Santorum let his moment come, then go

thehill.com ^ | 02/29/12 08:30 PM ET | By Niall Stanage

[syriacus]

Santorum needs to point out Romney's similarities to that other "Republican" hoaxster, Mayor Bloomberg.

Bloomberg and Romney are both "hands-on" successful business men, who can't control their urges to micro-manage people's lives.

Bloomberg and Romney have expressed support for gun control laws.

Both men have meddled in our private health decisions.

Food-nanny Mike declares war on salt in NYers diets

Mayor Bloomberg banned smoking and didn't stop there. He went so far as to ban ashtrays.

[dforest]

Trying to get people from the other party to vote for you is a tactic to win elections.

Reagan appealed to Dems, who became the Reagan dems.

Believe it or not, there were Republicans that voted for Obama.

Before the election word was being passed around that Obama would govern from the center like Clinton, so it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, all we had was McCain.

Everyone on FR knew that was pure hogwash. We knew Obama would run far left, which is what he did.

[Cboldt]

I read that Santorum received a greater number of delegates than Romney. So yeah, Santorum lost, according to the media. Makes sense when you consider the media’s inability to find the truth on purpose.

[freeangel]

“Rick won more delegates than Romney”

Too bad msm koolaid drinkers will NEVER know it.

[cripplecreek]

We can also speculate about what crossover means. Here in the 7th district there are a lot of union republicans. When I was AFL-CIO I didn’t vote democrat. My neighbors are both union members and are rock ribbed conservatives.

There is also a growing conservative UAW group in Michigan who do more than talk the talk. The head of the group (Terry Bowman) testified against union political fundraising on capitol hill just a few weeks back.

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16292

[ScottinVA]

No this is just an example of how far we have fallen as a Nation. There is nothing wrong with Rick. It is the country that is the problem.

I completely agree. I notice very few dispute the truth of which Santorum speaks; rather it's all about the political "appropriateness." IOW... he's saying the things the moral relativists can't bear to hear.

[skeeter]

Saddened is an understatement. This this is descending into a high school popularity contest complete with sophomoric insults. Its sickening.

[stonehouse01]

Thanks for the laugh!! I think you are right, we might lose to Obama. I am praying this is wrong and there is some sort of definitive breakthrough. Maybe the sky rocketing gas prices will do it?

I trust the cat has regained equilibrium! (hehe)

I agree that the robocalls were a shaky tactic. It is true that Reagan reached out to and appealed to and received votes from the more conservative leaning “blue dog” Reagan democrats, whatever that means. If it refers to a blue tick hound type, better give the cat safe haven again.

However I highly doubt Reagan directly requested crossover votes in a Republican primary. Maybe ... I doubt it though, the strategy appears somewhat underhanded. Go for their votes in the general, but don’t undermine the primary process on purpose. I like Rush but was uncomfortable with his operation Hilary tactic. Maybe we ought to reform the primary rules.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

LOL! It's actually quite entertaining, watching you Reverend Rick fanatics, brainstorm your apologies and scenarios of what you “think” (mostly hope) Santorum was really trying to say or do.

And it is particularly funny, how you build what was clearly a serious blunder or pathetic performance, into a “brilliant strategy”, with genius like outcomes.

And you always seem to focus on polls or data that favors him as, cutting edge, extremely accurate, gospel truth, when the same poll however, shows Newt gain or Santorum’s other opponents, they are “BOGUS!” BS, completely twisted, Leftist propaganda, completely false!

And you are wrong about the crossover data, it was gathered by a nonpartisan survey group and was somewhat conservative in it's findings. The actual numbers were higher than 9% on the average.

But no matter how you apologize for your candidate, he did what he did, and that violates all the “principles” he is claiming to represent, and he will pay for that betrayal.

[deport]

We can also speculate about what crossover means.

---

Yep, speculation can be made about most anything or process. But Santorum spent time/effort to try to get traditional democrat voters to cross over and play the spoiler role for him. I doubt the number is very high but it would be interesting to know, imo.

[Mangia E Statti Zitto]

I read the transcript of Santorum’s robocall. I have NO problem with him inviting Democrats to vote for him because of his pro-union votes, or his working class roots, etc. That’s what Reagan did-—tried to get Dems to vote FOR you. But the call clearly says “On Tuesday join Democrats who are going to send a loud message to Massachusetts Mitt Romney by voting for Rick Santorum for president.”

This is unbelievably boneheaded, and the story has gone viral. It reeks of manipulating the process. Now he’s handed Romney an issue all wrapped up with a great big bow. It just shows the Santorum campaign is not ready for primetime.

(Yes, I’m a Newt supporter.)

[cripplecreek]

The list of counties won nationwide so far. I think Michigan has been revised up to 57 for Santorum.



