If Santorum was hammered with the same amount of negative and FALSE ads that Newt was, Santorum would have lost by probably even more. Romney’s lies WILL catch up to him (”resigned in disgrace” is an absolute, bald-faced LIE and that is the main angle that worked for Romney here). He cannot win the presidency if he continues down this path of lying. Conservatives will abandon him and if he pulled anything like that on Obama, the media will destroy him with it.
Newt with Romney’s money is by far a stronger candidate than Romney with Romney’s money. Romney has lost states despite outspending his rivals. Newt has won states while being outspent.
Romney is POISON in the general election. Absolute POISON. The Bain Capital stuff alone will destroy him in an economy racked with unemployment.
Deceptive campaign tactics often never “catch up” to the candidate.
Do you think Gingrich is going to suffer at all from his Robocalls which claimed that Romney forced Holocaust survivors to eat non-Kosher meals? There was no truth at all to that one, but it will be forgotten.
Is Santorum vulnerable to negative Ads? Maybe, maybe not. If it was that easy, no candidate would ever win. Some candidates are less effected by negative advertising. We’ll know if it happens.
In any case, if the claim is that while Gingrich has been destroyed by negative ads, so we can’t switch to Santorum because he could have the same thing happen to him, it’s not much comfort.
In Florida, if every Santorum voter voted for Gingrich, Gingrich would still lose. Santorum didn’t cost Gingrich Florida, Gingrich just couldn’t get enough votes.
Maybe Gingrich will come back, and if he does, there may be a time it is clear Gingrich can win and then the Santorum supporters may accept that. Arguing after a drubbing in Florida that Santorum has to quit for Gingrich, or trying to win Santorum freepers by slandering their candidate, don’t seem like winning lines of argument.
Give it a few days. See how things shake out. There’s a couple of caucuses this weekend, lets see who wins those. Lets see how Santorum does in the Missouri primary. Lets see if Paul can steal Maine from Romney. Lets see if Gingrich does better in the next few contests.