Posted on 03/15/2012 7:44:14 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The latest FOX News poll of Republican voters supports Newt Gingrich’s strange-sounding assertion that his presence in the race is actually a benefit to rival Rick Santorum.
Gingrich casts the advantage to Santorum in a tactical sense, saying that the two of them together divide Romney’s attention and bleed the Republican frontrunner of his money. Gingrich argues that Romney’s success is attributable to negative ads and out-spending that cannot be replicated in a general election and so, therefore he should be bled and blocked so that someone else can get the nomination at the end of August.
Santorum supporters have argued that the time has long since come for Gingrich to drop out of the race so that Santorum can unite the right and defeat Romney outright before the convention.
But with Romney so far ahead on delegates, Santorum would need to win 66 percent of the remaining delegates to win, a tough task for someone who has won only 27 percent so far. Even if he had won all of the delegates Gingrich had won so far, Santorum would only have 41 percent of the total, still 12 percent behind Romney.
The poll suggests, though, that the reality of a Gingrich-less race might not even be as good as that for Santorum.
Gingrich polls at 13 percent in the latest survey, one point better than Texas Rep. Ron Paul, 19 points behind Santorum and 25 points behind frontrunner Romney.
But when asked how they would vote without Gingrich in the race, the former speaker’s supporters don’t all shift to Santorum. Out of Gingrich’s 13 percent, Santorum gets 7 percent, but Romney gets 5 percent. Paul gets a point too.
While Santorum would move up, Romney would be pushed even closer to the finish line......
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If only people knew how it is in countries where the people can't vote. The low turnout in our elections is disheartening.
I base my post on over 50 years following this stuff. I am telling ya, Rick does not have crossover appeal. He will need it in the general. Romney has crossover appeal but can not excite the base. Newt could do both.
The lack of political instinct out in the public at large is astounding. I give President Obama at least a 70 percent chance of retaining his position, as of what I see right now. The money agrees with me.
You can’t beat Obama by saying, Hey I am not Obama. You will have to beat him with ideas and conservative principles. Rick has principles but struggles with message. It is a good message delivered in a way that only a certain segment of the population understands and will respond to. Mitt is hopeless, no message and no ability to muster one. We are screwed without a brokered convention with a different candidate or Newt raising again.
Either this is one of the clearest, truest posts I've seen here in a very long time or we are both idiots, because I agree with every word. :-). The Obama machine will slice and dice Santorum and have a few $100 mil left over to party with. Newt - maybe yes, maybe not, but at least he has a chance to beat Obama. Probably less than 50-50, but that is way better than Rick's (and would be a better president, IMO).
No matter what permutations I run thru in my mind, I can't think of one where I believe that Newt staying in the race is a bad thing. By staying in Newt keeps the pressure on Romney to fight a dual front war and the more protracted the race becomes; the less viable the meme of Mitt's “inevitability” appears. That can only help Conservatives.
(According to news reports Mitt had a meeting w/his major financiers after losing Alabama and Mississippi because his campaign now feels they need another major cash infusion in order to win what they believe will be a long, drawn out campaign. I think cracks are already beginning to occur within Mitt's financial foundation.)
Because many don't believe Rick can beat Obama, but do think Romney has a crack at it, and they want, above all, to get Obama out.
Add a little known fact, called SUPER Delegates, who unanimously favor Romney, you have another 20% advantage of the Delegate count in Romney's favor.
Considering the above, at this point, Romney would have to lose everything from here on out by at least 40 points for Santorum to catch him. So Newt is right, if he drops out, he will drive Romney to a win by June.
Thanks
RCP Obama vs Gingrich - Obama +13.7%
RCP Obama vs Santorum - Obama +8.7%
So, since Santorum will be beaten by Obama, we should pick Gingrich?
I read this morn about the NCAA tourney. The ultimate champ only has to win 6 more games. It doesn’t matter that Kentucky or Syracuse are inevitable. It does not matter what Western Kentucky has done all season all they have to do is win. For conservatives to take out Obama, first Myth must be defeated. The electorate will decide in the last 60 days who the one on one winner with Obama will be. So, pick the conservative of your choice in the near term, Rick or Newt.
Do you believe if Gingrich became the nominee, that those would be the numbers?
And if they were, do you honestly believe Obama has such an edge?
The problem is that, with the current dynamic, Romney will win the nomination. The strategy to “keep him from winning” isn’t likely to succeed, because as he gets closer and it’s clear nobody else can actually win, and if the race stays static, the general population of GOP voters will drift toward the “inevitable winner” Romney, giving him larger and larger victories.
Something needs to change the dynamic. If say Gingrich dropped out, there would be a shift toward Santorum. He would then do a LOT better in the next contests. It would be THAT difference, with Santorum actually winning a couple of states decisively, that would then make that general GOP electorate say — hey, maybe Santorum is the guy we want to drift toward.
Thus, instead of Romney getting the “whatever” votes, Santorum gets them, as his polling numbers shoot up and Romney stays at 30%.
