Palin, Obama, Santorum, Romney: The pathway to victory or the road less traveled

Folks, we live in fascinating times, a time which I believe we are going to find it more and more difficult to find political consensus in.

Jack Cafferty of CNN is lauding CNN's new push poll of Obama's overall approval (50%) and that the Messiah will overmatch and outwit any of the GOP presidential candidates, whichever one becomes the nominee. He acted like the cat who had just swallowed the canary, he was beside himself, gloating from ear to ear.

Unfortunately some posters on the right-wing blogosphere have also adopted this negative narrative and posture as well, that our side has no hope in dethroning Obama in November. They see all the GOP candidates as fatally flawed or bewail the notion that the base of the GOP may reject Mitt Romney for a pretender to the throne named Rick Santorum.

Then you take the information from the 3 day Gallup daily tracking poll that shows over the last week (Feb 6-8) to Feb 16 (Feb 13-15)Obama's overall approval/disapproval has fallen from 49/45 to 43/48. Some people on our side are elated with the news and also realize that President Obama is virtually in the same political place and predicament that he was in on November 2, 2010--with an overall approval of about 45%-and we know what happened when the Democrats only received 44.8% of the vote back then--an electoral blowout, the likes that had not been seen by the GOP since 1938.

Then you have the folks on our side playing woe is me and knocking their head against the wall in disgust, that Rick Santorum has a strong possibility now of beating Mitt Romney in both Michigan and Ohio by coalescing conservative forces around, previously thought very improbable, thereby putting a serious dent into Romney's presidential aspirations and improving our chances the a conservative nominee will be chosen, with that improving our chances in the fall (Romney cannot beat Obama because of Romneycare and because he is weak). Instead they want Sarah Palin to advise conservatives to abandon this coalition, to again engage in vote splitting, the formula that brought us the likes of McCain in 2008 and will most assuredly bring us the likes of Romney in 2012 if he rises like the phoenix from the ashes after his defeats on Feb 28 and March 6 and comes back to win the nomination. Do you folks really want to face the dark prospects of a Romney resurrection so that an outside possibility of a brokered convention can be achieved? Romney must be taken down when our side has a chance to take him down, period. If we pussyfoot, we might not get a second chance to do so.

Some of us have become so obsessed with how terrible a nominee Santorum would be, nitpicking him to death, treating him worse than you would treat Obama, acting like he would be blown out like Goldwater was, whereas that is simply not in the cards (Obama is polling in the mid 40's not above 70% as LBJ was in 1964), while forgetting how disastrous a nominee Mitt Romney would be. Yes, Romney would keep the contest close, as the other candidates would as well, but with Obamacare off the table because of Romneycare, Mitt would have forfeited our ace in the hole and Obama is simply too cunning and glib and too well-funded to not to ride that "puppy" all the way to a narrow victory.

Then you have folks like me who attempt to stay fairly even-keeled and rational, who understand the lay of the land, and understand the overwhelming power of the media to craft a narrative or to impose disinformation and propaganda on an unsuspecting public, who understand the ups and downs of presidential politics while totally cognizant of the polling parameters of which the sitting President falls in between in the short-term and has languished there for over 2 and 1/2 years as well since July 2009, that Obama and his gang of cutthroats are now desperate beyond belief to put the coalition back together that helped bring Obama the WH in 2008 because his approval numbers with milennials, Hispanics and single folks (especially single white females)is down 10-15 points in each demographic since 2008.

How desperate must Obama be to pick a fight with the teachings of the Roman Catholic church over the issue of contraception and at the same time incur the wrath of the church hierarchy knowing there is a slight possibility that the GOP nominee may himself by a Roman Catholic? And some of us act, like at a 45% overall approval rating that Obama just ate our lunch or dealt our side a death blow.

Earlier this month PEW posted a poll that showed of white Catholics 42% now self-identify as Democrats and 49% now claim the are or lean to the GOP side. In other words Obama's efforts have not moved the needle one inch in a group he needs to win back. Like Rich Galen said today on CNN--this move was not about the proselytization of GOP or independent voters but an effort to re-energize the Democratic base. In Galen's words, nobody's mind was changed as result of the recent controversy concerning the Catholic church and contraception. A good number of non-white Catholics (Hispanics) and single white young women were never ours to begin with. That is why polls can be so important to separate the wheat from the chaff.

