Posted on 03/08/2012 7:54:01 AM PST by pgkdan
A new poll released on the eve of Rick Santorum’s first campaign visit to Alabama shows the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania leading in the state Republican Party presidential primary.
The statewide poll conducted by Alabama State University’s Center for Leadership and Public Policy showed 22.7 percent of likely Republican voters supported Santorum, who is scheduled to make campaign appearances Thursday in Huntsville and Mobile.
Former Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney trailed Santorum with 18.7 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House from neighboring Georgia, with 13.8 percent.
The telephone poll of 470 likely GOP voters showed 29.8 remained undecided and 15 percent saying they intended to support other candidates. The poll did not ask voters whether they supported Ron Paul, the Texas congressman seeking the GOP nomination.
The poll was conducted March 1, prior to the Super Tuesday vote that helped establish Romney and Santorum as leaders in the race for the nomination, with Romney holding a total of 415 delegates and Santorum with 176.
Gingrich, with 105 delegates, canceled campaign plans in Kansas this week to focus on voters in Alabama and Mississippi, which share a primary election day Tuesday.
But the poll results indicate that support for Gingrich is waning in Alabama, according to ASU political science professor Thomas Vocino.
“The numbers are just not in his favor, and the trend is working against him,” Vocino said. “I can’t foresee a situation where he can rebound and win in Alabama.”
Vocino said Gingrich’s support has fallen steeply since ASU began tracking the race five weeks ago. Gingrich led the field in Alabama with 26.9 percent in the initial round of polling on Feb. 2. His support slipped to 18.9 percent by Feb. 23, when results showed him with a slim lead over Santorum at 18.3 percent.
Santorum’s steady increase over the same time period came almost completely at Gingrich’s expense, Vocino said. Romney, by comparison, has held flat at around 16-18 percent, according to Vocino.
The results indicate that Gingrich is unlikely to reach the 20 percent threshold that would allow him to win delegates in any of the state’s seven congressional districts.
“I think it is very problematic for Gingrich to get any” delegates, Vocino said
Newt just isn’t catching on. He doesn’t have a chance. He only won two contests, and all he’s doing is helping Mitt.
When I look at Rick, as well as look at his past, I love him:
“On abortion, he is one of many senators who vote pro-life. The difference is that he is personally responsible for making sure a lot of these votes occur in the first place: He was an architect of the effort to ban partial-birth abortion, a strategy that energized the pro-life movement and allowed it to go on the political offensive.”
http://www.heymiller.com/2010/08/the-fate-of-rick/
Rick Santorum gets things done, because he is a FIGHTER!
“Santorum has consistently supported broad-based tax cuts and opposed tax increases either by sponsoring key legislation or by casting votes on relevant bills. Some high profile votes include:
•Voted NO on the Clinton tax hike in 1993
•Voted YES on the capital gains tax cut in 1997
•Voted NO on a cigarette tax hike in 1998
•Voted YES on repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax in 1999
•Voted YES on the 2001 Bush tax cuts
•Voted YES to repeal the Death Tax in 2002
•Voted YES to the 2003 Bush tax cuts
•Voted YES to extend the Bush tax cuts in 2006”
excerpt http://www.clubforgrowth.org/whitepapers/?subsec=137&id=902
“Santorum can point to his eight years on the Senate Armed Services committee as proof that he will be prepared to handle an uncertain situation in the Middle East from day one.”
This is the money quote in my opinion. I think Newt is the only candidate with the proclivity to consider, embrace and act on ideas that are big enough to actually change the way Washington does business. This is no guarantee that he could actually succeed, but, at least there's a chance he could/would try. The other guys?...they're not change agents.
“Santorum has consistently supported broad-based tax cuts and opposed tax increases either by sponsoring key legislation or by casting votes on relevant bills. Some high profile votes include:”
Tax cuts are only temporary if you continually vote to expand government.
I disagree. He does have a chance. Again, the same can be said about Santo that he is also helping Myth.
I bet Newt after 7 days of campaigning in Alabama takes the state.
It is a fluid race, and for your info, Santo is tied with Newt in one recent Alabama poll and is losing to Newt in another recent Alabama poll.
Rick was one of the principal fighters for welfare reform and even wrote the bill, when he was a rep., and continued to fight as senator.
Rick, the fighter, gets things done!
There are things I ‘love’ about Rick as well. What I don’t love is HIM. Yes, he is pro-life, and a wonderful family man. But takes more, lot’s more. If Rick is nominated he will not only cost us a chance to be Obama, he will destroy the down ticket. If he can not win me, a pro life, social conservative from Texas, he can’t win. I listen to him and I just shake my head. IT is not his POSITIONS it is the way he talks about them. He could say the same thing in a way that would not be so abrasive. NO, I have not ‘bought in’ to the media hype. I came to that conclusion all by my little self. So, some will say I am not really a social conservative, ok, go ahead. Some will say I am not ‘really’ an evangelical Christian, go ahead. Some will say I am a apid shrill. All because I don’t agree with them. Been at this a long time, trust me, he ain’t got it. I would love to be wrong you see.
