“Not too sure why Rush ends that transcript reminding all of us that Santorum won the debate”
It seems that Rush—whether he knows it or not—is still acting as part of the anti-Newt agenda. One of the current strategies is to use Santorum to split the vote (if Santorum drops out most of his support goes to Gingrich in a Florida victory).
For Rush to give Santorum a bump is to give Santorum more reason not to quit. So the potential useful idiots in this game include both Rush and Santorum.
Yup.
Please be careful with guesses that Santorum supporters are secret Mittbots. Many of us are not, but you are right — it does seem obvious that some in the national Republican Party leadership are trying to use Christian conservatives to split the anti-Romney vote.
Reality is that Christian conservatives have a long and bad history of naivete about the realities of politics, and our emphasis on high standards sometimes results in making perfect into the enemy of the good, with the result that horrible candidates win because politically active Christians backed somebody who couldn't win.
That's not a problem for me here in Missouri where Santorum is on the nonbinding primary ballot a week and a half from now, but Gingrich isn't. I can't think of any good reason why an evangelical or a conservative Roman Catholic in Missouri shouldn't vote for Santorum — we in Missouri won't be splitting anyone’s votes since Gingrich isn't on the ballot.
Who would you like us to vote for? Romney? Paul? One of the withdrawn candidates?
Rush Limbaugh's brother, David Limbaugh, is endorsing Santorum and next week Friday is speaking at the Texas County Lincoln Day Dinner, which is one county away from me and immediately south of Fort Leonard Wood. That's four days before the nonbinding Missouri primary.
This thread and another one today have made me decide I'm probably going to attend the Texas County event after all. Redistricting divided our rapidly growing county into three state representative districts and I've got a Texas County candidate asking me to cover him since some of my readers are now in the district for which he is running. I guess I now can tell him even if I didn't think his state rep race was important enough to drive down there, David Limbaugh's endorsement of Santorum is worth the drive.
If any other media are present I'll post a link on Free Republic to their article on David Limbaugh's speech and anything he says about Santorum/Gingrich/Romney. If I'm the only reporter present or if I think the other media totally missed the story, I'll post my own article on Free Republic unless the site owners object. I definitely **DO NOT** want to be accused of Gingrich-bashing or lose my account over accurately reporting what Rush Limbaugh's brother may say in my own back yard.