Posted on 01/31/2012 3:37:09 PM PST by VinL
Fresh on the heels of announcing January fundraising numbers in excess of $4 million, Rick Santorum's presidential campaign announced a new television ad that will begin airing Tuesday in Colorado and Nevada.
The ad attacks Newt Gingrich as being too liberal for the GOP nomination by arguing that he shares many policy positions with President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
"All three supported radical cap and trade legislation that would destroy American jobs and drive up energy costs. All three supported giving illegal aliens some form of amnesty. All three sported the government health mandates which take away our freedom and is the core of ObamaCare. And all three of these politician's supported the Wall Street bailouts that was a slap in the face to the Tea Party," the narrator says.
It goes on to refer to the trio as "cap and trade loving, bailout supporting, soft on immigration, big-government mandating politicians."
The commercial is a sharp indictment of Gingrich, with whom Santorum has split more conservative voters in early primary contests. But the ad does little to attack Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican front-runner who is expected to lead in Nevada polling.
"Rick Santorum for President: he doesn't just talk a good conservative game, he lives it," the narrator says.
Nevada will caucus Feb. 4, with Colorado voters gathering 3 days later at caucus sites across that state.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I’d prefer if a candidate did nothing but talk about what they will do, and contrast it with what their opponents say they will do. But virtually everybody else here seems very focused on past positions of other candidates, and it’s hard to see how you don’t run advertisements about what your opponents did in the past and still meet that desire.
If you believe that Romney has a ceiling when opposed by a candidate without significant negative baggage, politically the winning strategy may be to convince the electorate to support you instead of another candidate who has their own ceiling. I don’t know if that is really a winning strategy, but it might be.
But I don’t want you to think I endorse this ad, which I haven’t been able to watch (I can’t listen to it now). I don’t know if this ad will help Santorum where it is running. But for those who believe Santorum has a higher ceiling of support than Newt (I don’t know that, but I can’t refute it), getting people to let go of Newt and embrace Santorum may be the ONLY way to beat Romney.
One thing I’m sure of. If when this is all done, Romney has won, and Gingrich has lost, many of the people in this thread will blame former Romneybots, Santorum, the media, the GOP-E, and anybody else they can think of. They will not ever think back and wonder if those who supported Santorum were right, and Gingrich was never going to win — they’ll assert that Gingrich “could” have won if not for what everybody else did.
Anyway, I’m done in this thread. I think I’ve explained the pro-Santorum argument sufficiently, and I doubt I’m going to convince any Gingrich supporters to stop attacking Santorum and slandering him as some are here. It’s just the way some people here think arguments are won. Hard to believe it works for them in real life.
Romney wants Santorum in the race.
Gingrich wants him out, let’s use Gingrich’s expertise and insider view of the campaign and support him on this.
As a romneybot, you using Santorum for your ends is just par for the course. Years of your never ending Romney efforts are more than tiring.
Santorum endorsing Mitt Romney is astounding, Rick’s whole hook is supposed to be as the most holy candidate, then we find him endorsing a man of evil, a stealer of Christian souls, a cult leader, a passionate pro-abortion radical, a true radical for the homosexual agenda.
No offense, but what you’re doing is a meaningless, static analysis. Santorum is able to draw votes away when Newt’s taken out of the poll because he has almost never been the target of negative ads in this campaign. When you compare Santorum and Newt on a level playing field, Newt runs away with it. Just compare where Newt was in early December before the Iowa attack ads started. He was ready to run away with the election. We don’t know how Santorum would fare under a negative ad assault, but there is EVERY reason to believe he would lose a lot of support under that assault. So the fact that a clean Santorum only performs a little better in the polls you selected against a bloodied and battered Newt shows that Newt has a lot more intrinsic strength.
As I said, you can’t instantly remove Santorum and expect Newt to start running away with the election. Newt needs to have a good campaign and good ads, and he doesn’t seem to have accomplished that yet. A two-man race between Mitt and anybody else would leave the opponent the target of negative ads and at a big disadvantage. Newt has shown at least off-and-on resilience in weathering that storm. We don’t know how Santorum would fare, but he did lose big in his last big election, and there is every reason to believe he would drop in the polls the same way Newt did under the barrage in Iowa and Florida.
So, bottom line, your analysis fails to factor in that in a two-man race between Santorum and Mitt, Santorum would be exposed to a big negative ad campaign that he has not yet been subject to in this race. That would surely worsen his standing in the polls and my estimation is he would be less able to withstand that barrage than Newt. Newt had truly GREAT moments in South Carolina that few other candidates have come close to in recent memory, so he has some powerful strengths that have given him resilience under some of Mitt’s attacks.
Santorum ripped Romney(care) in the DEBATE, and it was HUGE!
Debates matter - that’s how Newt won SC.
