Posted on 03/14/2012 7:44:19 PM PDT by Steelfish
Adelson Cutting Off Gingrich? MARCH 14, 2012 B ED MORRISSEY
(snip) CNBC’s John Harwood. Harwood told Rachel Maddow last night that the main funder of Newt Gingrich’s super-PAC, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, has written his last check for Gingrich in this race:
Greg Sargent spoke with the head of the super-PAC, Rick Tyler, who acknowledged that he’s in for some rough days ahead:
(snip) The super PAC’s operations have been largely funded by billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, whose money has effectively kept Gingrich’s candidacy afloat.
John Harwood of the New York Times last night quoted a friend of Adelson saying that he had written his “last check.”
I just checked in with Rick Tyler, the head of the pro-Newt super PAC . Asked if he could continue operating without Adelson’s money, Tyler conceded: “Fundraising will be challenging.”
But Tyler vowed that the PAC would continue operating as best it could as long as Gingrich stayed in the race. Asked why Gingrich should continue after two losses that seem to render the cause hopeless, Tyler said the pro-Gingrich forces were betting on a contested convention, and would take it all the way to August.
The campaign itself probably can’t do much better at fundraising after the losses yesterday. Conservative activists have been demanding consolidation behind Rick Santorum for several weeks, and their argument got a lot stronger after last night. If Adelson cuts off the super-PAC, Gingrich won’t have many resources to run a competitive campaign.
The question will be whether Adelson himself acknowledges that. He’s already been rumored to have pledged to support Romney if Gingrich didn’t win the nomination. He might just decide to move his very large fundraising capability to Team Romney now and focus on defeating Santorum in the primaries.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
There is another secret I’ve noticed in the TN/MS market. Romney’s ads sound just like the Dim ads from the last six plus years, trying to tie one piece of a vote around the opponent’s neck as if it were the whole story. When the Newt PAC ads started, they sounded just the same. The usual targets of those ads are the conservative in the race.
Many Santorum supporters believe most, if not all, Newt’s support will go to Santorum if Newt drops out. What is that speculation based on?
sorry should’ve included mariner.
I was speaking of Newt supporters...
John Harwood? Rachel Maddow? Could you get any more left wing in your sources?
LOL!
Cite the supporters you mention. I never posted that and I don't see many post thinking that. I don't care if Newt stays or goes. He shot the wad in AL and MS last night and came up snake eyes. He is going to be increasingly irrelevant over the next week. By IL, he will be generating as much news as Pawlenty and Huntsman do.
Not at all. Santorum is a social conservative only. Which goes against Casino interests. He is a big government/union guy, which goes against Adelson's and Casino interests.
While I appreciate Santorum on his social agenda, I have no interest in him regarding anything else. I think he would be a problem as president. Maybe even more so than Romney, as he would eventually split the party along ideological lines
You know very well there are Santorum supporters here that want Newt out because they think his votes will go to Santorum. Don’t be ridiculous asking me to go through every thread to cite them.
If Newt supporters are who they claim they are, I can’t see them honestly looking at Romney and Rick and choosing the hand picked GOPe candidate that Newt even hates with a passion. It doesn’t make sense to me and as with you, most of my personal interactions with people indicate that they are either on the Romney bandwagon or hate him.
Obviously. I'm just an amateur.
However, I have been studying politics since the 1976 GOP convention and believe, delusional or otherwise, that I can assess both the GOP electorate and the general electorate.
I am wrong more than I am right. Nevertheless I opine freely.
Why? Do you have science to show that you're itching for a fight, or are we all left to wonder?
Thank you. I am most interested in seeing this data. The main and alternative media has been nearly silent on this matter. I'm looking for data everywhere and can't find it.
I'm trying to assess the electorate on past behavior and have no current data on the GOP "second choice, committed second choice".
It would be wonderful if you have that on a state basis.
I know your inherent anti Rick bias and factored that into your pronouncement. From looking at state contests where Newt wasn’t a factor because he didn’t campaign there, Rick did very well against Romney. There must have been Gingrich supporters in these states that went with Santorum to beat Romney. If only 40% of Newt supporters move over to Rick and the rest go to Milt in OH or MI, Milt would have lost. I think it is fair to say that Rick could easily get 40% of Newts voters if he finally bails, especially if they want to give Milt the shaft.
I thought the Gingrich people disliked Romney as much as the Santorum people, or have you forgotten IOWA, South Carolina and Florida??
As for Paul, well he’s crazy..
