Posted on 12/29/2011 6:22:38 PM PST by TBBT
Rick Perry’s presidential campaign released a tough new ad Thursday targeting Rick Santorum and his history of supporting earmarks in Congress. Why is Perry attacking a candidate who has been mired in single digits in Iowa despite living there for most of the past several months?
Simple, Santorum is surging. A CNN poll of registered Iowa Republicans released Wednesday puts Santorum in third place with 16 percent of the vote – his highest share yet. It’s not an outlier. In fact, data from Perry’s internal daily tracking polling shows that the Santorum surge is real and that he has the potential to continue gaining in the days before voters gather for the caucuses next Tuesday.
The polling was described to TWS by a strategist for a rival campaign and confirmed by a source familiar with the numbers. The four important takeaways from Perry’s polling: Mitt Romney is “pulling away” from a group of four second-tier candidates bunched together behind him; Ron Paul’s numbers have dropped steadily in the aftermath of the attention given his troubling newsletters; Santorum’s rise has coincided with the erosion of support for Newt Gingrich; and Michele Bachmann is in danger of becoming a non-factor in the race.
Almost all of this is good news for Mitt Romney, who announced in recent days a busy schedule of Iowa campaigning and whose campaign let it be known that he would remain overnight in Iowa after the caucuses – both indications that the Romney camp is increasingly confident of a win in Iowa next week. And Romney, in an appearance in Iowa on Thursday, said only a win in Iowa would constitute a real victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Thank you for adding clarity to both Newt’s and Rick’s position on amnesty. The 25 year break off point makes sense.
The border has always been a lax system; allowing people running across like chickens crossing a street. We didn’t control that border all those years and saw no need to do so. Illegals crossed that border because we did not take on our responsibility seriously. It was like someone leaving the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition. And when the car was stolen, not even reporting the crime. It was all in the name of taking advantage of a good thing. Cheap labor was coming across and always providing services we could use. The same dynamics gave Americans access to cheap leather goods, beautiful velvet Elvis Presley paintings and a wild bull fight. Mexico was synonymous with cheap thrills. The road was full of chickens gone wild, yours for $9.95.
Moving along through the years, everything was good until the economy hit hard times and the work the border crossers took away was work we could not afford to lose. The worse part of it was that these illegals began to take a bigger bite in our state services and cost us big in tax money to pay for them. They were also running drugs, creating graft and corruption and kids gone wild, yours for $9.95.
Now people want to undo what has taken years to create. So, a break off point should be made, the border be sealed and those who are in the United States be required to assume responsibilities they should have assumed before—like live law-abiding lives (not Mexicans gone wild, yours for $9.95).
Also change the anchor baby rule.
Not all is lost. I don’t think all Mexicans want to stay in the U.S.A. Many are saving as much money as they can to take with them back to Mexico. Remember, Mexico is their real home and their roots. What they really want is roots and the lap of luxury. With enough money they can live the rest of their lives in a comfortable lifestyle. Our Snow Birds already know that lifestyle. As this lifestyle attracts them back to Mexico, they will not be able to come back so easily. Not at all. Once they go back, they can’t come back again unless, it is as tourists to see—you guessed it—Girls Gone Wild. Then the Mexican population will dwindle—not overnight, but naturally.
In my humble opinion.
Too bad he didn’t do any of that when he was in his ‘bigtime executive’ leadership position. Words are cheap. And Newt’s words were that he wanted all of this done before he takes office so that the only leadership skills he would need to employ involve nothing more than signing his name.
Newt will promise anything to anybody for a dollar or a vote, a chicken in every pot, tax cuts all around and never mind the trillion dollar deficit -- but where was he when Paul Ryan proposed bold entitlement reforms? and where was he when it came to paying for his prescription drug entitlement?
Some critical thinking is called for here. Newt is a pitchman, plain and simple -- in another life he'd be selling used cars or time shares or vacuum cleaners to any sucker who would listen.
