They need to sit down and have a talk. Newt as President and Rick can choose VP and run next or clean up the AG dept.
It is what it is.
Romney just might squeak by with a 3-way split vote: Gingrich Santorum and Perry. Everyone knows he’s counting on it.
Neither will drop out and certainly not Newt Gingrich who has worked hard to put together real solutions for the radical changes necessary to save and restore our Republic.
Santorum would not be in the race, save for Iowa and Romney/Paul’s scorched earth attack ads against Gingrich when Gingrich was running away with the nomination.
A POTUS/VP - Gingrich/Santorum or Santorum/Gingrich would win the primary and general big.
Git’r done now gentlemen.
It's early yet, no one need "drop out" unless these people, like Mitt, wish it to be between Mitt and Paul so that Mitt can win as "the conservative" in the race.
A clean family man with no management experience and a lack luster career -- who got tossed out by voters in his own state last time -- will be hamburger when put through Obama's viscous, billion dollar meat grinder.
We need someone who has a record of surviving in the mine field and live fire range to come.
We need a tough, Ginghis Khan like warrior.
Call him Gingrich Can.
There could be a conservative in the White House, but conservatives need to make up their mind. Voting for Perry is throwing a vote away. Sorry, but he’s not coming back and even if you agree with him, most people don’t want to go back into Iraq. If you vote for Perry, that’s one more vote Romney doens’t have to get to beat Newt or Rick. So it’s either Newt or Rick. I am for Newt. We know he’s going get pummeled with negative ads from Obama, but so is Romney. With Newt we already know it. With Santorum, they’re going to try to scare everyone that he’s too extreme and it will work unfortunately. In the end, we’ll be happy we have Newt on that stage debating Obama. He’ll be talking about Saul Alinsky and educate the country on what kind of radical they elected.
I’m playing with a new theory, comparing 2012 to 2008. Previously, I have equated Romney 2012 with McCain 2008.
Now I’ve decided that Romney 2012 is Romney 2008, only 4 years better at politics.
In my new theory, Gingrich is McCain, who wallowed in single-digits until December, and then came on strong.
Perry plays the part of Fred Thompson, friend of McCain, who some think entered the race to draw votes away from other conservatives, holding the place for McCain to come back.
If so, in 2012 Perry was the man who entered the race simply because Gingrich wasn’t doing well. In this conjecture, the two are friends (we know they are, and Gingrich wrote the forward for the Perry book). Since Gingrich had no money, Perry picked up many of Gingrich’s people (he did), and the thought was either Perry survives, or he holds off others long enough for Gingrich.
If this theory is true, then Perry is going to South Carolina for the same reason Huckabee claims Thompson did, even when Thompson was clearly done — because Gingrich needs Perry to pull some evangelicals from Santorum, who is clearly the 2012 version of Huckabee — a strong social conservative, a bit of a big-government conservative, a bit compassionate conservative, who came on strong and shocked people in Iowa.
So Perry, like Thompson, holds off Santorum long enough for Gingrich to squeak by. And Romney is Romney, pulling a solid but not majority vote, destined to do well, but never end up with enough delegates to win because he’ll never get the majority.
At some point, we might even expect Santorum to stay on just to stop Romney. Like Huckabee did for McCain in 2008.
Anyway, I’m not saying this is how it has to be, or that there was a real effort made by candidates — it’s just a bit odd how the parallels seem to work.
What A Big Government Conservative Looks Like
NEA
Voted for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Voted against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts.
Bankruptcy
Voted for a Schumer amendment to make the debts of pro-life demonstrators not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Defense and Foreign Policy
Voted for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Voted against requiring the President to certify that the CWC is effectively verifiable.
Voted against requiring the President to certify that that Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China, and all other countries determined to be state sponsors of terror have joined CWC prior to submitting the instrument of ratification.
Voted for the START II Treaty.
Voted to allow the sale of supercomputers to China.
Voted to ban anti-personnel landmines.
Voted against increasing defense spending offset by equivalent cuts in non-defense spending.
Voted to require that Federal bureaucrats get the same pay raises as uniformed military.
Voted to allow food and medicine sales to state sponsors of terror and tyrannical regimes such as Libya and Cuba.
Voted to limit the President’s authority to impose sanctions on nations for reasons of national security unless the sanctions were approved by a multilateral regime.
Voted against requiring Congressional authorization for military action in Bosnia.
Voted to give $25 million in foreign aid to North Korea.
Voted to weaken alien terrorist deportation provisions. If the Court determines that the evidence must be withheld for national security reasons, the Justice Department must still provide a summary of the evidence sufficient for the alien terrorist to mount a defense against deportation.
Voted against delaying the India Nuclear until the President certified that India had agreed to suspend military-to-military exchanges with Iran.
