Posted on 01/15/2012 5:30:14 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
- Rick Santorum delivered a stark warning to South Carolina voters Saturday, telling them Mitt Romney is a sure loser in November if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee.
"Don't buy all this baloney that we need a moderate to win," Santorum told about 200 people gathered at Tommy's Country Ham House in Greenville. "We need someone with strong core convictions who is going to appeal to the voters in the states we need to win and that's not him. That's us."
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, has trained his fire on Romney at stop after stop as he campaigns across the Palmetto State ahead of the January 21 primary.
But his sharp criticisms seemed to carry a fresh sense of urgency Saturday.
"The establishment is trying to ram down the people of South Carolina's and everybody else's throat Gov. Romney, as if he is inevitable," Santorum said.
He said Barack Obama would "destroy" Romney in the general election because he does not represent a "bold and courageous" contrast to the president.
Santorum cited the Romney-designed Massachusetts health care plan, which was a model for Obama's plan, as an example.
"Why would we pick someone who has had a record that as a liberal governor of Massachusetts to lead our country at a time we need fundamental change?" he asked.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
Excellent analysis. I’m not sure Romney incorporates absolutely every leftist stereotype about Republicans though.
I held my nose and voted for Ford, held my nose and voted for McCain, don’t want to have to do that with Romney. Republicans will stay home and he will lose. I don’t think that he has said he will repeal Obamacare and our nominee HAS to say that and mean it to win. Go Santorum!
I wonder if Arlen will endorse him? He stabbed the movement in the back.
Unfortunately Santorum and most Republicans do not yet understand why Romney would really lose to Obama. This election was supposed to be about putting Obama on trial, which it would be with any of the non-Romney candidates. But with Romney, it won’t be. It will be about putting “private equity” firms like Bain Capital and Wall Street itself on trial. Romney used the Alinsky-ite tactic of accusing his opposition of the same things he was guilty of to try to misdirect people. But if Newt Gingrich has a couple suitcases worth of “baggage” as Romney claims, then Romney has enough baggage to fill the JFK International Airport.
The list of witnesses for the mainstream media to interview for this trial will be endless. 140 firms were acquired by Bain in the 15 years Romney was there, many of which went bankrupt due to Bain’s driving them into debt for the purpose of extracting fees for themselves. Many of the firms that did not go bankrupt were still badly weakened by Bain’s practices. All those laid-off employees and all of the firm managers will be rolled out to criticize how Romney managed them. One economist after another will be there to explain why the “private equity” model that was invented by Romney in the ‘80s is little more than a corporate shell game for Bain to steal free money from lenders and let the government bail them out on their losses. There will be nothing stopping the media from investigating other “private equity” acquisitions done by companies other than Bain and creating an association between Bain and the whole industry. It won’t be entirely unfair, since Romney is the one who pioneered this business model which others went on to imitate.
The Republicans will be put in the miserable position of defending the corrupt Bain business model, putting them into the position of defending Wall Street high finance, something that almost no potential voters who didn’t graduate from the Ivy Leagues admire. The uncharismatic Romney will simply come off as a sleazeball whether he tries to defend his business or apologize for it. Remember when Martin Short played that sleazy businessman on SNL in the ‘80s (the “I’m not being defensive!” guy)?* That’s exactly how Romney is going to look when he’s backed into a corner by these accusations.
A Romney nomination is a nightmare scenario for our party and for the country. It has the makings of a 49-state sweep for Obama (all except Utah). Once the Republican party is drawn into defending Romney’s rip-off artistry at Bain, they will tarnish their brand name so badly that they will be sure to lose the House as well.
*Here’s one of the Martin Short clips where he plays the sleazy businessman Nathan Thurm. This is the classic corporate stereotype Hollywood trots out and they would love to be able to associate Republicans with this type of guy even more than they’ve been able to do before. It’s funny how similar his nervous mannerisms are to Romney in some of his interviews like the Brett Baier interview. Just look at this guy and realize this is exactly what people in blue collar industrial states like my home state of Pennsylvania see when they look at guys like Romney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc2o8ywKqos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98MNisZJyFI
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5999248/60_minutes/ (at 3:00)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/281899/saturday-night-live-nathan-thurm
http://www.hulu.com/watch/273989/saturday-night-live-nathan-thurm
http://www.hulu.com/watch/273992/saturday-night-live-nathan-thurm
http://www.hulu.com/watch/273978/saturday-night-live-nathan-thurm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLBQxk72NY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mK907DpKU
I partially agree with you. Everything you say about Romney is true, he is the weakest candidate running in the Republican primaries. I won’t vote for him in the Republican primary no matter what. At the same time, Obama’s record is so bad and such a large portion of the public is catagorically against him, Romney is guaranteed at least 45% of the popular vote on the basis of that alone. Perhaps he could win a general election if he plays his cards right (choosing a good conservative running mate would help). But we can avoid all that risk by choosing someone better.
I won’t vote for Romney in the Republican primary under any circumstances. If he’s the nominee and he chooses an establishment RINO as a running mate, there’s a good chance I’ll vote third party in the general.
That was a selfless and generous thing for you to do. Would you like to be on my ping list?
I’m not as selfless/generous as I would like to be, but would love to be on your ping list.
Romney’s history at Bain is a real big problem and we are already seeing that Obama will paint him a an uncaring rich white millionaire.
I support Perry. He’s got a humble background growing up on his father’s tenant farm. He volunteer for the USAF, really supports the 2nd and 10th Amendments and doesn’t have the Washington DC baggage like some of the others.
I also trust him to reduce the size of the federal government, get the US energy independent and reform the tax code. I see him as the candidate that can bring real needed change to Washington and repair the damage done by Obama!
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