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You said a mouth full. For Perry a poor showing will likely be the end of his campaign, he has spent a lot money in Iowa and if he gets nothing to show for it the money will stop. Newt has a good war chest already built up so a loss here won't hurt so much. Bachman has several other areas where she is putting her time and resources so a loss or poor showing won't be her death nell but will really hurt. She should have really done well here.
Santorum has really put in the effort here and should show well. While some pollster may show Mitt Romney on top I find that hard to believe in this evangelical state. They don't care a lot for Mormons in Iowa and I think most voters will vote for anyone but Romney. Newt has so much baggage from the past that I don't think he will do well here which means that Paul and Santorum should carry the day. But I would sure like to see Bachmann do well.
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I wish I felt as secure as you about that statement. Many states allow crossover voting in the primaries and that is how Romney will slide in if he wins. I think that is why he in unwilling to speak conservatively because he know if he looses the independents and Democrats that will crossover and vote in the Republican primary he won't stand a chance. I think there is a danger in under estimating the planning ability and reasoning ability of Romney. He has been working on this campaign for 5 years. Hard effort won't guarantee a win but it is easier if you have all that effort behind you.
The only person who has put in that kind of effort is
Santorum but his effort is limited to one state, Iowa. He better do really well or we will likely be looking at a Romney nomination. I'm getting a little nervous.
And according to his track record, he’ll fulfill those promises, since all the Contract with America items went up for a vote in the ‘90s. If he’s selling, I’m buying, because he delivers.
He supported most of the Ryan plan and wanted to change some things. Analysts say his Medicare reform in his new contract is similar to the Ryan plan.
Romney got 25% in Iowa last time so it’s not surprising to me he’s getting about the same. The fact that he still can’t get above that level after all this campaigning is kind of damning, I think. I don’t think the electorate has changed, but the social conservative vote is fragmented, so it can’t get up to 35% on one candidate like it did with Huckabee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Republican_caucuses,_2008
Delegates are being given out proportionally, different from last time, so this is not a winner-take-all. If the vote is close, the winner walks away with barely more delegates than the 2nd or 3rd person. What I am unsure about is whether one candidate can drop out of the race and “give” their delegates to another candidate.
Maybe, maybe not. He will have a better shot at compiling delegates from winner-take-all states, he has a built-in advantage in states where Mormons are a significant share of the GOP electorate, and Ron Paul will likely fight it out until the convention pulling 10-20% or more in some places.
Romney remains the most likely nominee IMO, as he has been since Pawlenty's withdrawal, Perry's collapse, and perhaps Cain's women troubles. I just want one reasonable conservative candidate to put up there and give us a real choice, and it looks like Santorum will be it, by a strange turn of fate.
Its a caucus so the “voters” have a chance to evaluate how many votes the other candidates are getting and change their votes. There is a good chance that voters will coalesce around a single not Romney candidate.
Newt did cut capital gains taxes in the ‘90s by the way...
Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
In 1997 President Clinton signed into effect the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which included the largest capital gains tax cut in U.S. history. Under the act, the profits on the sale of a personal residence ($500,000 for married couples, $250,000 for singles) were exempted if lived in for at least 2 years over the last 5. (This had previously been limited to a $125,000 once-in-a-lifetime exemption for those over 55.)[46] There were also reductions in a number of other taxes on investment gains.[47][48] Additionally, the act raised the value of inherited estates and gifts that could be sheltered from taxation.[48] Gingrich has been credited with creating the agenda for the reduction in capital gains tax, especially in the “Contract with America”, which set out to balance the budget and implement decreases in estate and capital gains tax. Some Republicans felt that the compromise reached with Clinton on the budget and tax act was inadequate,[49] however Gingrich has stated that the tax cuts were a significant accomplishment for the Republican Congress in the face of opposition from the Clinton administration.[50]
Your speculation needs just a little tweeking. Take half of Bachmann and Perry scores and give 70% of them to Santorum and the other 30% to Newt.
And compromising with liberals is not one of my convictions.Why didn't Santorum support Pat Toomey in his primary challenge the first go around?
Thanks CharlesWayneCT.
It’s pretty difficult for a junior Senator to oppose the senior Senator from his own state. I am sure Santorum now regrets his decision.