That’s no speculation. Gingrich and Santorum split the Tea Party and male vote. Romney has a huge gender gap and most of his votes are male. These voters will migrate to Santorum if Gingrich drops off. This is what the CNN exit polling showed last Tuesday. Surely, had not Gingrich contested GA, Santorum would have won big just as he won with over 51% in AR.
Those are the type of people I would expect to support Newtered,,thugs
Inane theory.
Here’s one analysis
By Matthew Jaffe
@matthewbjaffe
Matthew Jaffe is covering the 2012 campaign for ABC News and Univision.
Mar 8, 2012
How Gingrich’s Refusal To Quit Has Hurt Santorum, Benefited Bitter Rival Romney
Analysis
If a thank-you note arrives in Newt Gingrich’s mailbox in McLean, Virginia, the former House Speaker shouldn’t be surprised if it’s from Mitt Romney: the likely Republican presidential nominee may have Gingrich to thank for his frontrunner status.
In a surprising development, given Gingrich’s intense dislike of Romney, Gingrich has been indirectly responsible for some of Romney’s recent successes in the GOP primary. If Gingrich had dropped out of the race, say, after his resounding defeat in Florida in January, the dynamic of the Republican contest could be drastically different today.
In the month since Florida’s primary, Santorum has suffered narrow defeats to Romney in Ohio and Michigan, defeats which have made it all but impossible for him to win the nomination – and defeats which might have been victories had it not been for Gingrich’s continued presence in the race.
On Tuesday in Ohio, for instance, Santorum apparently lost to Romney by only about 10,000 votes, a mere 0.8 percent margin of defeat. 175,000 voters, however, backed Gingrich that day and, polling shows, if he had not been on the ballot, Santorum would have benefited more than Romney and would have had a better chance of winning.
Sixty-three percent of voters in the Ohio Republican primary – the largest amount for any candidate – said the would be satisfied if Santorum were the party’s nominee. Fewer – 57 percent – said they would be satisfied with Romney. Fewer than half – 48 percent – said they would be satisfied with Gingrich.
Romney may also benefited from Gingrich’s presence in other states such as Alaska and Georgia. In Alaska, Romney squeaked out a win over Santorum by a little more than 400 votes. In that race, more than 1,800 voters, including Sarah Palin, backed Gingrich.
In Georgia, meanwhile, Gingrich’s home state, the former House Speaker cruised to an easy victory with 47 percent of the vote, trailed by Romney with 25 percent and Santorum with 19 percent.
39 percent of Gingrich supporters said Santorum’s policy positions were “about right.” Only 23 percent of Gingrich supporters said the same about Mitt Romney.
Give Santorum victories in Ohio, Alaska and Georgia and suddenly the GOP race looks a little bit different. While Romney would still be ahead in the delegate count – and still the favorite to eventually secure the nomination – Santorum would stand a much better chance at mounting a serious challenge for the party’s nod, especially with the former Pennsylvania senator favored to win a slew of the upcoming primary states, such as Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas and Missouri.
That fact is not lost on Santorum’s campaign, which has vociferously called on Gingrich to leave the race. As Super Tuesday wound down, Santorum’s national communications director Hogan Gidley said a head-to-head matchup with Santorum was Romney’s “worst nightmare”, but that the continued presence of Gingrich and Ron Paul was preventing that from occurring.
“Look at the numbers… we’d be winning these states by ten points,” Gidley said. “You’re talking about the anti-Romney vote being split three ways.”
The next morning Santorum’s Super PAC – the Red, White and Blue Fund – followed suit, calling on Gingrich to abandon the race so that “conservatives would be able to make a choice between a consistent conservative in Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney.”
“With Gingrich out of the race, Santorum would have won both Ohio and Michigan,” Stuart Roy, an RWB Fund adviser, said. “Newt has become a hindrance to a conservative alternative.”
The former director of Gingrich’s South Carolina campaign even added her voice to the growing number of calls for Gingrich to get out now, although DeLinda Ridings wants Gingrich to exit not to give Santorum a better chance, but so Republicans can coalesce around Romney.
Despite Roy’s claim, it is unclear if in fact Santorum would have been able to win Romney’s home state of Michigan if Gingrich had not been in the race. Romney defeated Santorum there by a little more than 32,000 votes. Gingrich that day earned around 65,000 votes. That means Santorum would have had to win a huge percentage of those Gingrich votes – better than a 2-to-1 margin.
According to the New York Times’ Nate Silver, Gingrich’s absence would not have been enough for Santorum to triumph in the state.
“He would not have won Michigan – Mr. Gingrich received very few votes there so there was little marginal benefit to Mr. Santorum – although it would have flipped one Congressional district and therefore given him the majority of delegates in the state,” Silver wrote on his Five Thirty Eight blog on the New York Times’ website.
