Posted on 02/10/2012 10:37:23 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Remember the "electability" argument? Conservatives need Mitt Romney, the argument goes, in order to compete against Barack Obama in the general election. However, the latest Rasmussen tracking poll on head-to-head results shows Romney trailing Obama by ten points -- while Rick Santorum comes within four:
In a potential Election 2012 matchup, the president attracts 50% of the vote and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 40% (see tracking history). This is the largest lead the president has enjoyed against Romney in regular polling going back more than a year. It’s also the first time that the president has reached the 50% level of support against Romney.
Rick Santorum now trails the president by four percentage points, 46% to 42%. Rasmussen Reports will now be tracking the Obama-Santorum race on a daily basis. Matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Last week, Santorum had a one-point advantage over Obama. However, like Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich before him, Santorum was unable to sustain that advantage beyond a single poll.
In the crucial swing state of Ohio, Santorum is now even with the president. Romney trails by four. Democrat Sherrod Brown has a modest lead in the Ohio Senate race. Rasmussen Reports will release new data on the race for president in Florida at noon Eastern today.
Scott Rasmussen’s weekly column looks at the political impact of Obama’s decision to impose a health-insurance mandate on religious organizations, and concludes that Obama’s electability might be a moot point anyway:
The Obama administration recently ruled that all insurance policies must offer contraceptive services with no co-payments required. In and of itself, that decision is neither positive nor negative. Forty-three percent of voters favor it, while 46 percent are opposed.
That mandate violates the beliefs of some churches. Normally, religious exemptions are granted in such cases, but not this time. Thirty-nine percent support the administration on this point, while 50 percent are opposed. Even worse for the White House, support for the ruling comes primarily from people who rarely attend church. That’s a group that voted strongly for Obama in 2008 and continues to support him today. In other words, no upside.
But, among Catholics, only 28 percent believe religious organizations should be required to implement rules that conflict with church doctrine. Sixty-five percent are opposed. This is true even though many Catholics disagree with church teachings on birth control.
The impact is stunning since 54 percent of Catholics voted for President Obama in 2008. Today, just 39 percent of Catholic voters approve of the way he’s doing his job.
Perhaps some strategists thought that Catholics would welcome government help in battling the church on birth control. But Catholics who disagree with the church deal with the situation in the privacy of their own bedroom. They don’t need federal help. In fact, it is hard to imagine any person of faith wanting the federal government to have any say in church doctrine and how Holy Scripture should be applied.
The last couple of weeks have been a near-perfect storm for Santorum, who has tried to campaign primarily on economic and national-security issues. Now, suddenly, Barack Obama has validated the culture war with his attack on religious conscience, and Santorum has the best position from which to lead a counter-attack. He speaks the language much more fluently and with more passion than Romney, and Republicans looking for a champion in this fight will start naturally looking for Santorum.
The Ohio results should be even more concerning for Obama and Romney. Santorum is speaking to the voters that Obama lost in the 2008 primaries but won in the 2008 election as a supposedly reasonable moderate. Ohio will be a tough state for Republicans to carry in the general election this year, but it will be absolutely critical to their White House hopes. If Santorum maintains this momentum, it’s quite possible that the electability argument will begin to favor Santorum rather than Romney, especially if the Obama administration fails to retreat on the HHS mandate.
Read the thread before you shoot your mouth off.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2844981/posts?page=16#17
bump
Romney will say the opposite of what he really thinks if he thinks his audience wants to hear it.
Yes, true, but we should make him say it regardless.
Santorum will need to be at least 20 ahead of Zer0 just to beat the fraud.
One of Santorum’s problems is partisan supporters like you.
It’s not a funny game or a sport challenge which is going on before our eyes.
I supported Gingrich but i wish the best to Santorum and hope that one of them could defeat Obama with strong arguments .
