Posted on 03/14/2012 1:01:28 PM PDT by PSYCHO-FREEP
GOP being Punk’d?
We know that Democrats are crossing over in open primaries, such as Mississippi and Alabama, in order to vote for Rick Santorum, a big union candidate, their votes intended to throw the Republican National Convention into a contested balloting process.
This tactic was written up at the Daily Kos. Big union money has even invested for the Santorum campaign.
Pardon me for not having all the pertinent facts and I confess I don’t even have time to search for them all, today, to say nothing of presenting and formatting them, here. Can you help? Place further information into comments?
Santorum in Jackson, Mississippi, photo: Rogelio V. Solis, AP If memory serves me correctly, CNN’s John King last evening pointed out there according to their exit polling, about six to eight percent of Alabama voters called themselves Democrats. However, I did not find breakdown by party at the exit poll pages in cnn.com. That seems odd in itself, eh?
And if that many Democrats were willing to tell exit pollsters what they did, how many more just walked by them, refusing to be polled? If you were a prankster-voting in such a case, would you want to be examined by a pollster? Maybe some would. Maybe more would not.
CNN’s exit polls (for Mississippi and for Alabama) and the actual vote counts may be found at their site (and perhaps others have published exit polls, please tell me if you find any). Santorum’s final edge over Gingrich was approximately two percent in Mississippi and six percent in Alabama. Theoretically, both of these tallies could be within the margin of pranking.
(Excerpt) Read more at gulagbound.com ...
“Of the three it is honestly a matter of who do you trust the most? “
If nominated, I trust Newt Gingrich to go after Obama on the communist takeover of this country. If elected, I trust Newt Gingrich to roll back the communist gains we have had during the Obama administration. Romney won’t even call Obama a socialist and Santorum can’t stop taking the contraception bait the dems put out for him.
Newt had a bad marriage during his Speakership and still balanced 4 budgets, reformed Welfare, first Republican majority in the House in 40 years, etc. He’s happily married now. He went to God for forgiveness. As a born again Christian that’s good enough for me.
You just described our current president.
I'm glad he got that part of his life settled. Forgiving someone is not the same thing as giving them your trust again. That even after forgiveness is still must be re-earned.
He doesn’t have the Affirmative Action Quotient going for him.
Seems like Rush proposed the same thing in 08. If this has already been mentioned NO I didn’t read every post.
MS Ping
Yes...Operation Chaos was in 2008 and I was a proud participant. We have closed primaries, though, so I had to register as a *spit* dem. But, I did and unregistered the day after the primary no worse for the wear. ;o)
Frankly, Mittens did much better in MS than I thought he would.
NO...I didn’t read every post, either.
I agree! WHY do we still have open primaries????? Can someone who knows please let me know? ‘Cuz it seems like the stupidest possible thing we can do as a party.
LLS
I cannot disagree with that statement. However, Newt is the strongest Republican candidate to take on the MSM (i.e. those with the slobbering love affair with Obama) in decades.
>> Why on earth do we still have open primaries? <<
Because the state legislature sets the rules as to whether or not a state has voter registration by party. It’s called “states’ rights.”
>> If it weren’t for <<
and Newt’s lack of self-discipline
and the opposition to Newt by former close colleagues like Tom Coburn, Dick Armey and Tom Delay
and that Newt — clearly one of the best-known politicians in the whole U.S.A. — ALREADY has a 60% national rate of disapproval
and that Sheldon Adelson apparently has told associates that he has written his last check for Newt’s super-pac
Looks to me as if Newt’s campaign clearly is finished. The big question remaining is whether, like Huckabee, he can suppress his personal animosity toward Romney enough that he’ll be able to acquire his own talk show on FNC!
>> The open primary is something I’ll never understand. <<
As far as Mississippi and Alabama are concerned, nothing could be easier to understand:
These states don’t register voters by party. So there’s no feasible way to have a “closed” primary.
