Posted on 12/28/2011 3:59:52 PM PST by markomalley
Two politically active pastors in Iowa's robust evangelical conservative movement said Wednesday that an effort has been under way to persuade either Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann to consider quitting the Republican presidential race and endorsing the other to avoid splintering this influential voting bloc's influence in the state's caucuses.
"Otherwise, like-minded people will be divided and water down their impact," said Rev. Cary Gordon, a Sioux City minister. He said he asked Santorum several weeks ago to consider exiting the race but has since endorsed the former Pennsylvania senator, who is rising in polls. Rev. Albert Calloway, a retired pastor from Indianola, said he too asked Santorum several days ago to consider quitting the race.
A group of voters that united behind former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's winning caucus campaign in 2008 fear that this year's caucuses could be won by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. Neither track as closely to the religious right as Santorum, Bachmann or Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Santorum, long dismissed and short on campaign money, has diligently campaigned in Iowa for more than two years. A CNN poll of Iowa caucusgoers released Wednesday showed Santorum leaping into third place in Iowa, at 16 percentage points, behind Romney and Paul.
(Excerpt) Read more at old.news.yahoo.com ...
How about pushing Mitt and Newt to quit and endorse a conservative. Throw in pushing Paul to quit while we’re at it...
Sounds like a great idea! now if we can just get Santorum and Bachmann to both quit and endorse Gingrich we can end Romney’s dream of being the first president with magic underware.
A third or fourth place finish by either Bachmann or Santorum will not do them as much good as it would for Perry.
Perry is the only one with the money to continue and he even has the better record.
Bachmann is open to the idea:
If anyone wants to merge and fold into my campaign, were more than delighted to have them come in, but after all theres been one statewide election in this race so far, its been the Iowa Straw Poll. Im the only one thats won of all the candidates, Bachmann said.
Now all we need is for Santorum, Perry and Newt to drop out of the race.
The candidate for conservatives to coalesce around is Rick Santorum.
These little self-annointed kingmakers have a very high opinion of themselves and their “precious” Iowa Caucuses, don’t they?
Frankly, the whole thing has degenerated into a total farce, when someone as bats___ crazy as Ron Paul has a realistic chance of finishing ahead of a former Speaker of the House and a sitting Texas Governor.
I don’t give a rat’s ass who wins Iowa. It won’t matter in the long run.
Amen! The only truly conservative candidate in the race.
Iowa is not the only fraud. New Hampshire is also a joke because the liberals will be more than happy to vote in our primary.
Whoever quits 1st is the more worthy.
Well since we can’t even get the first 10 FReepers on this thread to agree around which candidate to coalesce, I don’t expect Bachmann or Santorum to agree to this.
chicagotribune.com
GOP elite divided against itself
Conservative establishment getting vilified
Jonah Goldberg
December 28, 2011
I’ve made a disturbing discovery: I am a member of the conservative “establishment.” I feel like Michael Douglas at the end of “Falling Down”: “I’m the bad guy?”
Largely in response to the real and perceived excesses of the Bush years and the overreach of the Obama administration, the base has become more populist. In particular, the rank and file of the GOP and the conservative movement have become deeply disenchanted with what they see as the rubber-spined, foot-dragging quislings drinking from a trough of Chablis at some Georgetown party. The term “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) has become an epithet of ideological enforcement, spit out in much the same way Mao cursed “running dog capitalists.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-1228-goldberg-20111228,0,6466279,print.column
There really are no conservative candidates in the race, there’s a mostly classical libertarian and the rest are current renditions of Abe (the liar) Lincoln’s party, the odious Whigs now known as Neo or Statist or Progressive Republicans. The concentration should be on getting strong Constitutional Republicans aka Classical Liberal-Conservatives into the House and Senate in the 2012 and 2014 elections. The Imperial Presidency must be contained and a majority in both houses would be good start.
People should reconsider Perry. He is pro-family, pro-business, pros-life and has been misrepresented on the immigration issue.
this is a good argugment for the GOP to follow the dems and have a 2nd rd with only those got got above 15%.
That way if say one of Perry/Santorum/Bachmann/Gingrich got 17% but was still behind Paul and Romney and the others got say 13, 11 and 10, then in the 2nd rd the one who got 17% could pick them all up and win.
Agreed.
Of the available field, Santorum is the only one left who can gather enough steam to win.
No conservative wants Mitt.A RINO McCain type re-run, foisted on the electorate by RINO Party “leadership”. No, but thanks anyway!
Everyone over fifty knows Gingrich can't win, nor do we grass roots Republicans want him anywhere near power in this century.
Ron Paul is not conservative nor is he a Republican.
He is a Ross Perot type candidate, who has progressed via media machinations to spoiler status at the Republican primary level.Not just no, but Hell No!
I can’t wait until the Iowa Caucus is over. Its a minor primary with little real bearing on who will win the GOP nod.
It just has to work itself out. We should all vote for the person who seems like the best candidate to us BUT no matter who wins, WE HAVE TO GET OUT AND VOTE FOR THE REPUBLICAN THAT GETS THE NOMINATION! We can squabble all we want but we cannot afford to stay home and pout if another guy wins otherwise we will have FOUR MORE YEARS OF AN AMERICAN HATING MARXIST!
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