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
I thought Freerepublic was started in Memory of Ronald Reagan. You know he had a saying it was call the “Eleventh Commandment”.
Go look it up and read why it was started then ask yourselves do you see a similarity to what is happening today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eleventh_Commandment_(Ronald_Reagan)
Starting to look an awful like DU on here.
If you support Santorum good - go vote. If you support Newt good - go vote.
All this snarling and back biting is weakening both candidates or maybe that is what some of you are trying to do.
Don’t post to me anymore nutcase.
Right. Noot's the real weak one.
LOL! Only someone in denial doesn’t want to know the truth.
Close, but no cigar.
Saundra is much younger and much prettier than I; and she is a much better shot.
Why should Rick have left the race so early, especially when he won the first contest?
But it’s not so early now; in fact, it’s crunch time, and if Newt doesn’t gracefully bow out, he will ensure a Romney win, imo.
Rick won 4 out of 5 races in PA, but the Newt folks won’t ever mention that.
btw, I bet Mitt appreciates you, but is that a good thing?
“BTW, Sun, you are winning.”
Every once in awhile my husband asks me, who’s winning, and I always say I am. LOL
If Rick is our next POTUS, we all will win.
Great news!-—Press on Santorum!
Ditto, Guenevere.
Vote Rick Santorum in Kansas, Alabama, and Mississippi this week.
What “single issue”?
So you advocate surrender on the Right to Life.
Reagan declared the the highest-ranking Republican in the country - then-President Ford - was unworthy of the Presidency and should be replaced by Reagan.
Reagan broke the so-called 11th Commandment.
Obama will win if Romney is the Republican nominee.
Read my Post. What was the RESULTS of Reagan breaking the Commandment and do you see a correlation to today.
“Some analysts credit Reagan's attacks as seriously to have weakened Ford in his contest with his general election opponent and eventual successor, Jimmy Carter.”
Right to Life.
Is that all you advocate.
The Right to Life is the foundation of all other good things.
If people cannot protect the lives of their own daughters and sons between conception and birth, they have nothing.
Without Jobs How do I feed and clothe my children. Without getting spending under control, what kind of life will my children have. What will the do to support their family.
We need a Candidate that is Conservative across ALL issues not just Right to Life.
That Candidate is Newt.
That’s so stupid I won’t even respond to it.
People who own a website get to set the rules. Advocacy of Romney is unacceptable here, and even appearing to do so can get people in a lot of trouble, including being kicked off Free Republic.
To make clear where I stand, I'm very much aware of the possibility of Mitt Romney offering the vice-presidency to Rick Santorum if Santorum becomes enough of a threat to damage Romney's chances of winning the general election without Santorum being able to win the nomination himself. That would be the politically smart thing for both Romney and Santorum. It's what I would do if I were a pragmatic businessman and were not dealing with issues of critical principle.
However, we're not talking about business deals here.
Compromise has a place in business and in many areas of politics, but it does not have a place in matters of life and death, and that is quite literally what we're dealing with on the abortion issue. I'm willing to go down fighting rather than cut a deal on issues related to killing defenseless babies, unless I can be absolutely certain that deal will be an incremental step toward saving more lives of babies.
Bluntly, I don't trust Romney farther than I can throw him on the abortion issue, and I don't want him being the one to nominate two and perhaps more Supreme Court justices. As much as I want President Obama out of office, I'd rather see a Democratic president and a Republican Senate killing Obama’s agenda than see a President Romney ramming weak-kneed judicial candidates through a Republican-controlled Senate. We already have far too many justices nominated by Republicans who started going squishy after their confirmation hearings.
I know what I'd do if offered a Faustian bargain by Romney. However, I'm not Rick Santorum, I don't have access to the sort of inside information he has, I don't have the ability to cut a backroom deal with Romney for something which might be absolutely critical, and I have no way to tell Santorum what to do. It's his decision, not mine.
What I very much hope is that a scenario such as what you suggest never happens. I don't want to see a Romney-Santorum ticket; I want Romney defeated and knocked out of Republican politics, preferably driven into the Democratic Party like Santorum’s former colleague Arlen Specter. Romney isn't a Republican and like a lot of the old blueblood northeast Republicans, he ought to go to the Democratic Party where he could actually do some good by promoting the value of business in a party which seems to like a morality-free environment.
Maybe Mitt does appreciate me, but I bet Obama appreciates you more. Vote Rick and give him back the white house and the congress. You will see.
Go Newt.
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