On a radio newsbreak, I heard a clip of Rick being played from the IL primary campaign.
Of course it was a gotcha moment...the reporter was bagged for Mitt, it was obvious...but first time I actually heard Rick’s voice saying the unemployment rate doesn’t matter, I don’t care about that, as preface to making a point about his candidacy.
Apparently somebody asked him a question...no
way would you say that out of the blue.
Then they had a clip of him clarifying his remarks.
No worse than Mitt saying he likes to fire people, and his wife drives a couple of cadillacs, etc. But that was a bit ago in time, which allowed the reporter to ignore it and focus on Rick.
Made me think, when you’re anybody but Obama and Romney, there is no margin for error. There is no room for gaffes, mistakes etc. The Dems, your own side, the media, will all savage you and never give you a pass.
Newt, imperfect as are we all, fares best in such an unfair scenario. He has more substance, more experience, more knowledge, more communication skills, more demonstrated success.
Without Mitt’s scorched earth backed by many millions, that Newt didn’t have, in IA and FL, Newt would be standing tall today.
Rick walked into that yawning chasm of opportunity and with a lot of help from the evangelical pastors put himself where he is.
He can’t close the sale with enough people, and we are talking Republican primaries, we aren’t even talking the general.
There’s no margin for error. That’s unfair and a shame, but it’s true.
Errors there will be.
Newt works best.
Yesterday Romney was saying that the economy is improving (Santorum recently said that the economy isn't the main issue anymore).
We're in economic quicksand and we cannot have a moderate in the White House.
REmember how Newt lost the battled to reform Medicare? He made a perfectly valid point, but the way he said it gave the Democrats a national advertisement to beat up all republicans, and because of that, medicare reform was dead.
“Now, we don’t get rid of it in round one because we don’t think that that’s politically smart, and we don’t think that’s the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it’s going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it — voluntarily.”
As I said, a perfectly valid statement — talking about one specific aspect of Medicare. But it was the WRONG WAY to say it apparently, by the criteria used here against Santorum, because his quote became a national rallying cry against conservatives.
And if you somehow want to argue the point, just google Newt “whither on the vine”, and see all the thousands of references to that by the media.
Rick’s voice, by the way, said that the unemployment rate was not what was driving his campaign. The unemployment rate is manipulated by the administration, and if it drops in October of 2012, Obama still needs to go.
Freedom is all that government can really do to impact unemployment numbers conservatively. Freedom from regulation is what will get companies hiring again. This is the conservative message.
If I am asked “what will you do if the unemployment rate drops before the election”, I say “I’m not voting because of the unemployment rate, I’m voting to stop Obama taking away our rights and freedoms.”
He can’t close the sale with enough people, and we are talking Republican primaries, we aren’t even talking the general.
There’s no margin for error. That’s unfair and a shame, but it’s true. Errors there will be. Newt works best.”
Except for Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Kansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri ....
Santorum lost Michigan (Romneys “home state”) to Romney by 4%, Romney 41%, Santorum 37%
Newt got 6.5 % of the vote total
Assuming the conservative race is against the establishment Romney the GOP and democrats have pre-selected for us, and thus for #2, tell us, if “Newt works best” why are so many GOP voters in so many states so stupid, and why does Santorum have twice as many delegates as Newt, and 5 times as many primary victories?