Thank you for making me smile.
Alabama Party ID GOP Santorum 34, Gingrich 32, Romney 30
IND Santorum 33, Romney 27, Gingrich 25
He won without the 6% Democrats that crossed over and were not reported in the exit polls.
Miss GOP Santorum 34, Gingrich 32, Romney 31
IND Santorum 29, Romney 28, Gingrich 25
Again, the 4% Democrats that crossed over were not in the exit polls.
Winning these groups put him over the top. I suppose the Dims could have contributed to the margin of victory. A place where the numbers show best is that he won or tied in most conservative categories and won most of those who view the TEA Party as neutral or better.
Remember, they need some excuse. They no longer have any of the other arguments. Santorum leads Gingrich in total votes, hard delegates, soft delegates, number of states won, head-to-head results, and total placement in races.
They can’t complain Santorum has no longer been vetted, since he’s been being “vetted” according to them since a week before Michigan.
They can’t complain Santorum is taking votes from Gingrich, because there has never been a state where Gingrich came in 2nd, but could have won with Santorum’s votes; On the other hand, there are multiple states where Gingrich was crushed, but where a portion of his vote would have given Santorum a state.
They can’t complain that Santorum isn’t “playing the game” to stop Romney, because in the Alaska Caucus, which is the ONE PLACE where you could actually PLAY a game and give a competitor the win, it would have been Gingrich giving Santorum 400 votes, and Gingrich didn’t do it (in 2008, Huckabee DID give McCain caucus votes to beat Romney).
They can’t complain that Santorum didn’t drop out, because the new Gingrich “strategy” is that everybody has to be in the race.
They can’t push the “Gingrich will sweeep the south”, because Santorum has more southern states than Gingrich.
So what do they have? “Santorum isn’t REALLY winning because he’s attracting democrats who are trying to stop Romney.”
But this is the first chance they have to safely make that argument, because no matter what their views REALLY are, they could never, on Free Republic, have complained about democrats giving Santorum a victory over Romney. But here, Gingrich was slightly ahead of Romney in 2nd, so they make the argument.
Frankly, I don’t care if Santorum is beating Romney by getting Obama to vote for him. That was SUPPOSED to be the plan. Heck, some Gingrich folks are actually in THIS thread complaining that it is Santorum supporters who fail to understand the plan, at the same time they are upset that Santorum is actually doing much getter at implementing the plan.
And Santorum supporters are the ones that made the plan possible, while Gingrich supporters spent weeks bad-mouthing Santorum and his supporters for not quitting the race after South Carolina — which combined with Gingrich’s limited-state strategy would have handed Romney the inevitable nomination by now.