Kharis13, thank you for noticing the rabbit holes, but Rick wasn’t actually “drawn...off message”. Rick dove, with no provocation, headfirst into deep water and lead with his lip quite all on his own.
Newt has had the issues and the resolutions since the opening gate, IMHO. I am all for Newt trying to take the chaos to convention.
Romney was forced upon us. Rick is upon us because he was hanging around as the only alternative to Uncle Nutty after Romney took out Newt, with cold hard cash in Florida.
That was the same as a cash injection to the Rickster campaign, in an open field where Newt was not running.
And Rick knows this.
Yes he does, the fact is he was never prepared to rise to the top...he was in to further his political career and get all the face time possible. He should have backed off long ago and we'd be seeing Newt take Romney to the cleaners in tall order.
But the dang social conservatives, who've been jumping from one to the other candidates from the get go, were just easily led to Santorum and the media push to get him on the stage for Obama.
The whole thing cascaded from there.