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Survey Says: Santorum’s Social Views Killing Him in Michigan
COMMENTARY ^ | FEBRUARY 27, 2012 | Alana Goodman

Posted on 02/27/2012 10:44:53 AM PST by RobinMasters

There’s a chance Rick Santorum may still scrape out a win in Michigan tomorrow. This morning’s Public Policy Polling survey has Mitt Romney leading him by just a few points, 39 percent to 37 percent. But the internal numbers look worse for Santorum, and his ongoing slide in the state seems to be due to his focus on social issues:

One place Santorum may have hurt himself in the last week is an overemphasis on social issues. 69 percent of voters say they’re generally more concerned with economic issues this year to only 17 percent who pick social issues. And with the overwhelming majority of voters more concerned about the economy, Romney leads Santorum 45-30. Santorum’s winning those more concerned about social issues 79-12 but it’s just not that big a piece of the pie.

Santorum’s net favorability has also taken a hit:

The last week of the campaign in Michigan has seen significant damage to Santorum’s image with GOP voters in the state. His net favorability has declined 29 points from +44 (67/23) to now only +15 (54/39). Negative attacks on Romney meanwhile have had no negative effect with his favorability steady at +20 (57/37). Two weeks ago Santorum’s net favorability in Michigan was 34 points better than Romney’s. Now Romney’s is 5 points better than Santorum’s. Those kinds of wild swings are the story of the GOP race.

(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: antiprotestants; focusonperipherials; gendergap; gonude; mi2012; popesantorum; proillegals; prounions; ricky4anticondomczar; run4pope; saintricky; santorum; socialissues; zot
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To: Socon-Econ

I’ll grant you that.

Clearly stated, the effect that the left’s war on the traditional American nuclear family has had on fiscal issues (such as the cost of health care alone) can be a powerful and potent message. The messages interlock. I wish more people could see that.


61 posted on 02/27/2012 12:16:39 PM PST by Colonel_Flagg (Why, yes. I AM in a bad mood.)
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To: editor-surveyor
What you have to grasp is that Santorum’s only faint claim on ‘conservatism’ is his resistance to abortion. On all other issues he is a statist.

That is utterly ridiculous. Santorum was a leader in pushing for welfare reform, voted for a balanced budget and has an 88% rating from the American Conservative Union.

62 posted on 02/27/2012 12:18:19 PM PST by Kazan (Mitt Romney: The greater of two evils)
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To: WhistlingPastTheGraveyard

I forcefully agree with you! I forcefully agree with Rick Santorum!

My point is why give away your position to the enemy, before you can get yourself in a position to actually execute your own agenda?

IMHO, an experienced, intellegent leader simply does not broadcast to the enemy that you’re coming, the route you’re taking, and when you will be there, and expect anything but an ambush.

You know what I mean? Keep a location secret, and strike when in a position to do so—that being, IN OFFICE.


63 posted on 02/27/2012 12:20:04 PM PST by RitaOK (LET 'ER RIP, NEWT. Newt knows where all the bodies are buried, because he buried them.)
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To: RitaOK; BlackElk
Jobless people are more inclined to be repulsed by treatise bearers lecturing against contraception.

Nonsense. Marlo Thomas is much more inclined to be repulsed by treatise bearers lecturing against contraception. Your assumption is one that was promoted heavily be Margaret Sanger and her ilk.
64 posted on 02/27/2012 12:23:06 PM PST by Dr. Sivana (May Mitt Romney be the Paul Tsongas of 2012.)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin
The one thing I got from him was the absolute core conviction that he believes this nation's crisis is fundamentally a moral one, and moral in the religious sense, not just hard work, etc.

Thanks for that revealing that. That convinces Santorum might just be the man to make the changes necessary to get the nation back on track.

65 posted on 02/27/2012 12:23:06 PM PST by Kazan (Mitt Romney: The greater of two evils)
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To: All; RobinMasters
In the ARG poll, "Santorum leads Romney 38% to 31% among men... Romney leads Santorum 40% to 33% among women"

Santorum supporters better take notice! Even in 2000, when he easily won reelection to the Senate, he still lost among women. It was his 57% of men's votes that got him reelected.

