Posted on 01/26/2012 10:12:01 AM PST by Windy City Conservative
Plus, I don’t want to lose. I certainly don’t want to lose to Obama, and we can’t afford to lose.
I wish I felt better about Newt’s chances. There are a lot of people I respect who don’t think he has a chance of winning. They could all be wrong, but they could also be right.
The surprising thing to me is the Florida polls. Frankly, I was beginning to think Newt was inevitable, and now it doesn’t look that way. This has been a weird race.
If Newt keeps dropping in the polls, we’ll need to try to save Santorum I think; Newt certainly isn’t dropping for want of support at FR after all.
Of course, if conservatives decide they want to trash Santorum like he’s been trashed here, how would he fare any differently.
And since Romney is believed to be unelectable, if Newt crashes and Santorum is unacceptable, will conservatives allow for a new entrant like Mitch Daniels, simply because we need SOMEONE to stop Romney?
I understand why people are “all-in” for Newt — we reached the end of the road, he looked like he was going to do the job, and was all we had left. But we have been far to rejecting of all the other candidates up until this point. A lot of people kept acting like we had an infinite number of choices, and so they could reject out of hand people like Perry and Santorum and Bachmann, because they weren’t “perfect”.
I still fear that in a few weeks, we’ll all be sorry conservatives had a hissy fit over being called “heartless”.
What if Gingrich falters, and everybody comes to realise Romney is damaged beyond repair, and they throw a new “establishment” candidate at us?
Would we stomp our feet and stay at home if they offered Jeb Bush, or Mitch Daniels, or Paul Ryan? What about Chris Christie — if our choice was Romney squeeks by with a nomination and fails in November, or we can draft Christie (a clear moderate who is not an acceptable conservative by any measure), do we accept Christie to stop Romney?
The “Tea Party — Establishment” fight isn’t just about Romney, it’s just that Romney is the only “establishment” candidate available to the “establishment” at the moment.
It’s not like Gingrich was our choice for the conservative flag-bearer. I’m still guessing if Palin jumped back in, half the Gingrich support would jump to her right away.
I don’t expect a white knight will save us. I don’t know that Gingrich is really electable, with his negatives and his inability to overcome that long-held perception amongst the general population. Romney has been so battered that I doubt he could win even if we wanted him to.
Sorry to sound pessimistic — it’s not like I’m going to do something to cause this to happen, and I’ll be glad if Newt can win the election, or if Newt crashes and Santorum comes on and wins the election.
The one thing I plead for — stop Romney before I have to vote for him. Because I am with Sarah Palin: If Romney ends up being our nominee, I WILL vote for him over Obama. I’d vote for Ron Paul before I’d vote for Obama.
I saw a poll on FOX this morning:
Obama-Romney: 45-45
Obama-Gingrich: 50-39
Unless something changes soon with the American electorate, we are screwed.
“Every freakin RINO in the country is coming out of the closet”.
Both the RNC RINOS and the Libs are seeing their sweet deals being kicked to the curb by Newt. Newt gets in nominated, real conservatives will be inspired with a realistic expectation the ills fausted upon America will be fixed.
Bob Dole needs to remember who he is and who we are.
romney cannot win. I will never vote for him... I mean I couldn't even if someone talked me into it... I cannot do it and I have serious and committed reasons as to why. Not one of those reasons is religion. I am not alone.
All that we have are newt and Santorum. Santorum is a pitiful excuse for a conservative. I am being honest here... he is a solid family values man... but the man is weak on the Second Amendment... gun locks and closing down gun shows... and that is what closing the “gun show loophole” is all about. He lied about the NRA backing his votes for both of those bills.
He and Michael Steele both subbed for Bill Bennett's “Morning in America” radio show and in February of 2009, they both were the first republicans to state that “The era of Reagan is over” and that “the electorate has moved further to the left... we as a party must become more diverse and move in the direction of the electorate”.
newt gingrich said the exact same thing to Rush on February 20th 2009. Rush crushed newt and newt babbled about “what he really meant”. They both wanted to redefine “Conservatism”.
So we have a choice... two men who are neither liberal nor truly conservative... both with plenty of evidence to cause concern. One of them has no spark... no charisma and one is breathing fire and throwing hell, fire and brimstone at obama and fighting a second front with romney. It is a piss poor choice but I am afraid we have to go with a fighter. As bad as newt is... and I am under no illusion as to who and what he is... he seems best equipped to destroy obama and he is far better than obama. Let's say we get 50% conservative newt and 50% progressive newt... that is 50% more of our ideology being put into place than today and the economy will improve with supply side economics and free domestic markets.
It is what it is... and those that will be honest with themselves have to see this too. Can newt beat obama? Yes he can. Will the press ever admit to it? No they will not.
The media were telling us that Reagan was losing... all day long... just as they had predicted a president kerry. More than one network anchor was heard that night to say, “I do not know how Reagan won... I do not know anyone that voted for him”.
newt is not Reagan... that is not what I am saying. If we did have a Reagan... they chose not to run. We have newt and we have Santorum... Daniels is a good man but he is never going to be president. His speech was not bad... Rush was highly complimentary... but even Rush said he was not an inspiring guy. So we have newt and Santorum.
