Everyone STOP IT! We are going to win this thing. We want the perfect candidate, isnt going to happen. Buck up and get behind the candidate whomever wins! As far as the “dork” complex of Santorum this could be in our benefit... Dorks are cool too! Calm, boring, patient, loving, is all good things. :)
Thank you GoCards! Thank you!!
Please stop it ya’ll. Santorum is the starkest contrast to Obama that we can offer. He answers questions without flinching with great answers that are inherently very conservative. He is a friend of Israel, knowledgable of foreign affairs, a committed follower of Christ and a believer in the original intent of our Constitution. He is the only one who has said that FREEDOM is the point of this election. He could not be more correct. I have never sent money to a presidential candidate, but I sent him money the other day. Respectfully, if yall think this nation would put Obama back in, you don’t live in the reality I live in. Obama is a flagrant liar and coward and he has fully outed himself as such.
The dork optics are overwhelming. I watched his speech with the daughter and wife behind him, and I cringed. They forced a few smiles and then defaulted to grim American Gothic. The daughter with her small head on enormous body, her face puckered up with the same dyspeptic look her father sports most of the time — “I just swallowed a live squid!” — and the I-smell-something sneer on the wife — these things unfortunately matter a great deal, usually on a subliminal level.
If you doubt it, remember who’s voting: the people who elected Barack Obama.
Style beats substance.
If he gets any further along, Santorum will be attacked on matters of substance, such as he possesses, and that will only make things worse.
I’d sure rather vote for Santorum than skip voting for president because Romney’s on the ballot; but Santorum is just not going to win the nomination. Of that I am certain.
Best reminder yet! Thanks for posting this, C. Edmund Wright. I remember that line and laughing. I was a Reagan supporter back when virtually everyone in the Michigan Republican Party thought nominating him was the kiss of death and we were headed back toward a Goldwater 1964 experience.
Sound bites work... but if not backed up with detail, the speakers fall on their faces.
290 posted on Saturday, February 11, 2012 12:32:49 PM by C. Edmund Wright: “Note: Chuck Norris is coming out with reasons why he does not support Santorum - Monday in World Net Daily. The irony? Norris will be proven more up to speed on Santorum than Rush. Amazing aint’ it?”
I want to read that. We need to know everything we can about every serious candidate for the Republican nomination.
176 posted on Saturday, February 11, 2012 10:38:25 AM by cripplecreek: “I think Santorum is going to yank the Michigan rug out from under Romney.”
I hope you're right.
I've been out of Michigan for a long time, and my “on-the-ground” contacts are now mostly retired, but social issues conservatives and economic conservatives have worked with the Romney family for so long that this would be a massive blow not only to the Romney campaign but to much of the Republican Party leadership in Michigan.
To give an idea how far I go back, my father was the executive director of the Kent County Republican Party (basically metro Grand Rapids) when Gerald Ford was the House Minority Leader, and then moved to a position on the Republican staff for the Michigan House of Representatives while Ford was in the White House. I saw the chaos caused by the rise of the Christian conservative movement in the 1980s, both as an outsider and then from a different perspective when I was converted myself and left secular politics — a decision that today I believe was a major mistake. Let's just say that I personally grew up with and saw things that made me decide a career in secular politics wasn't what I wanted to do with my life, until I realized the hard way that church politics were far nastier, far more vicious, and more laced with sex scandals and financial scandals than anything I saw growing up in a Republican Party leader's home.
I'm a Calvinist and should have known that total depravity affects church politics as much if not worse than secular politics, but apparently I had to learn that the hard way.
The Michigan Republican Party has leaders who are deeply committed to the Romney family and its brand of a moderate emphasis on family values combined with a big focus on the role of government in economic growth and progress. A Santorum win in Michigan means much more than just delivering Romney what might be a knockout blow — it means major changes in the state's Republican Party are underway or will soon come.