My position and that of many others is that the #1 political strategy of Obama and his cohorts in this election cycle will be to depress the turnout of white voters, especially white conservative voters in 9 months and his strategy to bring that off is as old as the hills-convince the voters on our side with the aid of media progressive saturation and propaganda and push polls that Obama is invincible or inevitable and will in all likelihood sail to an easy victory, to drain away the enthusiasm and passion from our side while the primaries proceed right up to the convention and then to convince GOP primary voters the WH would fear most going up against Mitt Romney in the general election and thus elevate Romney to the nomination in desperation, thereby depressing GOTV efforts in the fall and causing many conservatives and evangelicals to remain on their couch rather than to vote for Mitt Romney on Nov 6/2012.

A secondary benefit also could be that the Democrats could retain the Senate and take back the House because of low turnout on our side and maximum turnout on the other side due to Obama's superb organizational skills.

For those who shout bloody murder about Rick Santorum, do you really believe if he is at the helm, given his current massive support from conservatives, evangelicals and Tea Party supporters that the voters on our side will not come out in full force but instead that white conservatives are going to stay home in droves like they did 4 years ago with McCain? Folks I predict it will be like The Field of Dreams: Santorum will build a conservative vision for the future and they will come and that includes a massive amount of white female voters as well.

But I would prefer that Sarah Palin build the conservative vision of the future than Rick Santorum. (I am first a Palinista). Imho both would maximize white conservative voter turnout but Palin would be the superior candidate. But the looming political reality may NOT permit Palin to enter the presidential battlefield in overtime (brokered convention). If Santorum can in theory win the primaries in regulation time (before the convention), Sarah Palin, by her own words of Fox News yesterday, will NOT be a player in the arena to stop Santorum. She can only do so much watching from the sidelines.

Of course, I could be dead wrong and the votes of the delegates are indeed divvied up in such a manner that no candidate commands more than 50% of the delegates giving rise to a brokered convention, that all 4 candidates stay in the race to the bitter end right to the convention and that the party machine has not made side deals to ensure a nominee will be chosen before the convention. If this can be achieved, more power to Sarah Palin and her apparent strategy to avoid the marginalization and demonization of the battlefield and compete at a brokered convention relatively unscathed. But in football as in modern day politics,most games are settled in regulation time and not overtime. But anything is possible. Who am I to debunk the notion of a brokered convention? But all I am saying is that one should at least consider or entertain the possibility, however remote it appears now, that Rick Santorum could win the nomination in regulation time. Feb 28 and March 6 (Super Tuesday) will tell us more likely which road map the GOP primaries will take going forward: the road the ends with the coronation of either Santorum or even Romney before the convention or the road that takes us straight to Tampa and a brokered convention.

Note: I did not include Newt Gingrich in my discussion. Like many pundits I believe his campaign is over; he just hasn't figured it out or announced it yet.

Then your choice must be Romney if you are a Republican.

Executive experience is way overrated.

Obama is NOT incompetent, misguided or out of his league. Yes, he also had no executive experience to speak of but from the point of view of taking counsel, running a tight ship and operating efficiently he is doing that.

Where I fundamentally disagree with Obama on is his policies, agenda and his ideology. It has nothing to do whether he has executive experience or not but everything to do with his evil ways, diabolical machinations, his Marxist upbringing and Alinsky and Cloward-Piven motivated desire to turn America into a socialist wasteland.

I’ve never quite understood people’s obsession with the day to day polls. Especially with the polls on Obama, since none of those polls are going to really matter until this ugly nomination process is settled and our energies are focused on Obummer.

As for Saint Rick, his economic platform is mediocre, at best, which is why he runs on family/religious issues and feel good messages about freedom and taking things back and blah blah blah. Repetitious messages aimed at distracting the type of folks who don’t ever look too deeply at anything.

“It has nothing to do whether he has executive experience or not but everything to do with his evil ways, diabolical machinations, his Marxist upbringing and Alinsky and Cloward-Piven motivated desire to turn America into a socialist wasteland.”

And the only two people who have unabashedly and fearlessly spoken these words, made these statements boldly and with no retreat, are Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.
romney hasn’t done it.
santorum hasn’t done it.
Anyone else but Sarah or Newt loses. That’s just a fact.