Sadly candidates who have already dropped out took nearly 30,000 votes in Michigan themselves.

[cripplecreek]

But Santorum spent time/effort to try to get traditional democrat voters to cross over and play the spoiler role for him.

And Romney did the same with the only difference being the method. Romney had people knocking on doors. As far as the robocalls are concerned, they all went to the same people.

[katana]

Not sure how coming away with a minimum (possibly several more after all is said and done) equal number of delegates, and winning in every single county and precinct in which an actual Republican draws breath, from what amounts to the home state of his opponent qualifies as a genuine loss. I suppose Niall will call what looks to be an absolute trouncing of Gov. Romney next Tuesday in our little bellwether State of Ohio a "draw".

Organized Mormonism may have found its birthplace in the Buckeye State but this isn't Utah, Arizona, or Nevada, and unless I'm mistaken our total number of convention delegates will amount to more than what those three scenic wastelands will send combined. It's a marathon, Mitt, and to these eyes it looks like you're beginning to cramp up.

[AmericanInTokyo]

"lost" Michigan, my left foot. Rick spent a fraction of MITT ROMNEY, it was not on his home state court, was opposed by the Governor, most elected GOP officials (Establishment) and Michgan GOP party structure, just like Ronald Reagan 34 years ago, and Rick ended up tying Mitt Romney in the end, 15 delegates to 15 delegates.

This is pure, unadulterated, agenda-driven, narrative-steeped, anti-Santorum bullcrap, you can see right through it. How old is the "writer?　15? Cub reporter for a high school newspaper?

[Patton@Bastogne]

.


First, I despise Mitt Romney ... I'm a Newt Gingrich guy ...

Second, Mitt Romney was "correct" about Santorum's "public" solicitation of Democratic voters in a Republican Primary ...



Santorum (stupidly) VIOLATED the "process" ... an admittedly screwed-up process ... but still the official "process" ...

As an unexpected consequence of Santorum's Michigan mistake, we'll probably (finally) see a national state-by-state move to "close" GOP primaries to GOP members only ...

and that's a great idea ...



Of course, I'm happy that Santorum DEFEATED ROMNEY IN MICHIGAN ... vis-a-via the delegate count ...

Trust me ... "all" of the professional Political Class (Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Morris) ... and the MEGA-BIG-MONEY guys ...

Properly see Romney's MICHIGAN LOSS as his Waterloo (as per Napoleon) ...

Romney's campaign (at this point) is akin to Napoleon's capture of Moscow ... a series of pointless victory ... spending (by one estimate) $ 375,000 per GOP Delegate won ...

Romney's fading away began TODAY ... 1 March 2012 ... even Matt Drudge sees that ... with his "Newt as Lazarus" front-page story this morning ...

Santorum will fade also ... and after Newt's Super Tuesday victories will "finally" have the sense to drop-out ...



All of America's "genuine" Conservatives and Patriots can breathe a sigh of relief today ...

Mitt Romney (John McCain II) is strategically checkmated ...

And "The Kenyan" WILL BE DEFEATED by Newt Gingrich in November 2012 ...




.

[Mountain Mary]

“The robocalls were beyond stupid”.

How is what the Santorum team did any different from the lying, conniving tactics of the Romney attack dogs who put out robocalls of Rick endorsing Mitt FIVE years ago?
And they weren’t the only ones in on effort:

“Democratic strategist Joe DiSano has been on an active campaign to get Democrats out for Santorum in effort to hurt Romney. He recorded a robo call and has sent tens of thousands of e-mails to Democratic voters encouraging them to go to the polls.”

Read more: http://www.wisn.com/politics/30560528/detail.html#ixzz1nsK1NkCr

[deport]

Thanks for your insight. We’ll know much more in six days when the polls close on Super Tuesday. So far the electorate hasn’t coeleased around a candidate and stuck with him/her. To me they are still searching.

Take care.

[throwback]

I agree with your analysis. I think Santorum had the ability to attract the ABO vote from Romney because his negatives weren't as high as Gingrich. The media and the Republican establishment has been doing their best to drive up Santorum’s negatives, though. Fox and Ailes seem to be in the tank for the establishment. I noticed they highlighted Santorum’s effort to reach out to dems in MI last night. They neglected to mention the open primaries, who was in favor of them, and has benefited from them previously. I read in the WSJ journal this morning that the R establishment is quite relieved that their vanilla candidate is back in the groove now though. The only media that Santorum has on his side at this point is a handful of talk radio hosts. Not much hope that the forces against Santorum will not succeed in marginalizing him even more before super Tuesday.

[American Constitutionalist]

Hardly a lose, not giving into defeat.
Rick did better than expected inspite of all the money that Romney poured into Michigan, and inspite that it was his supposed home state.