Posted on 01/16/2012 2:10:12 PM PST by TBBT
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (CNN) - Newt Gingrich delivered a staunch warning to South Carolina conservatives Monday: "Any conservative who votes for anyone but Newt helps elect a moderate as the nominee."
Gingrich was speaking to a tea party-friendly audience in South Carolina's Horry County when he painted presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney as unelectable in a general election.
"Ask yourself this simple question: Why would you want to nominate the guy who lost to the guy who lost to Obama?"
"The only reason [Romney] is electable right now is because he has raised more money from Wall Street to buy more ads than anybody else in the race, and we're not going to win that game," Gingrich said. "If you count how much money you can raise as the number one test of electability, Obama's going to drown him."
Gingrich has five days to drive home the message that Romney can't beat President Barack Obama. In order to stop the former Massachusetts governor's crushing momentum, Gingrich needs to rally conservatives behind him over competitor Rick Santorum, who has strong evangelical support and has fared better than the former House speaker in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"If you're a conservative, just look at the polls. I am the only candidate capable of stopping a moderate from winning the nomination," said Gingrich.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
I was also wearing sweater vests before they became an issue too. I had no idea they irritated people, judging by the comments here at FR. Just for that, I will have to keep wearing them till I'm dead just to bug people.
Here's some advice. Pick a standard and stick with it. Don't expect Santorum supporters to jump ship in Iowa when Gingrich supporters were unwilling to do so in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“I couldn’t help but notice that personal income tax rates were lower with Baraq Obama as President and Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker than they were when Newt Gingrich was Speaker.”
I’m on your side in this debate but you just crossed the line.
” So long as the methodologies are done right, polls taken with a week of an election tend to accurately portend what the actual outcomes will be, like it or not. “ ... Righhhht... only if your guy Newt is ahead everything is fine... yeah I got it alright...
wow...
You must be on the payroll to come out with such spin of Santorum's epic Senate loss. No, even they wouldn't make that leap.
He shoots, he scores.
Excellent post.
You are so right. Pennsylvanians will vote for Santorum over Obama, especially western Pennsylvanians whom Obama called bitter people clinging to their guns and religion. Gingrich represented a solidly Republican district in Georgia. He never ran or won in a statewide election. Santorum did and beat incumbent Democrats including Harris Wofford, Clinton’s point man on healthcare who was backed in the election against Santorum by Paul Begala and James Carville.
Consider this about Gingrich: He is 68 years old. If he were elected, he would be 69 or 70 when he took office. He’s hardly what you’d call fit looking. He’s starting to look winded and tired in the campaign appearances I’ve seen covered on C-Span. If Gingrich supporters don’t think Democrats would make Gingrich’s age an issue in this election, they’re living in a dream world. Gingrich’s day has come and gone. He should have run for president years ago. He should move on and let younger candidates take over. Santorum is as well informed and smart and is good in debates. He has a law degree and an MBA. He can take on Obama and win. If he were getting half of the media attention that Huntsman has gotten, he’d be the well-known candidate challenging Romney. The fact that he’s done as well as he has with little money and hardly any media attention speaks volumes about his smarts and his ability to connect with people on the stump. Keep his candidacy going, South Carolina!
Epic Senate loss?
really wow...
How about he beat the Carville machine twice?
Newtbots and Santorumbots, etc. Answer me this:
Should one of these two win the nomination, will somebody please tell me the State one of them carries that the other does not? And be specific. I want to know the specific counties and voters in the states you say won’t be carried by one or the other.
In the regards to the Electoral College, it doesn’t matter who the nominee is. Any of the potential nominees (even Romney) would carry all the McCain states. The liberals and concern trolls want to b*tch about AZ being open this year, but Maricopa is still firmly Republican. MT and MO have key Senate races that are potential GOP Pick-ups. And Georgia, even if Romney is the nominee, he’ll carry GA by at least 2-3% points because Obama is too weak an incumbent to capitalize.
Every potential nominee gets IN and NC back rather easily as just picking up McCain’s poor performance in the conservative vote OR improving on the Independent vote in these two states will get the job done.