Voted against the Conventional Trident Missile Program.
Nominations
Voted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture).
Voted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge.
Voted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN.
Voted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge.
Voted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit.
Voted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge.
Voted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge.
Voted for James Brady to be District Judge.
Labor
Voted against National Right to Work Act.
Voted against repeal of Davis-Bacon Prevailing union wages.
Voted for Alexis Herman to be Secretary of Labor.
Voted for mandatory Federal child care funding.
Voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance.
Voted for Job Corps funding.
Voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization.
Voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations.
Voted for minimum wage increases six times here here here here here and here.
Voted to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board.
Voted to exempt IRS union representatives from criminal ethics laws.
Voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses.
Guns
Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks on people who pawn a gun.
Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device.
Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons” by those under 18.
Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools.
Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill.
Reform
Voted for funding for the legal services corporation.
Voted twice for a Congressional pay raise.
Voted to impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapists, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections.
Voted for the Specter “backup plan” to allow campaign finance reform to survive if portions of the bill were found unconstitutional.
Voted to mandate discounted broadcast times for politicians.
Voted for a McCain amendment to require state and local campaign committees to report all campaign contributions to the FEC and to require all campaign contributions to be reported to the FEC within 24 hours within 90 days of an election.
Immigration
Voted against increasing the number of immigration investigators.
Voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the earned income credit before becoming citizens.
Voted to give SSI benefits to legal aliens.
Voted to give welfare benefits to naturalized citizens without regard to the earnings of their sponsors.
Voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border partrol agents, paid for by reductions in state grants.
Taxes
Voted against a flat tax.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicare prescription drugs.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for small businesses.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an $8 billion increase in child healh insurance.
Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for an increase in NIH funding.
Voted twice for internet taxes.
Voted to allow gas tax revenues to be used to subsidize Amtrak.
Voted to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies.
Voted against repealing the Clinton 4.3 cent gas tax increase.
Voted to increase taxes by $2.3 billion to pay for an Amtrak trust fund.
Voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out of wedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previous two years.
Voted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for a $9.4 billion increase in student loans.
Voted to say that AMT patch is more important than capital gains and dividend relief.
Welfare
Voted against food stamp reform.
Voted against Medicaid reform.
Voted against TANF reform.
Voted to increase the Social Services Block Grant from $1 billion to $2 billion.
Voted to increase the FHA loan from $170,000 to $197,000. Also opposed increasing GNMA guaranty from 6 basis points to 12.
Voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.
Waste
Sponsored an amendment to increase Amtrak funds by $550 million.
Voted to use HUD funds for the Joslyn Art Museum (NE), the Stand Up for Animals project (RI) and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Project (WA).
Voted to increase spending on social programs by $7 billion.
Voted to increase NIH funding by $1.6 billion.
Voted to increase NIHnding by $700 million.
Voted to for a $2 million earmark to renovate the Vulcan Monument (AL).
Voted for a $1 billion bailout for the steel industry.
Voted against requiring that highway earmarks would come out of a state’s highway allocation.
Voted to allow Market Access Program funds to go to foreign companies.
Voted to allow OPIC to increase its administrative costs by 50%.
Voted against transferring $20 million from AmeriCorps to veterans.
Voted for the $140 billion asbestos compensation bill.
Voted against requiring a uniform medical criteria to ensure asbestos claims were legitimate.
Voted to increase community development programs by $2 billion.
Spending and Entitlements
Voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies a new entitlement.
Voted against paying off the debt ($5.6 trillion at the time) within 30 years.
Voted to give $18 billion to the IMF.
Voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses to pay down the debt.
Health Care
Voted to allow states to impose health care mandates that are stricter than proposed new Federal mandates, but not weaker.
Voted twice for Federal mental health parity mandates in health insurance.
Voted against allowing consumers the option to purchase a plan outside the parity mandate.
Education
Voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing.
Voted to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1 billion.
Voted against requiring courts to consider the impact of IDEA awards on a local school district.
Energy
Voted to allow the President to designate certain sites as interim nuclear waste storage sites in the event that he determines that Yucca Mountain is not a suitable site for a permanent waste repository. Those sites are as follows: the nuclear waste site in Hanford, Washington; the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; Barnwell County, South Carolina; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.
Voted to make fuel price gouging a Federal crime.
It's that US Senate influence.
Newt Gingrich's 28-minute attack ad received four pinocchios for being dishonest. In his attempts to attack Mr. Romney, he's really just making attacks on the free enterprise system. He's trying to pretend that he isn't, but he's simply making distinctions without a difference. He's embarrassing himself and the entire GOP in the process. In the meantime, Mr. Santorum has had the integrity and the dignity to avoid making similar ridiculous comments.