Why polls so far out:

History tells us since Gallup started polling presidential contest after WWII, pundits have concluded that if the incumbent is not consistently over 50% in overall approval a year out from the election that he is vulnerable to defeat.

Furthermore it has been found that no incumbent has ever won re-election if his overall approval number going into the fall election was under 47%. By the same token any incumbent going into the fall campaign at above 51% has been re-elected. You could call the gap in between (47%-51%) no man’s land, where the election could go either way.

President Obama, has been below 50% consistently since July 2009 and as I pointed out was sitting at 45% in overall approval during the week of the midterm elections.

He is definitely vulnerable to defeat. Is he certain to be defeated? No. But I would venture he is at the edge of no man’s land currently—bottom line no one knows if Obama will be re-elected or not, not even Obama.

Why polls now? Because they give our side hope and keep us enthusiastic and passionate. How would you feel if Obama was currently polling at 60%? Depressed. Not enthusiastic to vote in the primaries or the general election.

But a close election keeps everyone in the game and brings most everyone out.

As for Santorum, time will tell. But you can’t dismiss the polls on Michigan and Ohio; Feb 28 and March 6 respectively are just around the corner. If Santorum wins both states it is a whole new ball game. He could win the nomination, especially if he makes a severe dent in Gingrich’s southern stronghold on Super Tuesday.

Time will tell.

“As for Saint Rick, his economic platform is mediocre, at best, which is why he runs on family/religious issues and feel good messages about freedom and taking things back and blah blah blah. Repetitious messages aimed at distracting the type of folks who don’t ever look too deeply at anything.”

Oh and also repealing Obamacare, something that Romney and Newt can’t effectively make the case for because of their support for Romneycare.

I never claimed Santorum is perfect or ideal but he is no milquetoast especially on the issue of Obamacare.

And he does NOT have a fatal flaw like the other two candidates do:

Romney (Romneycare/Mormon religion)

Gingrich (cheating on his wives)

He is not spineless like Romney is or McCain was in 2008. Notice his speaking style. He is always taking the fight to the opponent, whether it be the other GOP contenders or Obama. Yes, he may not call Obama a socialist or a Marxist but as long as he stays aggressive, I can accept words like very liberal or progressive.

“Oh and also repealing Obamacare, something that Romney and Newt can’t effectively make the case for because of their support for Romneycare.”

Yeah, keep telling yourself that as you rock yourself to sleep with Bush the Third as your candidate. At least with Bush he was an honest fellow. With Rick, we have to put up with the “I’m the most conservative candidate!” crud, except he has no platform to back it up with.

His whole candidacy revolves around him being able to fool enough people into believing he is the “true conservative”, and in bashing Newt Gingrich as a traitor, in order to distract people away from his own record and lack of an economic plan.

We have an opportunity here to take out a weak, openly socialist President and use that momentum to totally rock the system. Instead, you want the guy whose entire economic plan is basically a retread of everything we always hear about. More gimmickry playing around with the same progressive system, but making no steps to tear it down.

But I guess as long as you can have your Saint Rick, and call Newt a liar, repealing Obama care and returning to the Bush mediocrity is good enough for you!

Well, at least Bush was an honest and good man. Saint Rick hasn’t been that honest with us.

Saint Rick’s fatal flaw is that on his own website, the first article to come up on his “Issues” page is a declaration of war against the “illegal pornography” menace that everybody is worried about right now.

This s*** flies because we’re all social conservatives, more or less, since the vast majority of us are Bible believing Christians. It’s not going to fly once you start campaigning away from the Base of the party and into the mainstream.

I won’t say that Saint Rick can’t beat Obama. I think anybody can, except for Romney and Ron Paul. The problem with Saint Rick is that he offers nothing for us to turn to after Obama is out of office. We’ll just go right back to sleep, as usual, as we settle with his mediocre solutions. He only has mediocre solutions because he himself is a mediocre intellect.

I was doing some reading the other night and came across a page on a Pro-Fair Tax website. It was an outdated page listning all of the candidates and their positions/thoughts on the Fair Tax.

Everybody had an opinion, including Obummer, but right there in the middle of the page was Saint Rick: “Rick Santorum — unknown [position on Fair tax], favors lower taxes but not very specific.”