>> Newt has won two states, one of them his home state <<
Uh, make that his “former” home state. He has been a Virginia resident since 1998.
If I were a Democrat, and in an open primary state, I’d certainly vote for Santorum. He is without a doubt the weakest GOP candidate left in the race.
I know his proponents don’t believe that but its true. The play book used against him in ‘06 is going to work just as well in 12.
Don’t know if the allegations that they are playing with our primary are true, but I know if I was a leftist, that’s exactly who I’d want as the nominee.
And Santorum lacks the ability to win... He didn’t lose his home state by 18 points in 06 as a fluke.
In fact, a poll just conducted showed if he were to run again for Senate against the same opponent right now he’d LOSE by 8-10 points.
This guys a dud folks. The play book used to destroy him in ‘06 is going to work just as effectively in 12, because the man hasn’t changed one iota since then. His own sound bites will be used against him to make him look extreme, and the electorate will reject him.
Here is the truth about this election, anyone, and I do mean ANYONE who isn’t viewed as unacceptably extreme will beat Obama.. This election is going to be a referrendum on Obama. Every poll shows the electorate, by a very large majority wants this doofus gone.
So, all the Republican party has to do is put up ANYONE who is not viewed as more radical or risky than Obama and they will win. ITs a binary decision, The electorate wants to replace Obama, however they won’t replace him with someone they view as radical/risky as he is, or moreso.
Santorum’s problem is, simply this, he doesn’t have command of the english language, or the intellectual depth, to effectively defend his social conservative viewpoints without creating sound bites that make him look like an extremist. That’s it folks. Santorum’s own sound bites were used to paint him as unacceptable in PA in ‘06, very effectively and he never was able to counter it, and he got smoked by 18 points. That exact same plan of attack will be used against him this year if he is the nominee with the same outcome.
Santorum is a social conservative, but he’s not a small government fiscal conservative, however that won’t generally keep the base from voting for him. However, the sound bites he creates nearly daily when trying to articulate his social conservative viewpoints, will turn off more than enough of the 40% of the swing vote to keep Obama in power.
Yes, his social conservative views fire up the social conservatives in the base, and his issues with not being a fiscal and small government conservative are not to the point where the fiscal and small government conservatives by and large would not vote for him if he is the nominee... but the sound bites this guy creates in defending his social conservative views are going to be used to evicerate him. Just like they were in 06.
Now, understand, I am not saying Santorum is wrong for holding social conservative views, or that when you listen to his defense of them in full context that they are not logical, however, most of the electorate will never hear those full arguments, they are going to hear the sound bites that make him look and sound like a heartless monster, over and over again, in news, on You Tube Mashups, etc etc etc.
As much as the electorate wants Obama out, they will not put someone they feel is as more more dangerous in... the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. Of the 3 candidates left in the Republican Primary, Santorum is the only one who can easily be painted as radically extreme by the left, deservedly or undeservedly, and the fact they can do it with his own sound bites, and not one or two, but hundreds he’s made over the years. Santorum had no counter to it in 06 and far as I can tell has none now, nothing has changed about the guy.
Romney’s issue is will the base hold for him, if it does he’ll win. Newts issue will be convincing the 40% he’s not the monster he was spun to be nearly 20 years ago, which I suspect he will heartily do, if he can he’ll win. Santorum’s issue is overcoming his own mouth, so that the swing voters don’t view him as a monster and I don’t see any indication he’s going to be able to do it, he continually to this very day keeps creating fodder to paint him as extreme with.
Can you imagine? Santorum as the Nominee? Total disaster!
Interesting, because that was the 'conventional wisdom' regarding Ronald Reagan about this same time in the Presidential Election cycle of 1980. ;o)
>> Newt’s issue will be convincing the 40% he’s not the monster he was spun to be nearly 20 years ago, which I suspect he will heartily do <<
I wish with all of my heart and soul that I could agree with you. But Newt has shown time and time and time and time again that he simply lacks the self-discipline to stay on message and to execute a successful national campaign.
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