Posted on 03/20/2012 12:13:10 PM PDT by Servant of the Cross
First, here's the set-your-hair-on-fire clip about which we're all supposed to be enraged, via Rick Santorum on the stump:
"I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. It doesn't matter to me..."
The horror! Rick Santorum doesn't care about the unemployment rate! Except, the former Senator's sentence went on: "...my campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It's something more foundational that's going on." What Santorum was conveying -- albeit terribly ham-handedly -- is that his candidacy is about more than mere economic issues. He's arguing that while Mitt Romney's campaign relies on harnessing and exploiting Americans' transient economic jitters, his own focus is "more foundational." You may think that's an attractive message, or you may think it's a foolish approach in an age of crushing debt, very high unemployment, and lackluster growth. In either case, it should be plainly obvious that no presidential candidate would ever utter and mean such a tone deaf statement -- of only because of the political damage it could wreak. Romney's camp quickly blasted out an email highlighting the edited quote, asking, "he said what?!" and Romney himself has started hitting Santorum over the remarks at rallies.
I understand that political campaigns try to capitalize on their opponents' gaffes. Part of the game. But you'd think the Romney campaign might be a tad more forgiving of a fellow Republican who -- oh, I don't know -- says something silly that he doesn't really believe, but is easily clippable and taken out of context:
There are plenty of elements of Rick Santorum's record and campaign messaging strategy to question and attack. This is just weak sauce.
Of course, no one is your league. Only Jesus Christ ever has been!
You must really have an inferiority complex if you have to keep telling everyone how brilliant you are.
Second, that does not change my basis about Newt’s ability
His abilities have always been offset by his blunders. He is loose cannon with a big ego, sort of like you. Pride always proceeds the fall.
And more importantly, Newt has said it was his attempt to show conservatives didn't have to cede the environmental debate to the extremists and wackos, and that conservative ideas could compete with the liberal and extreme ideas. He did the same thing when he went on an education tour with the horrible Al Sharpton. He actually went into ghettos, and poor failing schools. And talked about conservative solutions, alongside Sharpton's liberal left solutions. That's territory where you don't see republicans ever.
In Iowa, he went to a very hostile black church and took a lot of harsh questions from angry members about his janitor jobs for kids and no work ethic remarks. They grilled him big time, with many angry questions, then invited him for dinner, laid hands on him and prayed, and afterwards, several church members said they were voting for Newt... that is revolutionary. Newt takes risks and often pays for them by being misunderstood and maligned. He has the heart of a revolutionary and a reformer...
And people would have us support Santorum over this giant...
Duh! His candidacy would have been over if he hadn't.
The attack on the plan was a failed attempt at politically positing himself in the primary and he had to backtrack, something he has had to do many times.
That’s a joke, right?
It has to be.
Do you read? do you understand words placed side by side to form sentences? Reading comprehension, man. Before the MTP remark, I am not sure Newt had said anything about Ryan’s plan within the context of the campaign. and the articles were BEFORE the MTP appearance, where his response was not reported in context.
First letters, then words, then sentences. They make up a thought.
That guy is an idiot.....
What Sanctimonuckabee fans don't understand is what it's like to have folks want your opinion on everything for 30 years, which is sort of what Newt has lived. No one has ever cared what the hell Rickie thought about anything, so he's hardly on record of having an original thought. (even so, he's got some problems out there).
Thus, the mental midget game of adding up only 'negatives' with no perspective or no analysis of how the negatives relate to the massive amount of positives.
Bottom line, Santorum does not have Newt's ability or mental agility and never would in his wildest dreams, which for Rick, is probably pretty boring and mild anyway.
It’s true, Bee :(
Obama is so obsessed with Newt and feels the need to respond to so many things Newt is doing that it’s hard to keep track. Newt draws fire from libs the way Palin does, except that Newt is more on the offensive than Palin is (I love Palin BTW, just sayin, Newt has them flumoxed).
That Santorum or Mitt could ever do that. Yeah, right....
About 3 weeks ago, Newt decided he wanted to rebrand to a 2.50 gal gas theme. Since then, what has been front and center, energy, American energy, Obama may now give the Keystone Pipeline, a portion, a fast track.