Overall, Silver wrote, if Gingrich had exited the race before South Carolina’s primary in January – which he won – Santorum would have emerged victorious in four states that he lost: South Carolina, Georgia, Alaska and Ohio.
But Romney would still be leading where it matters, in delegates.
“Mr. Romney would still be significantly ahead in the delegate count,” Silver said. “I have him with 404 delegates versus 264 for Mr. Santorum and 71 for Mr. Paul. Mr. Romney’s delegate total, in fact, is very slightly higher than it would have been before the redistribution of the vote.
There are cases when the shift in votes costs him delegates, such as in winner-take-all districts, or when one of his opponents gains more votes and crosses a threshold that enables him to receive proportional delegates.
But Mr. Romney is being given some votes under these assumptions – if not, as many as Mr. Santorum – and that helps in cases where the delegate allocation is more proportional. These factors came close to balancing out, but Mr. Romney gained about 10 delegates on net.”
“Mr. Santorum, however, made the larger gains, winning about 110 delegates than he has taken in the real world with Mr. Gingrich on the ballot,” he concluded.
On Wednesday Santorum acknowledged that he “wanted” Gingrich out of the race, but stopped short of calling on his opponent to step aside.
“I’m not saying I don’t want him to get out. If he wants to get out, I’m all for him getting out. I’m for Mitt Romney getting out. I wish President Obama would just hand me the thing, but that’s not going to happen,” Santorum said in Lenexa, Kansas.
Gingrich, though, has said he isn’t going anywhere… except on to campaign stops in upcoming primary states like Alabama and Mississippi, states his campaign calls must-wins.
“We’re staying in this race because I believe it’s going to be impossible for a moderate to win the general election,” Gingrich said Wednesday in Montgomery, Alabama.
Earlier in the day, Gingrich said on “The Bill Bennett Show” that he might drop out if he thought Santorum could knock out Romney and Obama.
“If I thought he was a slam dunk to beat Romney and to beat Obama, I would really consider getting out,” Gingrich said. “I don’t.”
Considering Gingrich has waged a bitter primary battle with Romney, depicting the former Massachusetts governor as a lying, hypocritical moderate, it is a little surprising that he now intends to stay in the race even if that benefits Romney.
On January 26 in Florida, as Romney launched an astounding barrage of attack ads against Gingrich – Romney and his allies spent over $15 million on ads in the state and all but one of those ads was negative. Gingrich has since then ripped into Romney, denouncing his campaign, his background, and his character.
“To have his campaign take on a lifetime of work and lie about it, frankly I do find infuriating,” Gingrich railed. “I think it is one of the most dishonest things I’ve seen in politics. It is so fundamentally abusive.”
“Here’s a guy a who owns Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stock. He owns a Goldman Sachs subsidiary that forecloses on Floridians. He is surrounded by lobbyists who are paid by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to stop reform. And on that front he decides to lie about my career? There’s something about that hypocrisy that should make every Americas angry.”
“I am angry,” he continued. “But I think I’m angry and every American should be angry. How can somebody run a campaign this dishonest and think he’s going to have any credibility running for president?”
Only four days later, in an interview with ABC News in Tampa, Gingrich continued to denounce Romney, saying he has “a profound character problem.”
“He governed as a liberal who was pro-abortion, pro-gun rights, pro-tax increases, and pro-gay rights. Appointed liberal judges. Passed Romneycare,” Gingrich said.
But now this is the same rival who Gingrich is indirectly helping by staying in a race that has left him beaten, bruised, and with virtually no shot at all of winning the nomination. He has only won two states – South Carolina and Georgia – compared to six for Santorum, not counting Missouri, which last month held a primary – won by Santorum – but it was known at the time that the primary would not affect the state’s delegate allocation in favor of caucuses in March.
Ultimately, playing the game of “what might have been?” is a pointless exercise. Gingrich didn’t drop out after his loss in Florida. Santorum didn’t win Ohio, Georgia, and Alaska. And Romney now has a huge – seemingly insurmountable – lead in the Republican race, with 401 delegates compared to 177 for Santorum.
The only thing left is for Romney to secure the 1,144 needed to lock up the nomination… and perhaps send that thank-you note to Gingrich.
I will vote for Newt if he is still in the race on May 8th. After that I have no interest except to help elect a senator and a representative with an R after their name. No vote for the ill equipped who aspire to be a ruler.
At this point in the race if the Newt supporters want Newt to be on a winning team and still see Newt still in the race is for Newt to team up with Rick Santorum as his running mate to try to stop Romney from getting the nomination.
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