Posted on 02/13/2012 10:25:00 PM PST by Steelfish
FEBRUARY 13, 2012 Santorum’s Turn By The Editors
At the moment Rick Santorum appears to be overtaking Newt Gingrich as the principal challenger to Mitt Romney. Santorum has won more contests than Gingrich (who has won only one), has more delegates, and leads him in the polls. In at least one poll, he also leads Romney. It isn’t yet a Romney–Santorum contest, but it could be headed that way.
We hope so. Gingrich’s verbal and intellectual talents should make him a resource for any future Republican president. But it would be a grave mistake for the party to make someone with such poor judgment and persistent unpopularity its presidential nominee.
It is not clear whether Gingrich remains in the race because he still believes he could become president next year or because he wants to avenge his wounded pride: an ambiguity that suggests the problem with him as a leader. When he led Santorum in the polls, he urged the Pennsylvanian to leave the race. On his own arguments the proper course for him now is to endorse Santorum and exit.
Santorum has been conducting himself rather impressively in his moments of triumph and avoiding characteristic temptations. He is doing his best to keep the press from dismissing him as merely a “social-issues candidate.” His recent remark that losing his Senate seat in 2006 taught him the importance of humility suggests an appealing self-awareness.
And he has rightly identified the declining stability of middle-class families as a threat to the American experiment, even if his proposed solutions are poorly designed. But sensible policies, important as they are, are not the immediate challenge for his candidacy. Proving he can run a national campaign is.
Romney remains the undramatic figure at the center of the primaries’ drama. Lack of enthusiasm for him...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Newt first choice.(I never thought I would ever say that)
Santorum second choice, (just to see how bad romney is) Ron Paul 3rd.
Agree totally. NRO and the RINO’s know that Mitt has been gifted with an early primary calendar full of states stacked in his favor- several home states for him as well as heavily Mormon states, including two of them, Arizona and Michigan, upcoming on the very same day. Skipping the South almost entirely in the first couple months and doing everything possible to muzzle the conservative base. It’s not even slightly representative of the national picture, and it’s all done to help Mitt conceal his weaknesses and the fact that the rank-and-file of the party thorough despise him. NRO and the RINO’s were hoping that Mitt could win all the early states and knock out the true conservatives before the grass-roots in the heartland had a chance to express their preferences. Yet even with this handicap Mitt managed to squander his advantage and lose more states than he won.
That’s why the NRO and other hacks are desperate for Newt to drop out by Super Tuesday, because they know that Mitt’s ridiculous primary calendar handicap comes to an end in March, and after that it’s all downhill for the Romney campaign, no longer able to hide their weaknesses and put up this dog-and-pony show for an uncritical media. With the Southern states finally getting their say on Super Tuesday and beyond, the primary shifts back to Newt’s turf, where his organization, deep roots and national profile give him the edge and where conservatives will finally have their say in the numbers they deserve. Santorum doesn’t yet have the organization or ground game in the South to thrash Mitt there and so without Newt, Romney’s shills could just focus their resources on taking out Santorum and stifling the conservative voice before even half the states have spoken. But Newt is Mitt’s nemesis there, also what makes Newt the strongest candidate nationally- capable of firing up the base and attracting conservatives to the polls which is why his popular vote total is so strong, a tough debater, a tenacious bulldog of a fighter. That’s the only type of candidate who wins major elections, which scares the RINO’s silly. So with Santorum scoring wins across the Midwest and then Newt feeding off his strength in the South- and the two of them also picking off some states in the West and possibly Northeast- Romney and the RINO’s plan to preemptively muzzle the conservative voice is thwarted.
That’s the worst nightmare for Mitt Romney and the RINO’s, because they know that Mitt is toast once the South and the country as a whole finally get their say in what’s so far been a ridiculously unrepresentative and Mitt-friendly series of primaries. Romney is in for a string of humiliating defeats come March, one painful disaster after the other. So sorry to burst your bubble NRO, but we’re not stupid. Newt will make sure that conservatives in the South and other regions of the country are able to have their voice, to loudly reject Mitt and the RINO agenda and to restore conservatism at the top of the ticket.
We need to see the best possible split of votes-delegates.
I’d even vote for Ron Paul in Virginia (the only other choice Republican voters have there on March 6th) to keep delegates away from Romney in hopes of a brokered convention.
Newt still has the lead in Georgia and will be competitive in deep South states at least. Alabama and Mississippi will vote on March 13th.
Santorum doesn’t have the resources to fight in all the Super Tuesday states on March 6th. He doesn’t have a full delegate slate in Tennessee.
NRO must be trying to help Romney by forcing Newt out.
Looks like nothing but a popularity poll. No questions about which candidate has the best plans or is most qualified. And just to skew the results even further, they oversampled women by a 10% margin and the age group of 45 - 65 by an even bigger margin.
