Posted on 01/15/2012 1:59:24 PM PST by shield
At least it was cordial. But the 150 or so "movement conservatives" gathered at Paul Pressler's this weekend (1/13-14) were a fractured lot. Maybe 10% were for Perry. Almost all of them were against Romney. Well, sort of. Caveat below.
There was an official Romney guy there who explained that "You'll either work with us now or work with us later, but you'll all have to get on Mitt's train, because we have the money and the organization, so there's no stopping us."
This did not go over well. It just made everyone more determined than ever to do whatever it takes to stop Mittens. How to do so is what the group could not agree on.
I'm not going to name names, as I was asked not to. Just about every big name conservative you've heard of was there. A number of them didn't come out for any particular candidate. Others said they were all in for Perry at the start, and just couldn't overcome his blunders.
When the case was made that Perry was the only candidate who actually understood the Constitution and the power of the 10th Amendment, the only one who was not a big government guy, the most successful governor in the country who has a rock solid record of job creation and conservative judicial appointments - they just didn't care. I want that to sink in.
These conservative leaders really do not care about jobs, people hurting like the Great Depression, America's economy falling into an abyss. All they care about is "the family as the fabric of society," and other Rick Santorum social conservative platitudes. So a majority of them voted for Santorum. They could care less that Santorum would not do anything to reduce metastasizing government, much less castrate it (like Perry would), or has not the slightest trace of executive experience of any kind, government or private.
When asked one-on-one why they were going for Santorum when they knew he had no money, no organization, and stood not a ghost of a chance to win the nomination, the truth came out:
"If we unify behind Santorum, it will force Romney to pick him as his running mate - for he'll know that's the only way to get our support in the general (election in November)."
That's the slimy deal behind this. They'll go for Romney if he goes for Santorum on his ticket. Should we call them Judas Conservatives?
We suspected this all along: Santorum is a stalking horse for Romney. A vote for Santorum is a vote for Romney. Folks in South Carolina need to know this.
The cynical ploy, however, will not work - and not just because the Romney guy rolled his eyes when told about it (Romney has his heart set on Marco Rubio). It's because there was no unity at this meeting.
The Drudge headline "Social conservatives back Santorum," is a lie. A majority of the folks there chose Santorum - but there was no agreement that everyone would now get behind their choice. Some will continue backing Perry. A much larger number are now committed to Gingrich as the Not Romney. Others are going to focus on doing whatever they can to see no candidate gets a majority of delegates for a brokered convention.
A brokered convention, by the way, is how Sarah Palin could get the nomination. Or Rick Perry.
So there you have it. This was a meeting that won't change the world, that won't change anything, except to marginalize these "movement" conservative leaders who really don't care about the fate of America. They say Perry blew his chance. They have blown theirs.
The only thing I can think of Shield, is follow the money...
Perry asked last night, "Are you better off today, than you were 4 trillion dollars ago?"
Maybe there are people that are. They have enough money to make this happen. They can pressure enough people to go along. I do not know.
Either that, or while people cry out for less government, prosperity, the repeal of Obamacare, etc., they are afraid of seeing the system shaken up. Perry is the renegade that people wanted, but are afraid to support.
That’s such a bunch of horsesh*t. We’re not all in this together. Y’all allow posters to attack Perry with blatant lies and do nothing about it.
Yeah, I know. If I don’t like it, I can leave. I got it. Loud and clear.
The vote and all it’s confusion says very little about a real unification coming out of the meeting....... In fact form the article linked below some of the people had departed to the airport.
The FRC said these numbers represented the ballot results:
First Ballot
Ron Paul 1
Mitt Romney 3
Rick Perry 13
Newt Gingrich 48
Rick Santorum 57
Second Ballot (two top vote recipients)
Mr. Gingrich 49
Mr. Santorum 70
(59-41% for Santorum)
Third Ballot
Mr. Gingrich 29
Mr. Santorum 85
(74.5% - 25.5% for Santorum)
end snip
From the numbers above the 1st ballot had 122 total votes and it went down from that. Supposedly the 3rd vote was taken in order to get the 2/3rds requirement they set for an endorsement.
Yeah, well I like Gingrich but a lot of our posters attack him daily. Santorum is attacked daily too. Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.
I hear ya. I like Gingrich A LOT myself. I don’t care for the attacks on him either. Quite frankly, I’m fed up with the whole game of personal attacks on our conservative candidates. I don’t care for Santorum, but I don’t run around FR trashing him. I support Perry and Gingrich and mostly stay off Santorum theads. I wish others would do the same with regard to Perry and Gingrich. We’re gonna shoot ourselves in the foot and end up with Romney because of petty games. It’s frustrating.
What does that mean? I've reported abuse on such attacks and more often than not it's ignored. It really seems to depend on which mods are working. It's not consistent. Mods have personal preferences like everyone else. That's understandable. But look at it from our perspective. We don't know who the mods are or which ones are working at any given time. So from our view, enforcement varies a lot. Nobody wants to be a pain in the mods' butt. So how should we address baseless attacks and outright lies against any candidate?
So, Rick S. held 300 Ia. town meetings and campaigned tirelessly just so he could become Milt’s stalking horse? How stupid.
Isn’t that illegal? I did hear several different talking heads talking about something. They said he gave her some money to pay her electric bill, before it was shut off.
They were framing it as a kind of gracious stumble. Said he should have had his aides do it secretly, or have them find her a job.
Some of the lefties suggested he just needed something to show he cared about people to help get a news headline.
I would guess that Santorum, who has tirelessly campaigned, did not campaign to become the AFA’s (et al.) stalking horse. The AFA (et al.) is making Santorum their stalking horse, according to Wheeler above.
And I venture to guess that Santorum will accept their endorsements, regardless of the stalking horse role the endorsers want him to play.
Politics kind of whores you out like that (-;
Doesn't matter. I already put him 3rd on my list, when I found out he endorsed mittens last time around. Didn't like several of his positions anyway. Now Rick S. has come out against Business and Wall Street, or some such nonsense.
Tonight I learned he voted for a bill to give convicted felons and rapists etc. (no longer in jail or on parole) the right to vote, he's in danger of slipping to 4, which would make Ron Paul 4th. AAAArgh.
LoL!!
Jack wasn’t there. The room was small enough. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody spoke. The things he says were said, were not said. For me, this calls into question everything he has ever said, if he would lie about this.
BTW, a few people left before the vote because of flights they needed to catch—the airport at Houston was two hours away from Paul’s ranch.
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