See, people keep assuming that if Romney stays at 35% he’ll collect enough to win, but the point is that he benefits from being the “frontrunner”, and if we had weeks go by where Santorum took more delegates than Romney week after week, and was winning 50+% of the vote, and Romney was “mired” at 35-40%, people would just switch to Santorum.
The same might be true for Gingrich; I don’t think so, because that was what was HAPPENING with South Carolina, but he collapsed after that, and I don’t see him getting a 2nd chance.
Some people say Santorum got a 2nd chance, but he didn’t. He won Iowa, but he wasn’t polling 1st nationally when he did so, Iowa was simply a one-off win because of his camping in Iowa. It wasn’t until Newt fell apart in Florida and Nevada that people jumped to Santorum. But they haven’t left him, he’s still essentially tied with Romney nationally, and now has a longer time period in that position then ANY of the other candidates who briefly held that slot.
Elections are fluid, and move with public perception, and I don’t see the general Republican electorate liking the perception of a “we just want to stop Romney and leave things confused in the convention”. What they DO want is a not-Romney who looks like they COULD win if people just decided he could win.
Meaning there are a LOT of voters sitting in their houses, and they are thinking “Santorum looks like he might win, I will vote for him instead of Romney”. Once we have enough people thinking that, Santorum WILL win.
I would rather have had Gingrich be this person, back in January. He so looked like it for a little while, but even with Santorum doing nothing in Florida, Gingrich simply couldn’t hold up under the attacks. Santorum has done much better in that regard, getting plastered 5-1 in Michigan, and 12-1 in Ohio, and yet he’s still winning races, even in 3-way contests in the south with Gingrich splitting large amounts of the conservative vote.
LOL! Why would you say that? If you're thinking in terms of running for President later, you might have a point, but he might be fine with being VP, then not running for the top spot later on, after all.
Someone mentioned above how good he'd be as a 'whip', from the Veep position, and I agree, but frankly, I'd love to see him as the Repub. nominee simply to see him in a one-on-one debate with Obama.
Santorum has never endured the hammering Newt got from Mitt and his PAC in Fla ($2million/day for 10 days) and Newt still pulled over 30% of the vote and won a majority of the congressional districts. Again it was Santorum at the bottom of the pile and all the voters had left. Do not be fooled. If Newt is dispatched from this primary, Mitt and his machine will roll over Santorum.
Newt is not "splitting" the vote. Newt is keeping his supporters onboard and protecting the conservative flank.
Yes. I’m thinking in terms of his running for president later.
Replay of 2008
Santorum=Huckabee the religious right/Catholics (inflamed by Obamas attack on the birth control issue) plus pumped up tactically by Dems and Indies. Santorum can never be President.
Romney still has the 22% he got last time, pumped up by Dems/Indies where appropriate, drowns out competition with weight of money. Perfect target for Obama. Mr 1%
Newt=Thompson. Rational right. Is only one that can beat Obama. Is the only candidate to have proved he is Constitutionally legally qualified to be President. Would be great to have Sarah Palin as his VP.
I don’t generally act based on polls. But they are an informational data point. And the one-on-one matchup polls have been very consistant for some time now. Romney and Santorum have both polled very well against Obama, while Gingrich has consistantly been losing by double-digits to Obama ever since I can remember.
The last time Gingrich actually beat Obama in a one-on-one poll was in November of 2011 (Gingrich +2). He hasn’t been closer than 9% in the RCP average in 2012, and he has been down by more than 10% since January 16th.
In contrast, in 2012 the MOST Santorum has every been behind is 10.3%, and he’s been closer than 8% since his surge in mid-February (I was wrong on my Santorum numbers, it’s currently 7.9% not 8.7%)
Your outline is an outline in FUTILITY. And damned sure correct! (2008 all over again)
What’s your point?
Your statistical fog, won’t matter anyway in another month. The April vote will pretty much settle it.
I agree with you and I think Mark Levin is steering Newt that direction to team up with Santorum since Romney and Ron Paul seem to have an alliance. I think Newt wants some of his ideas implemented more than a VP slot but both could be worked out. He and Santorum are friends and CNN said they were on a long call after the most recent wins in Mississippi and Alabama. We had a local talk show host propose a team of both Rick as President and Newt as V.P. on his conservative radio show Thursday on WDBO (Bud Heddinger) in Orlando. Most everyone who called in was for it.
Woops! Correction on the radio station: S/B 540 WFLA Orlando.
http://www.540wfla.com/pages/bud_hedinger.html
I believe this to be true of Santorum and likely Gingrich as well.
The difference (right now) is momentum and delegates (for Santorum versus Gingrich).
As for delivery of message, I've witnessed improvement from Santorum and would anticipate more. Remembering back to 2000, Bush was very unpolished both on delivery and message. It seemed that he improved dramatically the further into the campaign he got. When seeing where Santorum is now, he is miles ahead of where Bush was.
Bottom line, I truly believe that Santorum can defeat Obama. While I completely understand your feelings regarding Gingrich, I just don't see how his continued campaign contributes to keeping Romney from the nomination, not with winner take all rules coming. I only see a continuation of splitting the conservative vote. The only exception would be if he can win some states. After the vote in the South, I'm not seeing any he could win.
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