However, in his 2006 18-point implosion, he lost 61% of women.

He cannot win nationally without nearly splitting the women's vote unless he can mirror Obama's advantage there with men's votes. W was able to do that in 2000, probably helping Rick get reelected, but Santorum lacks W's personal likability and, most importantly, is more strident on women and "women's issues." He won't be helped by his own book's harsh words for women who work outside the home. It was used against him in 2006 to excellent effect.

He looks like a nomination time bomb.

66 posted on 02/27/2012 12:29:35 PM PST by newzjunkey (Santorum wanted half-billion extra for Amtrak, endorsed Specter for President, voted for Sotomayor)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin
The one thing I got from him was the absolute core conviction that he believes this nation's crisis is fundamentally a moral one, and moral in the religious sense, not just hard work, etc.

Sounds like our Founders:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

― John Adams

67 posted on 02/27/2012 12:34:25 PM PST by Kazan (Mitt Romney: The greater of two evils)
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To: RobbyS
The Constitution has underlying premises. But it is a compact between the people acting as States (in the Republic sense). It is the equivalent of a contract in private business, and must be construed according to its actual terms.

It is not necessary or helpful to focus on the sort of general concepts to which you allude; although I will certainly acknowledge that in all of its functions, it looks to a maximum level of individual responsibility in order for our system to work. And that is certainly not inconsistent with the philosophic claim that you make. But you are trying to over-explain, what is clear without looking for some structure that may be generally, though not necessarily inevitably, consistent.

But Santorum has been trying to explain away the fact that he really does not recognize the rights of States, local communities, local courts, and individuals, to make decisions with which he does not agree. He may think that limitations on central authority are a good thing; he cannot be trusted to always recognize them.

Again, to specifically illustrate my point, consider the fact that he was one of those who supported the Federal intrusion into the Schiaavo case, which reflected extremely flawed judgment--both Constitutional & tactical, for that matter. (See Schiavo Case.)

William Flax

68 posted on 02/27/2012 12:38:15 PM PST by Ohioan
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To: freemarketsfreeminds

I care about getting government out of my life, period. I don’t want government involved in my bedroom or my wallet.

In a free society where the consequences of one’s actions are not buffered by government, I believe people will naturally become more moral.


69 posted on 02/27/2012 12:42:33 PM PST by Utmost Certainty (Our Enemy, the State | Gingrich 2012)
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To: BelegStrongbow

Yes sir, I do agree with you. I agree with Rick also on his beliefs.

However, on another thread this morning, a poster reported that Rick met with a small group of 25, in which the poster was included, TWO years ago where he spoke to these same family issues. The poster was making the point that these opinions and beliefs of Santorum’s are core with him.

I believe that to be true. I just don’t get why you want to blow yourself up before you get a chance to put your core principles into effect once you get in the big chair.
That is all I am saying.

I think others on this thread are willingly missing my point and choosing to be offended, belaboring in self-rightousness, when I agree with them on everything, but for Rick blowing himself up for all to see on the minutiae of an issue the voters don’t give a rip about when they are broke and jobless.

How many practicing Catholics who are devout are among the voters today?
Heck, even the numbers of practicing Christians are diminishing, or we wouldn’t be in this “fix” in the first place.


70 posted on 02/27/2012 12:51:56 PM PST by RitaOK (LET 'ER RIP, NEWT. Newt knows where all the bodies are buried, because he buried them.)
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To: RobinMasters

This survey sounds bogus to me. If you ask whether social or economic issues are more important, then people who are feeling the pain or are out of jobs will probably say economic.

After all, “social issues” is kind of a vague term.

But if you ask them whether they would vote for a baby killer who wants to train kids in kindgarten to be gay, their response might be different.

Or if you ask them whether they would want to vote for an honest politician who understands the difference between right and wrong, or a lying crook who could care less, they’d probably choose the first. Well, that’s pretty much what “social issues” means.