45 posted on Saturday, February 11, 2012 8:54:16 AM by GoCards: “Everyone STOP IT! We are going to win this thing. We want the perfect candidate, isn't going to happen. Buck up and get behind the candidate whomever wins! As far as the “dork” complex of Santorum this could be in our benefit... Dorks are cool too! Calm, boring, patient, loving, is all good things. :)”
53 posted on Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:02:42 AM by ohioWfan: “No one who is unabashedly pro-life is ‘inexperienced’ in the fight against evil. Abortion is the single most demonic issue in our culture, and anyone who strongly stands against it publicly is attacked by Satan himself. Don't underestimate Rick's understanding of evil, nor his willingness to fight it.”
Hey, if the worst thing reasonable people can say about you is you wear a sweater vest, and if the nut-case opponents have made the name Santorum synonymous on the internet with the byproducts of anal gay sex, it's pretty hard to argue you can't fight wild-eyed liberal attacks and come out looking fairly good.
As someone said on another thread: “It's time to FEAR THE VEST!!!”
My goal is to defeat Romney in the primary and Obama in the general. I think Santorum may be the one to do it because he can motivate the conservative Christian base voters, has a fighting shot at winning key industrial swing states, and if Obama keeps up his Catholic-bashing, has a real shot at winning Hispanic Roman Catholic voters.
But if Gingrich ends up being the nominee, that's not the end of the world.
It's too early for anyone to drop out yet. In the northern industrial states, Santorum has a better chance at defeating Romney. In the southern states, it's probably Gingrich who has a better shot at Romney. Let's hope that Santorum and Gingrich can work together to get rid of Romney, and then figure out how to work together to defeat Obama.
131 posted on Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:58:57 AM by C. Edmund Wright: “You make a very important and over looked point. Santorum has NOT been vetted. Consider that Chuck Norris understands Santorum better than Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin do. Why? Santorum has been ignored with Newt and Mitt’s ridiculous obsession with each other. I think I can say with some confidence that as the truth of Santorum’s liberal record comes out, you will see Rush and Levin start to back away from him a bit. But a word of warning to Newt’s folks - you damned well better start getting some of this stuff out there now before Levin and Rush become too invested in their love of Santorum to admit they were wrong.”
125 posted on Saturday, February 11, 2012 9:52:27 AM by LuvFreeRepublic: “I am not out to destroy Santorum. Santorum has not been vetted and he needs to be. If he can't get past conservatives/Republicans he will not get past Obama. FACT.”
I'm not disagreeing that Santorum needs more vetting. While I'm going to delete the swear words, I agree with C. Edmund Wrights’ “word of warning to Newt’s folks (to) start getting some of this stuff out there now before Levin and Rush become too invested in their love of Santorum to admit they were wrong.”
HOWEVER... Santorum has been a national target of the pro-abortionists and the radical gay movement for many, many years. He's also run for office and won office repeatedly in a left-of-center pro-Democrat state. Let's not minimize that. If there were anything **REALLY** horrible in his background, we'd know.
I think whatever gets dug up in the vetting process will be more damaging to Santorum in the Republican primary race than in the general election.
My guess is the worst stuff out there is going to be directly connected with his commitment to Roman Catholicism. Let's be honest here: the Roman Catholic bishops have taken stances which most evangelicals like on abortion and gay marriage, but there are important differences not only with evangelicals but also with secular conservatives on key political issues such as capital punishment and unfettered capitalism.
A practicing Roman Catholic and a conservative evangelical Protestant can't just be lumped into the same group as amorphous “social issues conservatives.” I'm willing to vote for a Roman Catholic, but I do so knowing that the Roman Catholic is condemned by the confessions of my church, is barred from communion in my church as I am barred from taking communion as his, and if faithful to the teachings of his church, he will disagree with me on some very important political issues related to capital punishment and capitalism.
I cannot and will not blame Rick Santorum for being faithful to the teachings of his church. If we want somebody whose church supports family values and unfettered capitalism, that guy's name is neither Gingrich nor Santorum, and that guy's church is based in Utah, not Rome. Sorry, but I'll put up with some Roman Catholic views of “compassionate conservatism” that I don't like rather than deal with Romney's problems.