So the poll was rigged against Newt by oversampling vindictive middle-aged harpies who will hold Newt’s marital indiscretions against him even though at 68 years old his philandering days are over.
I’m with you. A vote for either Willard or Dullard would waste the opportunity for real reform of DC.
The National Review editorial crew has been a disgrace from the beginning of this electoral campaign and thus became irrelevant.
I don’t think that Mr.Speaker Gingrich cares about their opinion or even read their site these days. And he would be right to ignore the sellouts of the “Republicans Only In Name” corrupted gang.
I also think that if Newt is not the nominee, after the probable defeat in November of ANY of the other GOP establishment nominees facing Barack Obama, the Republican party will implode, achieving its gigantic hara-kiri suicide.
Four years more of Obama is the announced death of the Constitution and the people’s rights protected by it, first of all freedom of opinion and faith. Americans have a few months to decide if they want or no to live in a free country.
I’ve already seen some of that regarding the independents.
-- LANCE MORROW, 'NEWT GINGRICH'S WORLD', Dec. 25, 1995
http://uprootedphilosopher.blogspot.com/2011/10/time-mag-man-of-year-1995.html
So if you don't get your way you're just going to stay on the sidelines and pout? Or just revel in your proxy vote for Obama?
I’m not buying that line of argument anymore.
The way I see it, if the country wants mediocrity... let them have it. I won’t be involving myself in it anymore.
Quotes From Newt Gingrich book ‘To Renew America’:
“Six challenges for a prosperous, free, and safe America
Let me outline the six major changes that I believe are necessary to leave our children with an America that is prosperous, free, and safe:
1. We must reassert and renew American civilization. Until we re-establish a legitimate moral-cultural standard, our civilization is at risk.
2. We must accelerate America’s entry into the Third Wave Information Age. Second only to renewing our civilization is making the intellectual investment necessary to understand these changes and harness them to our lasting advantage.
3. We must rethink our competition in the world market. We want our labor to add the highest value so that we can be the most effective competitor on earth.
4. We must replace the welfare state with an opportunity society.
5. We must replace our centralized, micro-managed, Washington-based bureaucracy with a dramatically decentralized system more appropriate to a continent-wide country.
6. We musty be honest about the cost of government programs and balance the federal budget.”
“Our civilization is a shared opportunity to pursue happiness
We have gone from being a strong, self-reliant, vigorous society to a pessimistic one that celebrates soreheads and losers jealous of others’ successes. I came out of my two years of reviewing American history convinced that our first need is to rediscover the values we have lost. In my reading, I found five basic principles that I believe form the heart of our civilization:
The common understanding we share about who we are and how we came to be
The ethic of individual responsibility
The spirit of entrepreneurial free enterprise
The spirit of invention and discovery
Pragmatism and the concern for craft and excellence.”
“On Principles & Values: Culture of irresponsibility began in 1965
We must reassert and renew American civilization. From the arrival of English-speaking colonists in 1607 until 1965, there was one continuous civilization built around a set of commonly accepted legal and cultural principles. From the Jamestown colony and the Pilgrims, through de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, up to Norman Rockwell’s paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, there was a clear sense of what it meant to be an American.
Our civilization is based on a spiritual and moral dimension. It emphasizes personal responsibility as much as individual rights. Since 1965, however, there has been a calculated effort by cultural elites to discredit this civilization and replace it with a culture of irresponsibility that is incompatible with American freedoms as we have known them.
Our first task is to return to teaching Americans about America and teaching immigrants how to become Americans. Until we re-establish a legitimate moral-cultural standard, our civilization is at risk.”
Like I will would never vote for GOP E romney, I won’t vote for his butt boy either. I’ve said never again and nothing has changed.
Enjoy your pout.
Of course it is. This helps rick, thus romney. The GOP E hates Newt. Newt IS the conservative in this race.
And notice their praise of slick rick? It's above the paygrade of his supporters to 'get it'.
Haven’t you figured out YET that the so-called “polls” goal is ONLY to influence the voters’ choice?
That’s why they are releasing dozens of polls per day. The media invented a frightful concept - electability. “Don’t vote for your candidate ‘cos the media polls say he couldn’t win. Stay home or if you go vote, do it for the candidate we say is the most electable.”
South Carolina is a excellent example. The polls for days and days pretended Mitt will be the winner. We know how that turned out.
Stop posting polls. They are vicious and poison the political debate. The only poll which counts is the voting ballot.
Hope you didn't miss the love for slick rick in the article. Not rocket science to know who the conservative IS in this race. The GOP E knows, the NRO knows, the media knows - everybody but rick's supporters.
No, front road seat watching the idiots being led down the path again never ever to learn. You'll pout when the realization comes you've been played. And it's your vote that gets Barry in.
Me neither. DONE! Let them jerk around those who are too clueless to 'get it'. They already have their deceptive hook in them.
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