushing for just that result now.
If Newt is serious about the spoiler role for a brokered convention, he needs to take the steps to hamstring Romney, even if that means Santorum would get more votes in a given state primary or caucus. I hope he is serious. Too many of his supporters don't seem to be.
Sadly, that seems to be the approach, if not by intent, then by deed.
Great post. Too bad a lot of folks won't give it the consideration it deserves.
Interesting:
http://emdashes.com/2006/01/eustace-google-the-strange-sad.php
Speaking of arguments, there are posters on the New Yorker Forums who say they’re close to the Bremmers and that Konigsberg misrepresented them, took quotes out of context, knew the story he was going to write before he wrote it, etc., etc. I’m sure people in that community are feeling exposed and sore, but these are familiar complaints; we all know the polls about how little people trust journalists.