Posted on 02/14/2012 6:47:22 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Consider this a corroboration of Gallup and Pew, both of which have recorded a surge for Rick Santorum that makes him the national frontrunner — if not in each state. The CBS/New York Times poll shows Santorum gaining 14 points in a single month, eclipsing Mitt Romney by three points (still within the MOE), whose support stayed virtually unchanged from January. Almost all of the gain comes at the expense of Newt Gingrich, who dropped to fourth place behind Ron Paul among Republican primary voters:
Rick Santorum has pulled slightly ahead of Mitt Romney in Republican primary voters’ preference for the presidential nomination, a national CBS News/New York Times Poll shows.
Ron Paul is now in third, followed by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
Among self-described conservative voters, the shift has been fairly dramatic. A month ago in this poll series, conservatives were equally split between Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum at 25/25/24 respectively. Now, however, Santorum’s support in this demo has risen to 38%, while Romney has remained steady at 24% and Gingrich dropped by about half to 12%. The same thing has happened to Tea Party support and evangelicals. The dynamic seems to be a movement away from Gingrich and a consolidation among conservative voters behind Santorum as the alternative to Romney, at least for now.
There are a few things to note about this poll, however. This is a poll of registered voters, not likely voters, which is not as predictive a model and is a curious sampling choice in the middle of the actual primary voting. These results come from a larger survey, most of whose results will be announced later. The overall sample was 1,064 registered voters, but only 331 of those planned to vote in a Republican primary. At least a few of those will be independents rather than Republicans, so the partisan split of the overall survey is likely to be highly skewed to Democrats. That doesn’t matter for these results, but a sample of 331 registered voters for a national poll is on the small side. Keep that in mind.
Now that Santorum has become a legitimate force in the race, he’s getting some attention from the usual suspects. Member of Occupy Tacoma tried to crash a Santorum event, and Politico reports that Santorum responded by calling them agents of “true intolerance”:
Filling the front row at the Washington State History Museum where Santorum spoke, a group of Occupy protesters disrupted the event, forcing Santorum to engage them. Occupy Tacoma, the local branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is camped out right next to the museum, and advertised Santorum’s visit on its web site.
“I think it’s really important for you to understand what this radical element represents, because what they represent is true intolerance,” Santorum said, after two protesters were taken to the ground and placed in handcuffs by police.
The protesters, Santorum suggested, “instead of standing here unemployed, yelling at somebody” should instead “go out and get a job.”
Santorum’s supporters roared their approval, chanting “get a job” back at the Occupiers.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then …
Yeah, doing what they do best - to deceive voters. But they don't hold back how much they like slick rick which makes mitt's plan working perfectly. And mitt has his ads in Michigan slamming Newt while rick is leading there. It's so obvious, yet his supporters are unable to 'get it'.
http://www.redstate.com/joshleguern/2012/02/13/three-reasons-santorum-will-lose-against-obama/
Then there is the money quote, which kind of makes me ill:
“One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a Libertarianish right. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. That is not how traditional conservatives view the world.”
Now, I do think Santorum is right to the extent there is some tension between social conservativism and libertarian conservatism, though abortion is a unique issue that even many libertarian conservatives oppose. But so directly picking a fight with libertarian leaning conservatives is just dumb. If you toss the "that government is best which governs least" element out, there just aren't enough votes to give a Republican a majority.
So I suppose that means I'm still stuck on Newt's moon colony.
“He’s the weakest of the 3, and Obama will decimate him in a debate, and we will lose again.”
***
You mean the same Obama who is so “smart” he reads off a teleprompter every time, including speeches to a kindergarten school? The reason why he “won’ those debates is because the polls were run by CNN, his chief ass-kissers in the media.
You are giving Klownie the Kommie Kenyan much credit here..
What an unbelieveably shallow 'thought.'
What on earth would cause you to be so arrogant that you put conservative pro-life women in such a distorted box? Besides which, if you were even half right about the 'looks' part of it, we'd be supporting Romney, wouldn't we?
What a bunch of hooey you just posted.
It does no good to bash/pick apart any little thing about Santorum because you got on the NEWT or (Pick a candidate) or nobody train. They all have warts.Gingrich bashed Ryans bill.Gingrich has been all over the map politically usually coming in left of liberal RINO.But it does not matter he is done.
http://slashpolitics.reviewjournal.com/2011/12/gingrich-endorses-romney/
I predicted on here many months ago Santorum would be the last man standing.Obama cannot win without PA.
GO SANTORUM!
Libertarians are fiscal conservatives, and social liberals, and that makes them only half way there.
If a libertarian is actually a thoughtful conservative (I'm sure a handful are), then they will vote for one of the two conservatives left in the race. Newt or Rick.
And Bush had Executive experience to boot, while Santorum has ZERO......... This is a guaranteed disaster. (AGAIN)
All of a sudden Obama is much more excited about the debates..
Screw the so-called “independents” AKA “moderates” AKA liberals.
They are either with us or they are Anti-American enemies. Seeing as they were never with us to begin with, I choose the latter.
Wonderful news about Santorum and he handled the Occupy crowd in an excellent manner. He made them the boogy guys. Eric, I hope we all are wearing sweater vests in the next couple of months. We can even put them on our dogs and cats. That could be a good campaign slogan “Sweater Vests for Rick”.
Especially conservatives.
Obama can’t debate his way out of a paper bag.The SOB endorses,aids and abets and provides comfort to the enemy terrorists.Even WITH a teleprompter Obama loses any debate to anyone.NEWSFLASH:Obama’s magic is done,finito,gone.Besides Santorum debates very well.
I am a registered Independent after the McCain debacle.I take GREAT offense to being called an anti american.You don’t have a clue what you are talking about.Without the independent vote no one beats Obama.
Libertarians are fiscal conservatives, and social liberals, and that makes them only half way there.
If a libertarian is actually a thoughtful conservative (I'm sure a handful are), then they will vote for one of the two conservatives left in the race. Newt or Rick.
Sorry for the disconnected double post. I have no idea what happened. :)
If the GOP nominee only gets a handful of libertarian-leaning people in the general election, he has no chance. Here's another won that will just kill him:
“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” And also, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
Imagine how well that is going to play with undecideds. Ugh.
The same sick, prideful arrogance posted here when the following video was posted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7LyoAEIskw
Would you believe that people (Gingrich only bully ping list) bashed Santorum for not getting out completely to be with his baby all because thy’re candidate (NEWT) was there —only— choice?
Would you also believe that these very same people posted the word RINO and the Pelosi sofa picture in a thread I posted when Gingrich announced he was running?I have always been open to all but Romney.
Which is precisely why libertarians are so dangerous.
The goal should be getting rid of Obama with the most conservative candidate possible, and libertarians don't share that goal.
Because half of what Obama believes is OK with them........their leftist half.
Scary. A lot scarier than Rick Santorum's actually believing what his church teaches, isn't it?
If it`s in the NYTIMES it must be so...roll eyes... or CBS or PEW or whoever...roll eyes
Pollsters would choose are candidate, that much I predicted and did know.
Having said that,we could do worse.. I think we can trust him to appoint a Conservative to the High Court.
The polsters could have given us Romney if they wanted, thankfully they dropped him, perhaps just out of boredom they wanted a change?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