Interesting multi-choice tool shows which candidate most suits your answers.
Quite interesting.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/fullpage?id=15177995
No, TBBT, attitudes like that by secular conservatives risk provoking us into taking our eyes off the real enemy, thus creating a circular firing squad in which different types of conservatives fight each other instead of fighting liberals.
As Sola Veritas posted in #10 on Thursday, December 29, 2011 8:37:37 PM: “That is entirely uncalled for and you need to retract it.”
RecoveringPaulisto, Timber Rattler, and txhurl also challenged you on your bigoted anti-Christian comment. You refused to do so at Post #15. I expect that sort of thing from leftists. It should not be happening on a conservative site.
Unfortunately, it does happen, and happens far too often. I'm going to call you out and hope you think really hard about how your attitudes damage the broader conservative movement by causing unnecessary fights.
TXHurl correctly pointed out that fiscal conservatives, military conservatives and social conservatives are the three-legged stool of the modern American conservative movement. Apparently TBBT wants to kick out the social conservatives. That warrants a response. I wrote much of this on another thread but I'm going to repeat it here.
You and some others on this thread may wish that evangelical Republicans weren't a factor in our party, but we are. Get used to it. Reagan wouldn't have won without us and without conservative blue-collar Catholics, and both of these conservative Christian groups are a major part of the modern Republican coalition whether you like it or not.
I was a Republican and a conservative before I was converted, I know the vicious animosity that sometimes exists in secular conservative circles toward evangelicals, and I'm going to tell you, point blank: attitudes like that lose elections.
I have to put up with secular Republican conservatives and others whose views I don't like because the goal is to win in November, and in American politics with a winner-take-all system, we can't win as evangelicals or conservative Catholics without the help of other conservatives who don't share our emphasis on moral values. You and others who don't like us need to pay attention to the fact that you need us to win against President Obama just as much as we need you for that same goal.
You may not like that. Fine. Go figure out how to win an election without most of the South, and without the ethnic Roman Catholic voters in key swing states. Figure out how to win Florida without Cuban voters, who are mostly Roman Catholic.
As evangelicals, apart from the Bible Belt and certain parts of the rural North, we can't win elections without you secular conservatives. Most of us know that. Likewise, conservative Roman Catholics can't win without evangelical and secular conservative support outside of Florida, some parts of Texas, and some other parts of the Southwest.
Put bluntly, TBBT, if we conservative evangelicals and conservative Catholics can learn how to get along in the right-to-life movement for the purpose of saving babies, despite hundreds of years of fighting since the Reformation, what's your excuse?
Modern anti-religious conservatism is a Johnny-Come-Lately with seeds in followup response to the French Revolution. It grew into some very bad forms of robber-baron capitalism which eschewed the Christian imperative for employers to treat their workers as they would want to be treated, and the loss of Christian values among economic conservatives in the 1800s was a major factor in the rise of Communism.
I happen to have major problems with anti-religious immoral conservatives whose sole goal is making money, but you won't hear me making broad-brush accusations like that on Free Republic or anywhere else against economic conservatives as a group. I won't be making those accusations against individuals, either, unless I'm absolutely certain the accusation fits the specific person.
My religion says I need to treat you fairly. Be glad. In my pre-conversion days, the language out of my mouth would have been filthy and I would have accused you of things that probably aren't true merely to discredit your person as well as your views.
As a Christian I know you are entitled to fair treatment and to have your views rebutted with logic and not personal attacks. Remember, the goal is to defeat President Obama, not to attack each other.
Perhaps a similar reason to why Sarah Palin supported John McCain in the Arizona Republican primary?
Loyalty counts not only in marriage but also in politics. Sometimes that means standing by commitments we wish we hadn't made.
Commitments should be made carefully knowing that if they're made wrongly, we risk being attacked either as a traitor to our commitments or as a traitor to our convictions.
“and I’m going to tell you, point blank: attitudes like that lose elections.”
Indeed they do. Nice post.
Thank you, Sola Veritas.
Let's hope the Iowa caucuses tomorrow result in a rousing defeat for Romney.
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