Santorum leads close 3 way race in NC (Santomentum in NC)

Public Policy Polling ^ | 3/2/12

[Antoninus]

Rick Santorum's taken the lead in the Republican Presidential race in North Carolina with 31% to 25% for Mitt Romney and 23% for Newt Gingrich. A month ago Gingrich and Romney were tied for the lead with Santorum running 10 points behind.

Romney's staying competitive in North Carolina despite the fact that GOP voters there are pretty tepid toward him. Only 43% have a favorable opinion and an equal 43% see him negatively. That makes him less popular than both Gingrich (45/41) and Santorum (58/29).

Romney's really benefiting from Gingrich continuing to be strong enough in the South that he splits the conservative vote with Santorum, unlike in other parts of the country where conservatives are increasingly unifying around Santorum as the alternative to Romney. Among voters identifying as 'very conservative' Santorum leads Gingrich 35-32 with Romney at 19%.

[Antoninus]

You're another one who is incapable of thinking strategically. If you're truly against Romney, you should be encouraging people to vote for Santorum in states where he's the main contender against Romney, and to vote for Newt in states where he's the main contender.

As a Santorum supporter, I have not attacked Newt because I'd be happy with him as the candidate if it came down to it.

By attacking Santorum, you're actually helping Romney--which makes me think that what's really going on here is that we have a bunch of closet Romneybots pretending to be for Newt and using that as cover to undermine Santorum.

If that's not your MO, then you are just behaving stupidly.

[Antoninus]

YAWN. NC votes on May 8. That’s two months away. Nice try deflecting Santorum’s clear downward momentum heading into tomorrow though.

"Downward momentum" = when your opponent outspends you 6-1 with false negative ads in certain states and no one calls him on it. In places like NC where the Romney slime machine hasn't had a chance to spill its poison, Santorum moves up on his merits. That's been the pattern of this election.

Romney is running a scorched earth campaign which, he hopes, will either result in him as the nominee or leave whoever wins too damaged to successfully compete against Obama. The man is pure sleaze.

[altura]

Please don’t post that picture again. It makes me fear for my life. It doesn’t do Rick S. any favors.

Reminds me of the disastrous Huckabee family picture.

[altura]

I was able to listen to Mark Levin for about 5 minutes tonight in the car before I had to turn him off because of his usual rudeness and sarcasm to a caller. And she was a conservative.

But before that, he was praising Newt’s performance on Meet the Press. I wish everyone had seen it. He twisted Gregory into tiny little knots and did it with half his brain tied behind his back just to make it fair.

I so wish he could be the nominee and I don’t think he should pull out yet. Things change.

I’ll gladly vote for Santorum but he makes my teeth hurt.

[Yaelle]

Santorum meant that rush meant to be absurd. Rush says it all the time. Using absurdity to describe absurdity.

[Gene Eric]

>> So his estrogen-dominated self ( you can see it when you look at him

Another compelling argument from Team Santorum.