FL? Where is Gingrich going to outperform Santorum here or vice-versa? McCain got 48%. His red county margins were much lower than Bush, Obama didn’t really pick up any higher percentage in the Blue counties than Kerry, so it was the Indy’s that decided it. But what Indy’s vote this time will be on the GOP side and even if they are not, both Gingrich or Santorum would run higher margins in the Red Counties McCain underperformed. They would also be both looking at potenial running mates from FL for VP. Neither would be shut out from carrying the state.
Then there’s VA and OH. Two different dynamics here. The 215,000 vote margin in Cleveland and the 200,000+ vote margin in Northern Virginia gave Obama his winning margins in both states. That means McCain ran even with Obama in the rest of both states. Bush carried a 371,000 in OH and a 450,000+ margin in VA to offset the lopsided liberal areas. I’ve examined a LOT of counties and can tell you in about 90%+ of the cases, McCain ran 4-5% lower than Bush in the Conservative areas. Both Santorum and Gingrich would pick that up before even having to worry about the Independents. VA is most likely back in the Red column this time around with the Senate race hopefully helping turnout. OH is probably the one true toss-up that will be up for grabs for everyone and depend on whether conservatives turn out or not, like they didn’t with the Union vote a few months ago.
So this garbage about Gingrich or Santorum not being able to defeat Obama is Bullfreep. Both would probably be on their way to 266 Electoral Votes.
The Problem for both is that they need 1 Additional State to get over the hump. Where’s it going to come from: (NH/PA) or (MI/WI/IA) or (NV/CO/NM)? Scratch NH out for both of them, and most likely not even Santorum could carry PA with the Philadelphia machine in force. MI and WI are close, but prospects are still dim. Santorum, meanwhile showed he could actually be competitive in IA, though the GOP base has fled from IA and there might not be enough voters to put either over the top there. NV, like this forum debate consists of a heavily fractured GOP base, where Santorum likely won’t improve on Angle’s numbers, but Gingrich will struggle with the 20% or so libertarian nutcases. Tom Tancredo has made it clear he doesn’t support Gingrich’s illegal immigration stance, while it’s an unknown for Santorum. NM’s got a friendly GOP female Governor with a Hispanic base that might appeal more to Gingrich with his recent “endorsement”.
So enough of this crap. A vote for Santorum is not a vote for Obama. If Santorum gets the big MO, then the other Anti-Romney followers should follow suit. Likewise, a vote for Gingrich is not a vote for Obama, and if he comes out as a clear choice in SC and can actually beat Santorum in an actual vote (not just polls), then he has a case for being the Anti-Romney.
Last comment: Mark Levin has repeatedly said if he had to vote today, he would vote for Santorum. Why Santorum and not Newt? Because, according to Levin, Santorum has been consistent on the issues, conservative and most, and you don’t have to think about where he stands, whereas he referred to Newt as “undisciplined” and even confused as to where Newt stood on various issues based on several conflicting statements. I consider Mark Levin to be one of the foremost experts on conservatism (reminder Ameritopia comes out tomorrow!) and anybody that wants to refer to him as “Stupid”, well I just hope you have the cajones to call him up and tell him that to his earpiece so I can listen to it and LMAO when he puts you in your place.
You are exactly right about Santorum’s defeat. Pennsylvania voters wanted to send Bush a message—change course in Iraq. Before the election of 2006, Bush said he wasn’t going to, that Rumsfield was still his man. So, Pennsylvanians whacked Santorum, the Republican up for re-election whose defeat would wake Bush up. Not only did Bush trash the Republican brand, he wiped out their numbers in the House and Senate. He was a disaster. Good guys like Santorum got caught up in the carnage. Blame Bush, not Santorum for his defeat.
They don't care about Santorum's record or proposals, they're just in love with his "pro family" snake oil salesmanship of nanny state gov't.
Santorum's theocratic bent and troglodyte take on women would destroy him even with many center-right voters, let alone the "independents" who cast the deciding votes in elections.
lol, do you think I got their attention?
Considering that Gingrich isn't a conservative, it looks like Santorum and Perry tied.
Seriously? For defending life and traditional marriage?
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