Politicians who don’t give a damn how many babies are killed are unlikely to be very trustworthy on other issues, including economic issues. They may talk the talk, but how can you trust someone without any moral values?


71 posted on 02/27/2012 12:54:59 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Bruce Campbells Chin
“I don't want to hear a President talking morally about premarital sex, or sex in general. It's not his business, or the government's, if chose to have sex before I was married.”

I'd have some sympathy for your view on this if the taxpayer wasn't on the hook to support the millions of out-of-wedlock babies produced from pre-marital sex.

72 posted on 02/27/2012 12:57:19 PM PST by riverdawg
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To: RobinMasters
Abortion is killing a lot of people in Michigan and everywhere else, every day. There will be no economic relief while we are destroying our future economic agents before they are even born.

The world can put that in their issue pipes and smoke it.

73 posted on 02/27/2012 12:59:24 PM PST by Theophilus (Not merely prolife, but prolific)
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To: Cicero

Good take. Ironically, social issues voters reject the kind of liars who put out surveys like this one.


74 posted on 02/27/2012 1:02:35 PM PST by reasonisfaith (Or, more accurately---reason serves faith. See W.L. Craig, R. Zacharias, Erwin Lutzer, and others.)
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To: reasonisfaith

Well, we reject the lies not the liars.


75 posted on 02/27/2012 1:03:44 PM PST by reasonisfaith (Or, more accurately---reason serves faith. See W.L. Craig, R. Zacharias, Erwin Lutzer, and others.)
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To: Theophilus

Consider that in 40 years after 1968, there have been about 800,000 murders total in the U.S.. Since Roe v Wade in 1973, there have been over 53,000,000 U.S. abortions, over 66 times the number of murders.


76 posted on 02/27/2012 1:03:58 PM PST by aruanan
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To: RitaOK

You realize that Barack Obama didn’t have to hide anything. He told us exactly what he intended to do. He told us he wanted to nationalize medicine and industry, to make gas and energy costs skyrocket, to fundamentally transform our society. He told us in his books (not written by him, but that’s beside the point) that he was a doper, a radical and a racist and his friends were too. He told us that his greatest influences were capital-C Communists and that the Constituion was an outmoded charter of negative liberties. He told us how much contempt he had for rural America, with their guns and the Bibles and their baseless hatred for anyone who doesn’t look like them. He told us everything we needed to know. Our idiot friends and neighbors elected him anyway.

Either they didn’t listen, didn’t care or didn’t believe it because the MSM didn’t report it. I don’t know what strategy exists to combat a criminally complicit media and a terminally oblivious electorate. I really don’t. I’m just praying that somehow, some way, the truth resonates with enough people to end this nightmare. Santorum is telling the truth. So is Gingrich to a large extent. I’ll go to war for either one of them.


77 posted on 02/27/2012 1:09:20 PM PST by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard (Some men just want to watch the world burn.)
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To: patriot08
Note to Ricky:
It’s the economy, stupid.

No it is not stupid. It is about whether this nation shall remain Democratic Republic, or plunge into Marxist tyranny.

Reusing and old Clinton meme stinks.

78 posted on 02/27/2012 1:09:47 PM PST by itsahoot (Much easier to tear down a building, than to build one. Bigger mess though.)
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To: Ohioan
The fundamental--the functional foundation--for social policy in the American Federal Union;--has always been left to the States.

Why do you keep posting this drivel? If the Feds had stayed out of it, that would be true, but they haven't. Hard for a state to undo a federal directive, with the current courts.

79 posted on 02/27/2012 1:13:03 PM PST by itsahoot (Much easier to tear down a building, than to build one. Bigger mess though.)
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To: jersey117
We shouldn't abandon them but we also shouldn't put them at the top of the priority list this particular election.

We are not putting them at the top, the MSM is and some are falling for it.

Wag the condom.

80 posted on 02/27/2012 1:15:40 PM PST by itsahoot (Much easier to tear down a building, than to build one. Bigger mess though.)
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