You may well be right.
I try to take people at face value unless proven otherwise. However, with the inherent anonymity of many internet forums, including but certainly not limited to Free Republic, lots of mischief can and does happen.
I can respect a sincere Gingrich supporter who has bought into Gingrich's political philosophy, including his advocacy of the need for an informed electorate and a classic Judeo-Christian view of civilization. I respect his legitimate accomplishments in the House of Representatives, doing what most people considered to be impossible by becoming Speaker. If it weren't for the issues in his personal life, I could easily see myself having been a Gingrich supporter. Even with that past, I have repeatedly (though largely unsuccessfully) tried to make a case to fellow evangelicals who know me personally that Gingrich is a legitimate choice.
Still, the repeated Christian-bashing I've seen here has had an effect.
I know what the Republican Party was like in the 1970s and early 1980s, and I know from personal experience how I was treated by fellow Republicans when I was converted in the mid-1980s.
I have not seen this level of anti-Christian sentiment among conservatives since those days. I thought those days were over, and I thought Christian conservatives had long ago secured a place as a legitimate part of the Republican Party, right along with the (distinct but overlapping) economic conservatives and military/national defense conservatives.
What I see from a significant minority of people here scares me. We don't need to go back to the bad old days of Christian bashing in the Republican Party. The Democrats will do that quite aggressively on their own without help from Republicans.
Guess you missed it, but I posted the most recent poll for Alabama. Romney is 9 points ahead, and Rick is one point ahead of Newt. If Rick got Newt’s 22 points, plus Newt’s 21, what does that add up to? Of course, Rick won’t necessarily get all of Newt’s votes, but all he needs are the majority of Newt’s votes (assuming the polls don’t change).
He is wrong. I sincerely do not think Rick Santorum can win. I hope I am wrong. I HATE Mitt Romney. Sorry it is true, I will have to repent of it later I am sure. I will not vote for Mitt Romeny, I might vote for Rick. I hope some of you begin to wake up and see that many of us just believe he is a loser in Nomember, not just for him but for our cause. Period. Mitt has a lot of money but he does not waste it trying to presuade the 110 people on here that support Rick Santorum that Mitt is better. I don’t like Mitt but he is smarter than that. At least I would hope. LOL
Thankfully, most pro-lifers don’t agree with you. They see what Rick as accomplished in Congress, as well as that he walked the walk in his personal life.
I listen to so many people calling radio shows, and they have so much passion for Rick. I don’t hear that for Romney or Newt. I think Romney is winning because conservatives MISTAKINGLY think he’s the one who can beat Obama. We must change that perception somehow, whether we are for Newt or Rick.
Hope it’s not already too late. Romney’s win in Ohio probably already gave him more momentum.
Newt won SC because he received a standing ovation on two previous debates, but hasn’t had a debate like that since.
And Georgia has a lot of delegates, and happens to be Newt’s home state.
Newt’s ran out of home states, and probably debates, too.
Why don’t people see that?
Well, if you think MOST pro-lifers agree then you don’t run in the circles I run in, and you are not paying attention to this board. I would say most of the ones here are not Romney shrills, but people who really disagree with you. I am one of them. Rick can not even get the catholic vote. I will vote for him, but I really have grave concerns.
oh, I see it. I know Newt is a really long shot. He is still a much better candidate in the general than Rick Santorum. Our best hope if Newt can’t win, is a brokered convention. Even then I don’t see a person emerging that is better than Newt. If Rick Santorum is the nominee I will fight like hell for him. It will not be the first, nor the last time, I go down fighting.
none of that rubs me the wrong way, the only thing which does is when there’s a poster who likes to call names over the safety of their keyboard
The Catholics-In-Name-Only also voted for the Clintons. Both Clintons would not have won w/o the CINO vote.
My family and I are PRACTICING Catholics, who will vote for Rick!
“Some of those high profile votes include his support for No Child Left Behind in 2001, which greatly expanded the federal government’s role in education. He supported the massive new Medicare drug entitlement in 2003 that now costs taxpayers over $60 billion a year and has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities. He voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands of wasteful earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere.”
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/whitepapers/?subsec=137&id=902
More here:
http://www.rightspeak.net/2012/02/rick-santorum-and-his-love-affair-with.html
http://thedmonline.com/article/rick-santorum-representing-worst-republicans-1990
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