Rick Santorum is having to live down previous opposition to right-to-work in a state that is facing the loss of many jobs to union interference. In addition, his record as something of a big-spending Republican will not fit well in a state that once elected spending hawk Mark Sanford, continues to elect spending hawk Jim DeMint, and in 2010 elected Tea Party spending hawk Nikki Haley. You can whine to your hearts' content about Governor Haley being a RINO for endorsing Mitt Romney, but her election through the Tea Party movement is a sign that South Carolina Republicans are not that friendly to a bigger spending Republican. Rick Santorum's other problem with consolidating the anti-Romney vote is that he's behind Newt Gingrich, so he'd be asking for more people to switch to come to him than would be needed for his people to switch.
Rick Perry's attempt to make an issue of "vulture capitalism" was as silly as Newt Gingrich's tantrum ads. One of his major donors left him for Mitt Romney's campaign because he made those silly attacks. In all ways, he's embarrassing himself and to some extent the party, but his money keeps him in the race.
One of these candidates may leave the race before Saturday, but none are showing any signs of being the one. Until we see those signs, we don't have a reason to believe that they won't all continue through South Carolina.
Newt Gingrich would like to believe that a win in South Carolina could lead to a win in Florida and enough momentum to win. That strategy has several problems. First, South Carolina, like Iowa, was a state that Mitt Romney never expected to win. Mr. Romney's being ahead now is a surprise, and a close second place for him still means that he's outperformed expectations. Secondly, Florida Republicans are trying to take South Carolina's place as the state through which the nominee must come. Many of them will be tempted to vote against the South Carolina winner just to break South Carolina's streak of picking nominees. That temptation will be particularly strong if a weak candidate like Newt Gingrich wins in South Carolina. Thirdly, Mitt Romney has planned for a 50-state campaign. Newt Gingrich has only been planning and organizing for impromptu campaigns set up by the momentum of the latest win. Even sweeping every state, no one can win enough delegates to win the nomination until late March or so. Newt Gingrich's angry elf routine is going to wear quickly on voters, and he hasn't shown the patience to stay on message and be positive for that long.
Rick Perry and Rick Santorum may have a better chance than Newt Gingrich does for this reason. Neither of them is quite as polarizing or uninspiring as Dr. Gingrich is when he's in angry elf mode. If one of them survives long enough to be the "not Romney" in March, he would have a much better chance than Newt Gingrich does.
Obama's tactic 'class warfare' - is also his goal,- to eliminate the 'classes'. Starting with the 'middle-class'. To create a 'One class' Utopia. This is Progressives ultimate goal.
Three New Deals - reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939
http://cloud.lib.wfu.edu/vufind/Record/2387751/Excerpt
"To what extent was the New Deal's effectiveness due to its ability to incorporate the very elements that rendered these regimes so popular--a new vision of the nation based on collectivism, on economic and social planning, and embodied both in a charismatic leader and in monumental public works? The features with which totalitarianism was later most closely identified--political pressure to conform, repression, state terrorizing of dissidents, secret police units, and concentration camps--were not the things that made these regimes desirable. The people were attracted by the feeling of being treated as equals instead of being ignored and by the sense that they no longer had to fend for themselves but, rather, could enjoy the protection, security, and solidarity afforded by the new classless community of the nation."
"I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman." - Franklin Roosevelt on Mussolini.
____________
SANTORIUM had already dismissed limited government in theory. Promoting his book, he told NPR in 2006:
"One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture."
No wonder Jonathan Rauch wrote in 2005 that “America’s Anti-Reagan Isn’t Hillary Clinton. It’s Rick Santorum.” Rauch noted:
In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, “Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of ‘Big Government’ conservatism.”
They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, “individual development accounts,” publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in “every school in America” (his italics), and more. Lots more.
Rauch concluded,
With It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum has served notice. The bold new challenge to the Goldwater-Reagan tradition in American politics comes not from the Left, but from the Right.
At least Santorum is right about one thing: sometimes the left and the right meet in the center. In this case the big-spending, intrusive, mommy-AND-daddy-state center. But he’s wrong that we’ve never had a firmly individualist society where people are “left alone, able to do whatever they want to do.”
It’s called America.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/rick-santorum-v-limited-government/
A moral Christian Family man is our only option, Rick Santorum. Do we really want a fip flopper who changes his mind on Global Warming, cheating on his wife after promising to be faithful, endorsing a vile suzzynova, and so many others. We have a once in a lifetime choice here and it is Santorum. You can trust him because he has been faithful to his wife and will be faithful to the American people. This guy has never lied to the American people. It is stunning. Why this good man gets bashed is revolting especially on this site.
Cage fight! Two walk in, one walks out....
And shoot the supporters of the loser......