If the front-runner proves to have a solid ceiling that is too low to beat Romney, what do YOU suggest?
It could well be that Gingrich cannot get the support of more than 40% of the electorate. If those 40% are all willing to support ANYBODY to beat Romney, while the Santorum supporters just can’t support Newt, then if Gingrich drops out, Santorum gets more votes than Gingrich would have.
I don’t think this would really work, because everybody loves their own candidate and hates the other candidates, but that is how the math WOULD work.
And in fact, it does happen many times, where the person say who gets the “most votes” in the first round at a convention can’t win the convention, because as others drop out, none of their support goes to the “front-runner”.
Newt won South Carolina. If he can’t carry that momentum into Florida and beat Romney, why do you think he can beat Romney elsewhere?
Remember that support for Gingrich is based not on “we all love Gingrich”, but rather “he’s polling the best”. It’s circular — if we all decided he couldn’t win, Gingrich would NOT poll best.
Or, we could keep supporting him as he loses state after state, until it is too late for anybody, and then we can all wonder what could have been.
Santorum would have been the next person to get the “wave” of voters — except the wave, the swarm, panicked because votes were taken, and decided that Gingrich was their last stop. Before that it was Bachman, then Perry, then Cain.
Hopefully Gingrich can get back to the positive message that got him the lead, and he can win Florida.
Please, study.
Look at the 1964, 1976 and 1980 GOP primaries.
It doesn't matter if Santorum is right on every issue from a definition of Conservatism that you hold dear.
Our first fight is the fight to cleanse the party...as a means of winning the general election for the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.
Santorum will not even win one more state.
NOT ONE!
He knows this too. Either that or he's not smart enough to the POTUS.
Upon the premise that he DOES know this to be a fact, something 90% of all potential GOP voters believe, what possible purpose could he have for staying in the race and dividing the conservative vote?
I contend it's payoff, not ideology.
Or, perhaps, he's mentally afflicted.
I think Senator Santorum is a fine man. I could vote for him if I had to.
But, truthfully, he has not been subjected to the intense scrutiny that the others have been.
If he were to obtain front runner status, not only would he endure the media blitz of destruction...he would have to deal with the “Myth Machine” just as all of the others have had to. He was is Washington for a number of years...plenty of material.
Sadly, I think Myth was chosen from the beginning. I hate it and will fight it until the end.
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.