Hope, i am not sure , that Santorum could be tough enough to unmask Obama’s agressive rethoric
In the same type of poll, 2 days earlier, compare the following side-by-side. Rasmussen has stopped polling Newt, and if anyone would like to let them know how they feel about that, here is the phone and email:
732-776-9777
Poll Date Sample Obama (D) Gingrich (R) Spread
FOX News 2/6 - 2/9 1110 RV 51 38 Obama +13
Rasmussen Reports 2/6 - 2/7 1000 LV 46 43 Obama +3
Reuters/Ipsos 2/2 - 2/6 881 RV 50 38 Obama +12
ABC News/Wash Post 2/1 - 2/4 879 RV 54 43 Obama +11
USA Today/Gallup 1/27 - 1/28 907 RV 53 41 Obama +12
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 1/22 - 1/24 RV 55 37 Obama +18
PPP (D) 1/13 - 1/16 700 RV 49 42 Obama +7
CBS News/NY Times 1/12 - 1/16 1021 RV 50 39 Obama +11
^^^^^^^^^^
Polling Data
Poll Date Sample Obama (D) Santorum (R) Spread
RCP Average 1/12 - 2/9 — 50.1 40.3 Obama +9.8
Rasmussen Reports 2/7 - 2/9 1500 LV 46 42 Obama +4
FOX News 2/6 - 2/9 1110 RV 50 38 Obama +12
USA Today/Gallup 1/27 - 1/28 907 RV 51 43 Obama +8
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 1/22 - 1/24 RV 53 38 Obama +15
PPP (D) 1/13 - 1/16 700 RV 50 42 Obama +8
CBS News/NY Times 1/12 - 1/16 1021 RV 49 38 Obama +11
ABC News/Wash Post 1/12 - 1/15 RV 52 41 Obama +11
All of these polls are BS right now...why can I say that?
Because the MSM hasn’t even allowed the country to know who Santorum is yet. They will fight it, too. They want the country to know who Romney is and to an extent Newt. Santorum has no baggage. Don’t worry. Reagan wasn’t known, either, and at that time, there was no alternative media to inform folks. Santorum will win in a landslide.
What's truly astonishing is none of these guys that I can tell (except Paul, who's rightly called a "moonbat" for other reasons) are talking about CUTTING GOVERNMENT even though we are on the precipice of this multi-trillion-dollar debt abyss.
How is this possible? We MUST have tax cuts. But they cannot be sustained without MAJOR CUTS IN GOVERNMENT starting with CUTTING ENORMOUS WASTE, USELESS CABINET DEPARTMENTS (most of them), and A LOT OF "ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS" (NOT defense, a legitimate government activity, even though our whole defense and intelligence capabilities need an overhaul because of 25 years of mismanagement since Reagan).
Santorum’s “balanced-budget” demand is of course suicide because the Leftists will use it as an excuse to raise taxes, the opposite of what needs to happen. There must be pressure to cut taxes and spending and that isn’t done with a balanced budget amendment but with sound fiscal policy. A balanced budget amendment is a bad idea because it doesn’t address our most critical political and economic problem: big government. It simply shifts the burden of the government’s budget mismanagement problem onto the backs of the American people.
Santorum offers a “balanced budget” instead of less government. That’s a terrible choice. How can we not have one guy with his head screwed on straight talking about this stuff? Maybe we really are in the Final Days and God is starting to allow things accordingly.
Series of RCP polls had Romney way up in Michigan on 2/2. Hopefully the HHS fiasco and Santorum’s hat trick wins in three states will change that!
I was expecting Newt would be the front runner, and supported him as the realistic figure to defeat Mitt, but as Santorum continues to win several states, I believe it is time to switch over, and unite our support for Santorum. Newt may still be selected as Vice President, and I support that too, since his experience in the congress for pulling strings is valuable.
Seeing gingrich fans post this is hilarious...after a month of crowing when he was leading or in second place all of the sudden when he drops like a rock those same polls are sudden;t meanaingless! LOL!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.