You argue the case for Gingrich dropping out quite well, but as you stated a couple of times, it’s so counter-intuitive that many people will either balk at the logic, or question the underlying assumptions.
I’m in the second category.
Santorum’s actual performance in the race, to date, causes me to doubt the assumptions your case is based upon. Where the rubber has met the road, more voters have put their faith and trust in Gingrich than in Santorum, which is, in my opinion, the best measure of future performance we have.
Just based upon that, I would still argue that it’s Santorum who should drop out, and not Gingrich - not to mention the fact that all things considered, Gingrich is better equipped to handle the enormous task facing the next president.
Now, that is my opinion, and of course, yours may vary. Thanks for the civil exchange.
I want to be clear — I’m not personally arguing for Gingrich dropping out; I’m presenting what I believe is a logical argument for it, precisely so I can instead argue that we have insufficient information to call for Santorum to drop out.
And I only do THAT so I can then say that it is unreasonable to attack Santorum for not dropping out, or call his decision a clear case of him helping Romney. Because if I can show that Gingrich dropping out is better to stop ROmney than Santorum dropping out, and I can then show that we don’t know if Santorum dropping out is good or bad, how can we attack him for not acting rashly before we know what the outcome would be?
That is the extent of my argument and involvement. I urge no-one to change their own strategy; whether it is to vote for Gingrich or vote for Santorum. I’d just like civility amongst Freepers on the subject of which strategy is better, because there is an argument to be made either way.
I can’t imagine convincing a person in 1st place to drop out in order to make space for a lower-place person to take the lead. Now, having said that, I would note that Newt Gingrich SAID that was exactly what he was going to do after Iowa. He lost Iowa, but was leading in national polls, and said he was going to sacrifice himself to stop Romney.
I wanted to address this separately. I think that is one way of looking at the results. But if you again think about the dynamics of a 3 or 4-person race, it is easy to see how that analysis COULD be faulty.
We can't actually say that "more voters have put 'their faith and trust' in Gingrich". What we can say is that more voters have expressed a preference for Gingrich than Santorum, in the current mix. It could be that every Gingrich supporter would also put their faith and trust in Santorum, but they just like Gingrich better. And if it is also true that the only reason Santorum people support him is because they could never support Gingrich, then what we have is a case where "2nd-choice" votes would push strongly to the lower-ranked contender.
We can't know which is true, unfortunately. You could get closer if we actually voted ranks rather than 1st-choice. The advantage of voting ranks is that you get a candidate who is the most acceptable to the organization. The disadvantage is you don't necessarily get the favored choice of the plurality of the organization.
Romney is a great example though of this. Assuming he has a ceiling of 40%, he is "1st-choice" of the plurality; but if you took into account 2nd choices, and if it was the case (it's not) that no Gingrich or Santorum voter would choose Romney, then we'd find that either Gingrich or Santorum were the consensus "acceptable" pick.
If I were to make an argument for a candidate, and I'm not quite ready to do so yet, I would argue (and would suggest Rush Limbaugh has said this in not so many words), that Santorum is the candidate who has the most overall "acceptability" in the republican party. He may not be first choice, but many Romney supporters could accept him, and many Gingrich supporters could accept him. They wouldn't be "happy", but they would be satistifed.
Then the question is, are we better off with a candidate who satisfies 80% of the party, or who energizes 40% and disgusts 40%? I don't say because I don't know if that is where we are, but it looks like it could be. BTW, Ron Paul is just a microcosim of this, a guy who is wildly loved by 10-15%, and vilified by a majority, so he'll never be the nominee, but he'll always be around. I take some satisfaction that Santorum has beaten Paul in the last two primaries.