Newt is setting the agenda, forming the debate. He was talking about going to the convention months ago, what's everybody talking about now?
the eyes that won't see.
If I had the time, and I really wish I did, I would love to do a comparative analysis, when Newt said something originally and first, and when his thought, idea or concept showed up in a Santorum speech or talking point.
There was one speech Santorum gave, in Georgia, I think, where more of what he said was stolen from newt, than taken from his speechwriters.
He's not going to win Illinois is he?
Newt on Hannity’s show tonight at 9:30 pm EST. Tune in.
Very good point -- and I'm going to tell you something now that will make you sick: back before SC and right after SC, I told the super PAC to run ads showing Santorum praising Newt (it was a clip from one of the debates) - praising Newt as his conservative mentor. I said run these ads to start gently peeling off Santorum's voters who think he's the true conservative and as a way to convince Perry, Palin, Bachmann, Cain, etc, supporters to come to Newt.
DAMN I wish they had taken my advice. Had they done that in SC and Florida, I think the race would be totally totally different.
“I would vote in a heart beat for Newt, but he will not be the candidate, and anyone here that says otherwise is just out of touch with reality.”
I find myself wondering more and more if there is actually anything close to resembling ‘reality’ anymore. Reality SEEMS to be what we are TOLD it is, and it is so far from what we have tried to do, so far from what REAL Americans want, I can’t find it anymore.
It’s like that elusive butterfly someone sang about once upon a time.
Heads up friend......He's announcing it on 'Thursday'...no doubt to enhance his election.
Ain't that the truth!...Our nation is all but gone and people have missed the plays in this Primary badly. They took the Santorum 'bait' hook line and sinker.
Too many are ignorant of the Democrates devices..and they have not learned how to tell when in operation. Newt saw it coming right from the get go...and why he had no reservations about calling the media out.
I say on to Convention....and let the blood flow til the last man's standing....and may God in His mercy and grace see fit to rescue this once great land one more time....otherwise...prepare for the fall..
Newt took most Santorum votes in South Carolina anyway, and he won.
And in Florida, Santorum didn’t break 20%, and if you gave Newt every vote Santorum got, Romney still would have won.
So I’m not sure how running an ad with Santorum praising Gingrich would have done much of anything. It’s not like at the time Santorum was a major player. Who really cared in Florida what Santorum thought of Gingrich.
I mean, the one argument that has some degree of accuracy is that Santorum, even with his win in Iowa, was an also-ran candidate, until Newt crashed and burned. Then Santorum was “last man standing”. But that being true, Gingrich had to fight Romney in Florida, not try to gain by using the back-bencher Santorum to try to build himself up. There just wasn’t value in that.
If we are armchair quarterbacking, I think Newt would have done much better if his response to his loss in Iowa hadn’t been to claim he was switching to an all-out negative assault on Romney, and was “sacrificing” himself to take out Romney.
Newt’s biggest positive was that he had managed to STAY positive, to attack only the right people, and to cast himself as the republican uniter.
But when he declared war on Romney, I think it hurt him. Romney’s ads clearly stung as well, but I don’t think they would have gotten as much traction if Gingrich was still “above the fray”. Since Gingrich had declared war, I think the average voter figured “all’s fair in war”.
Of course, that is just my uninformed opinion. I’m not connected enough to suggest to people what to do, much less to think they might listen to my suggestions. ON the positive side, that means I don’t feel regret like you do.
I should think that Perry endorsing Newt would have gotten most Perry supporters on his side, and Palin’s “vote for Newt” messages in SC and Florida should have gotten most of the diehard Palin folks. And it seems clear most Cain folks were on board with Newt from the day Cain left.
I don’t think there were enough Bachmann supporters left to matter.
I agree with most of your assessments, but I do not see this - and never have seen this - as a pure N + R = defeat of Mitt concept. I think a lot of Newt voters would support Mitt and I think a fair number of Santorum voters would also - if either were to go away. Not on FR or on talk radio maybe, but in the general public.
What we do know is this, there is only one state where the campaign was run in a manner that will defeat Obama: and that was SC. In every other state, Mitt has drummed down turn out with his negative assault machine.
That ain’t getting it done in November.
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