Posted on 04/13/2012 10:18:18 AM PDT by Josh Painter
Rick Santorum dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday. Almost to a column, editorial and news account, the analysis centered on Santorum’s somewhat successful capture of conservative voters.
And there lies the mystery. How could a man seemingly so opposite of conservative have entranced so many voters who label themselves just that?
The easy answer is that as someone who made his religion such a prominent part of his campaign strategy... religious types who tend toward conservatism perhaps felt they’d found their man.
[...]
Indeed, if we ignore for a moment how very anti-conservative it is for any candidate to coddle certain commercial sectors, the simple truth is that to the extent that manufacturing jobs were ever glorious (a big reach on its own considering the proud history of sons and daughters of factory workers moving away from manufacturing locales), the very investors whose capital creates those jobs feel it’s yesterday’s news. That investors no longer value factory work explains why they migrated to China, and why a rising China has begun to similarly shed those jobs. For Santorum to then say he’ll bring them back not only smacks of a controlling, central planning gene, but it also speaks to a candidate divorced from reality in the economic sense. If Santorum were to actually succeed in reducing the manufacturing tax rate to zero, this wouldn’t alter the all-important investor perception of work that is no longer valued from a labor-intensive point of view.
Happily Santorum’s candidacy is in the rear-view mirror. Not so happy, however, is what his candidacy said about the beliefs of conservatives. If Santorum was truly their guy, it seems a movement once animated by the sunny, economically advanced dynamism of Ronald Reagan has taken a giant, impoverishing leap backwards.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Newt is a party man and always has been. You people are crazy if you think a Republican can back a 3rd party candidate against one of their own and have any future in the party. That’s signing their own death warrant. What you’re basically asking then is why Newt didn’t leave the Republican party forever over Dede. Not gonna happen, not worth it. Newt also always believed you have to back some RINOs in districts where there’s no chance a pure conservative can win, which is pragmatic and accurate. Even the Tea Party acknowledged this when they backed Scott Brown.
If Perry stayed in, I'd vote for him. Santorum wasn't perfect, but better than Romney, and Newt's changed his mind too much for me although if he lead the state polls, I'd vote for him.
I will never back or support a RINO - especially a liberal progressive like Romney. Newt is a party man, he has to. I am not a party man. The Republican Party can go to hell as far as I am concerned.
I agree with you, but for a conservative in the party running for office, they want to be able to hold onto power to try and influence the party in the right direction. It is understandable for them to go along with the party because they need to stay in there and use their power to influence it. If Newt doesn’t win but can influence the platform at the convention, that’s better than him just dropping out and having no influence.
I won’t back a RINO for president, but president is different from one member in one narrow district in a deep blue state. You back those people knowing you won’t have their vote on everything but knowing half a loaf is better than none.
Now I'm getting pissed off. This little fairy doesn't get it. Factory work isn't glorious. It's hard work, and this John Tammy elitist ass wouldn't last a day in the factory. Factory jobs are a way for high school grads to make a living and take care of their families. It's not a way to get rich, although it's possible with multiple jobs and good investment decisions with the money earned from the factory. I wouldn't be where I am at as a business owner if it wasn't for the hard work of factory workers like my dad.
Those "investors" also have no loyalty to this country what-so-ever.
Newt has a trophy case full of conservative achievements that Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney couldn’t even dream about.
Newt took back the House as the public face of the Republican party in 1994 after 40 years out of power. That came with enough momentum to keep them in power for 12 years.
Newt fought behind the scenes throughout the ‘80s against people like Bob Dole, who he called the “tax collector for the welfare state,” to keep the Republican party platform conservative, anti-tax and anti-communist.
Newt stood up to Bush Sr.’s pledge to raise taxes, publically denouncing his plan and drawing the ire of the party elites. The desire to punish him for this courageous act of speaking conservative truth to Republican power remains one of the top reasons the party has tried to sabotage his presidential campaign.
Newt forced Clinton to pass balanced budgets and welfare reform. He paid down the national debt rather than add to it.
Newt’s stewardship over the government’s purse strings coincided with a national economic boom.
Newt came one vote away from passing a balanced budget amendment that would have prevented the entire fiscal crisis we’re in now.
Newt sent partial-birth abortion bans to Clinton which were vetoed, but laid the groundwork for them to be passed under Bush.
Newt along with Reagan are the two great conservative leaders of the last 30 years. They didn’t just talk on TV or the radio, they got concrete results and made things happen, facing up to all of the spiteful and hateful scrutiny that comes from the opposition when you take bold stands like that.
Newt is a man who stood for the same conservative principles for decades and has the record to back it up.
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