Also, if voters are stupid enough to make Romney the nominee, which I doubt, Romney would pick RUBIO, imo, and here’s why:
http://lonelyconservative.com/2010/04/romney-endorses-rubio-rubio-defends-romney-care/
Cafeteria Christians.
Gingrich wants him out — that’s your argument? Gingrich is an opponent. Of course he wants him out. It could well be that Santorum being out would help Gingrich win in the end — I certainly can’t say it wouldn’t. But Gingrich wants to win, and certainly Gingrich believes he’ll have a better chance of winning if Santorum is gone. Santorum thinks the country is better off with him in the race, and while you are easily dismissive of him, I’m guessing his supporters take Santorum more seriously than Gingrich’s “insider” view.
That doesn’t mean Romney has a better chance of LOSING if Santorum is gone. Because there is still a chance Santorum could win, and that won’t happen if Santorum quits.
Since you seem to know who everybody endorsed in 2008, who did Gingrich endorse? It’s a serious question, I can’t find it on the web, but I’m guessing he endorsed somebody, and apparently we are supposed to care.
“He’s not who I thought he was, and he’s not worthy.”
Ditto.
Rubio has blown it with conservatives.
I really want to know more about this. How could Santorum do this.
Santorum is too obscure to have ever been well known to me, my image of him was as the super Christian candidate.
Now I learn this, now he is accused of being a Romney stalking horse, he even has our top romneybot ranting and raving in his defense, plastering the threads with long posts to help Romney and his stalking horse.
Santorum endorsing Mitt Romney is astounding, Rick’s whole hook is supposed to be as the most holy candidate, then we find him endorsing a man of evil, a stealer of Christian souls, a cult leader, a passionate pro-abortion radical, a true radical for the homosexual agenda.
I’m disappointed with Rubio, but he still has done way more good than bad, and I think he is just being loyal because Romney helped him. Kind of like Palin did for McCain out of loyalty.
I think we’re finding out, more and more, none of them are perfect. :)
Santorum endorsed Romney because he thought he was better than McCain, only 6 days before Romney dropped out - talk about endorsing someone at the last minute. Not exactly an enthusiastic endorsement.
DeMint also endorsed Romney, but I don’t know at what point in time. I have an idea, as we learn about Romney, DeMint, et al would/does not think as much of Romney now.
Well I’m glad you pointed that out but I said nothing about supporting Newt so don’t blow a gasket. I don’t care what Newt did I am pointedly talking about Santorum. All this talk of him being the “only” Conservative in the race needed to deflated as it’s pointedly not true. So there was no need for a knee jerk reaction from a Santorum bot.
Read my tagline to see who I am voting for these days.
We are not finding out who isn’t perfect, we are finding out who is the enemy.
This is an election between the left and the right, Rubio picked his team, and it was the opposing team, the anti-Reagan, Romney/Rockefeller wing of the GOP.
Don’t compare that betrayal of Rubio’s to the 2008 Presidential ticket not turning on itself for the following mid-term election.
The only reason I might be voting “none of the above” is because I can only vote for Paul or Romney. I’m not voting for Romney, but I’ll have trouble voting for Paul. I might go to vote, sign the book, and then leave — hoping they notice.
I don’t care about Demint, I care about defeating mitt Romney.
Santorum endorsed a man of evil, a stealer of Christian souls, a cult leader, a passionate pro-abortion radical, a true radical for the homosexual agenda.
Yet Santorum plays super Christian, holier than thou, his supporters cite Newt being a divorced man as the reason that they prefer Santorum the Romney endorser, and then Bishop Romney himself, over the historical Reagan conservative figure.
excellent observation
Rick doesn’t attack on personal issues, like Romney does, but be prepared - he WILL attack on ISSUES.
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Fair enough so where are his attack ads against Romney’s liberal positions on the issues especially his flip flipping on abortion and funding of Planned Parenthood under Romneycare.
As opposed to Gingrich’s almost perfect voting record on libe issues and his lifetime rating by the ACU.
Santorum is a skunk.
Charles, you haven't explained the pro-Santorum argument at all. You spun out a string of head-scratching justifications for doing so, but that's about it.
You went from preferring to ignore the candidates' records, and simply have them fight it out based upon who can deliver the best campaign promises, to telling me that it would be more logical for the supporters of the candidate in second place to turn their votes over to the guy in third place.
Excuse me, but that whole post sounds like something you wrote after your third glass of wine.
Oh really? And what effect did said ripping have on the Florida vote?
I am an “anybody but Newt” guy, but if Newt wins the nomination, I will support him 100%. 2012 has to be about beating Obama. I think that Gingrich’s negatives are just too high to beat Obama. As for Santorum being part of the Romney gameplan, I doubt it. I actually think Santorum has a chance of winning. At some point, social conservatives have to realize that Gingrich can’t do it and the only alternative is Santorum. Don’t Republicans still believe that character matters.
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