I want a guy that can take a punch and fight as dirty as a sewer rat... because that is what obama is and that is how a rat fights. Reverend James Manning even endorsed newt... and he stated pretty much what I have stated here... and obama can't play the race card on newt... Manning even said so... he will not bite and he will not buy into the presumption. newt will also destroy any illusion that obama was ever a "Constitutional Law professor". He will show just how stupid a punk assed kenyan gaylord truly is. Santorum cannot do that... and he will not do that. He will not fight down and dirty and he told Sean Hannity that on the air. No way to slice it... Santorum or newt.
LLS
I knew this was a bad year when I was thinking hopefully about Rick Perry, a guy who I still think was more conservative than what we have left, but even before his early debate problems, certainly wasn’t the guy I was thinking of for President.
But Perry endorsed Gingrich. That means something to me. Rush doesn’t seem to like Gingrich much, but he can accept him. Levin seems to be warming up to Gingrich, although it seems more because of the attacks on him, like “if you hate him so much, I’m going to support him”.
I don’t know how I’d feel about Romney if I thought he had a chance of winning. I don’t. He wasn’t the “electable one” to me. I still think Perry is more electable, if he just had been able to get primary voters to give up their pipe dreams of other candidates. But that’s the job a candidate has to do, I can’t do it for them.
Daniels seems too short to me to be President. Of course Gingrich isn’t that tall either.
It is bad enough that if Jeb Bush joined the race tomorrow, I’d seriously consider sending him money. Of course, I’m not opposed to people named “Bush”. I actually think he COULD win the election. He is very personable, would be an excellent contrast to Obama, and is a successful Governor.
I could ignore Gingrich’s past, and support him. I’m not at all bothered by his fighting spirit, except he rarely seems to be fighting anything important. I wish he wasn’t so flawed, because he has some really good aspects.
It depends on the definition of Republican. As currently represented, I agree.
Of course, Republicans once stood for something besides light-socialism, political correctness, being the Ruling Elite, and accomodating the fully-communist Democrats at every turn.
And in that definition, the older one, Dole is a RINO.
Many modern TEA Party types are weak on that issue ~ so who are they to toss the RINO-bomb around?
All the Bush family has a problem ~ http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/29/noelle-bush.htm and her mother. That means they can’t really take a principled stand regarding illegal Mexican migration into the USA, so they don’t.
Have you lost your Post-Office-Numbed mind???!?
The TEA Party was FOUNDED on opposition to communism and socialism, domestically.
Frankly, right now, not many of us give a rats ass what's happening with international communism -- we are too busy trying to fight it right here in the good old USSA.
But we aren’t comparing to the hypothetical strong-on-illegals candidate anymore. We are comparing to the guy that called Romney’s lip service to fighting illegals “anti-immigrant”.
Santorum would likely be better on immigration than Jeb Bush.
There are no perfect candidates, and if our criteria is primarily “who can stop Romney”, and then only secondarily “who can beat Obama”, I think our field of possibilities is much larger than “Newt Gingrich”, who I unfortunately still do not believe can do the latter, and I’m not sure can do the former anymore. Although I hope I’m wrong, or that we find someone who CAN.
I am constantly trying to accept Newt, but every time I try, there’s another story with actual facts which puts me back on my heels, not that I’m going to post any of them here because I really like being a part of FR and it’s pretty clear that we aren’t supposed to create articles that attack Newt. Not that those articles don’t exist, just that we can’t talk about them here.
Which is too bad, because I find many times that the good Freepers here can put context to the articles, and soften my opinion of them. But I’m afraid to ask them to answer these; and nobody else is posting them either.
Perry found out you can’t mix work with back surgery and get away with it.
I remember when Bob Dole was forced down the throats of GOP voters. What a limp candidate. Because he was such a horrible candidate, we got to hear all about Bubba’s bent member and Lewinsky’s. And then Dole started doing Viagra commercials. They don’t call DC what they call it for no reason.
He simply didn't have the time to do all of that.
A very large percentage of them made it to the House ethics committee ~ where they were investigated and rejected.
Given the criminal proclivities of his first two wives, I don't believe anything they have to say.
“I am constantly trying to accept Newt, “
That’s where I am, too. He’s smart, but repulsive, and I don’t see him winning in a contest between himself and slick Hussein. Most swing voters are idiots and base decisions on appearance and presentation.
Another hold-your-nose voting year, ‘cause I’ll vote for Newt before Romney, and will vote for either of them over Hussein.
Of course, there’s always a chance, slim though it may be, that Hussein experiences a come-to-Jesus moment before November, becomes a born-again Christian, repents, falls in love with America, etc., who knows? (I know; and IF my aunt had a penis she’d be my uncle.)
They brought us Perot ~ and he brought us the Clinton disaster.
I wish there were a simple way to judge a post to determine with certainty that there was AIP influence here ~
That's what I said. It was formed in opposition to domestic communism and socialism.
Are you okay?
That’s not what I meant about stories, I meant “newspaper articles”. Two examples are a recent press release by the Club for Growth, and the claim Newt made at last week’s debate that he had a list of friends to refute his ex-wife but ABC refused to listen to them.
He’s correct and FR hitched itself to the wrong guy.
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