That, and his Porno article being first on his Issues page, is basically the symbol of Rick Santorum’s campaign.

“I guess you can enjoy your Romneycare on your moonbase with all those illegals that Newt wants to legalize!”

I guess you can enjoy being utterly void of substance and logical thinking. I’d bet good money you’re on Romney’s payroll with these kinds of non-thinking responses.

At least TRY to explain how Saint Rick’s platform is superior to Newt’s. Assuming, of course, that you even know what it is. I had to explain it to a few of your buddies on this forum.

Straight polling question. What constituency is Satorum/ Romney going to do better than McCain did?

Also minority participation is supposed to be up 28% which is considered to be the low end number. Without getting any additional minority support which I do not see happening I just do not see how the numbers add up.

It would take 65% of the white voters which has not happened since Mondale and that was 34. I am concerned and do not see a way out. Again not talking policy just straight numbers.

It was calculated after the 2008 election 4m+ white conservative voters did not show up at the polls on election day because they did not take to Mccain being a moderate.

With Santorum those folks would show up.

Bottom line our side needs for the white turnout to be in the range of 75.5%-76% of the electorate to win back the WH. With McCain it was 74%.

And we need to win the white vote by more than 20 points.

McCain only won it by 12 points (55% to 43%).

You say that cannot be done. How soon you forget:

2010:

White vote as percentage of the electorate: 77%

Breakdown of vote:

GOP 60%

Dems 37%

Remember that was a wipeout. It can be done again but it takes a conservative to fire up the base.

Romney can’t do it but Santorum can and so can Palin.

Obviously we know Palin can do it from 2008-2010.

As for Santorum when you command the support of 40%-50% of TP supporters, over 40% of your supporters are evangelicals and over 40% are conservatives you must be doing something right. Obviously if these folks don’t show up in Michigan and/or Ohio then Santorum is not as well regarded as I thought. We’ll see on Feb 28 and March 6.

I refuse to vote for a corrupt bastard like Santorum.

We tend to forget all of Santorum’s garbage because of his strong social values, and more importantly, he has had a couple years to buffer himself from his history in Congress and from the old “Coruupt Bastards” group he associated with when he was there.

WE NEED TO REMEMBER Santorum received more campaign funds from lobbyists in 2006 than any other member on The Hill at that time, even more than John Murtha and Tom Delay ever did, met regularly with K Street lobbyists every Tuesday morning as a Senator, loves earmarks for special interests and still defends them today, and believes it is fine to keep collecting federal tax dollars to give to Congress to determine what lobbyist-driven projects the Congress would like to provide funds for back in the states.

Santorum has been crtitical of the TEA Part in the past, but like a true hypocrite has now claimed he is one.

Vote for him? No way!

I know what it is. It consists of cutting spending. Block grant entitlements such as Food stamps and Medicaid. Pass the Ryan medicare plan. Eliminate energy subsidies, including the ethanol subsidies that Newt loves so much. Eliminate Freddie Mac, which caused the mess that tanked the economy.

It may not be as intellectually pretentious as calling for a colony on the moon or giant mirrors in space to light up the roads at night but it is the best way to save our economy from financial ruin.

I’m absolutely convinced that Newt Gingrich is the junkyard dog we need to rip Obama a new one and send him running back to his Chicago slime pit with his tail between his legs. Newt has plenty of DC experience as Speaker, executive ability from his many enterprises, and a silver tongue that’s razor sharp! He’s fast on his feet, delivers it straight up with no hemming and hawing, and is often witty. His work with American Solutions was very impressive and as we’ve seen recently, Newt is able to put into words what the vast majority of Americans really believe. His fevered brain also has plenty of ideas for making government work better for taxpayers. Is Newt pure as the driven snow? No - none of the presidential candidates are in line for sainthood. Whatever Newt’s “baggage”, it pales next to Obama’s habitual lying and outright corruption - and unlike Obama, Newt is 100% American! Newt is like Larry the Cable Guy: send him to DC and he’ll “Get ‘er done” for all of us. Junkyard dogs are not show dogs, but they’ll save your bacon! I am damn mad at what Obama and his bootlickers have stolen from us - you should be too - and I want someone to represent me. Newt is my man! Go git ‘im, Newt!

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