Gingrich: I'll go all the way to the convention

Port St. Lucie, Fla. -- Whether or not he wins Florida, Newt Gingrich says, "I will go all the way to the convention. I expect to win the nomination."

Mitt Romney's surrogates have been appearing at every one of Newt Gingrich's rallies in the Sunshine State, but the tactic hasn't seemed to draw much reaction from the former House speaker, who on Saturday turned most of his attention to President Obama on the stump. He focused on three things "that matter to Florida ... jobs, housing, and space."

"People ask me what can we do about getting more jobs in America? And the answer is: defeat Barack Obama!" Gingrich began. "People say what can we do about housing foreclosure problem in Florida? The answer is defeat Barack Obama! People ask about the price of gasoline and the answer is: defeat Barack Obama!"

Newt has already won a primary and will energize the (real) conservative base. Rick Sanctimous will not gain broad appeal, even if he is able to score some points. At some point, he needs to check his ego at the door and have a sober look at where his campaign is going and what the consequences of continuing are.

Romney is a loser as a nominee. He is the AstroTurf candidate, with no grassroots support. Many of us will refuse to vote for him in the general.

he polls substantially worse against Obama than do either Romney or Paul, and his negatives are much higher nationally.

Polls reflect a snapshot of the work the media has done to make or break someone. With the right message, over time, a new 'image' can emerge that would counter any current 'poll'.

Sadly, the power to influence 'polling' is mostly in the hands of a Leftist media who can influence poll results given the time to 'make or break' somebody.

I'd like to see more on defeatability and less on electability. For instance, who has the greatest ability to defeat Oblamo rather than who seems most electable to the masses. See, if one can best defeat Oblahblah, then his electability is ensured. But, if one is only deemed most electable and fails to defeat Oliarliar, losing is certain.

Not until the trashing of Sarah Palin by people on *our* side did I realize how entrenched were the east-coast/country club/Rockefeller/checked-pants Republicans. You know, the ones who thought Reagan was equally unfit. They did this in spite of Sarah's ability to pack any venue to standing-room-only and raise the roof with her delivery of 'conservative' ideas.

If defeating Buraq Hussein weren't essential to this country's future I might go with the most 'electable' nominee. As it is, the one most likely to defeat Barry Soetero (lying Marxist) is my choice as that is job number one.

Should Romney get the nod, don't be surprised if rumblings from Alaska don't begin- and it won't be an earthquake. It would be much bigger than that and could mark the end of the Republican party. Think TEA.

If you swap the names over, your point still makes total sense.

I am not going to even attempt to argue you out of your support - you have your candidate and defend and fight for him both fairly and well, without the usual cr*p. I respect that, probably more than you know.

My problem with Santorum is simple. He is a social conservative. Not a bad thing, but a one note thing when the country is dying for want of a fiscal conservative.
While social conservatism is the very heart of being conservative, fiscal conservatism and celebration of exceptionalism is the soul.

Rick Santorum ticks one box. Newt Gingrich ticks all three - though Newt’s social conservatism is ticked very lightly in pencil!
Santorum is a very good man. Newt, to be honest is not. Don’t need a saint in the WH right now, need a fighter instead.

The sad thing is, I don’t “have” a candidate. I think I like Santorum as a conservative more than Gingrich. However, from what I see, Gingrich has some better ideas, along with some not-so-good-ones.

Santorum has a better character and demeanor — I’d much rather have a man like that running our country than the more bombastic and off-the-cuff Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich is clearly the better leader, to the degree you want a leader. But he folded enough that I’m not sure if, on any particular issue, he’d back off, or worse, change his position as smart people sometimes do just to prove how leading-edge and open they are.

Santorum, I don’t know if he has the ability to lead. Neither have run anything, but the only guy left who did is unacceptable — Perry checked off a lot more boxes for me.

Anyway, if I thought the two were equally electable, I’d be supporting Newt now. I almost decided to do so in that one day when it looked like he’d be on the ballot here in Virginia and Perry wouldn’t. Then Gingrich was out.

My fear is that Newt will implode. We’ve seen signs of it. So my goal now is to keep the discussion at FR from irrepairably destroying Rick Santorum — we might well need him, especially if it turns out Gingrich, while he gets more “1st-choice” support than Santorum, can’t get enough conceded support to beat Romney.

As part of that, I wish we could let every Freeper know what FACTUAL issues there are with Newt, so we don’t get into a place where he’s all that’s left, and then conservatives look at what he is doing and decide the can’t support him after all. Because, while some freepers are clearly in the “I’d vote anybody who could stop Romney”, most conservatives have their limits (which is why Santorum’s support hasn’t collapsed to nothing like Perry did).

Not the crap being thrown around about Gingrich “opposing Reagan”. Or his stupid ex-wife stuff. But rather about things he is saying NOW. I wrote several paragraphs after this more than once, and deleted them because I don’t feel comfortable even explaining the point — I like being here at FR and don’t want to get banned.

I’d rather you didn’t get banned! You always raise good points and discuss things reasonably, and I enjoy reading your posts! May not agree with you sometimes, but you do always make me think.

I can certainly see your points about Santorum being in some ways more conservative than Gingrich. He is most definitely a good man and a safe pair of hands.

Gingrich is not perfect by a long chalk. That tendancy he has to shoot from the lip is worrying and could well cause him problems.
But he does get people excited and enthused, something that is sorely needed in this campaign. People sometimes forget that there are house and senate seats up for grabs too, and a charismatic presidential candidate fires up the base like nothing else does.

I too much preferred Perry. Maybe 2016 or 2020 for him, (and please Rick, spend some time and learn to debate! Your speeches are amazing, but your debate skills are still lacking.) he is certainly young enough.

One final thought. This election year reminds me a lot of 2008, in that the VP slot is going to be just as important as the presidential nominee in how the election plays out.

There have been a lot of names thrown around as potential VP’s for Newt - West, Rubio (before he endorsed Romney), Perry, Sarah (inevitably, and that would be fun!) and a few others.
Yet I read the Santorum threads - since I know almost nothing about the guy, he is not high profile over here - and there is a silence on that aspect of the discussion.

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

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