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 ...
Again it was Santorum at the bottom of the pile and all the voters had left.
Both of those statements are wrong, although I don't blame you for the first, several others have claimed that and nobody seems to care to correct the record. On the 2nd, Santorum came in 3rd out of 9 candidates, not "bottom" -- he beat Ron Paul.
Go to this link: Florida Republican Primary Election Results. Select "US President - District" from the pulldown on the left, and you'll get the district-by-district results for the 25 districts.
You will see that Gingrich won a plurality in 3 of the 25 districts, and his BEST district was 42%. And in those 3 districts, he beat Romney by 4%, 1%, and 7%. Romney won the other 22. Worse, Romney won an absolute majority in 7 of those, and 49% in 2 more.
And of the three that Gingrich won, two were also in the top 3 for Santorum. In other words, it looks like where Santorum did the BEST in Florida, it helped Gingrich win the district. Which makes sense because polls at the time showed Santorum took votes from Romney more than Gingrich.
Lastly, if you add ALL of Santorum's votes to Gingrich in Florida, Romney would still win 17 of the 25 districts.
Santorum has never endured the hammering Newt got from Mitt and his PAC in Fla ($2million/day for 10 days)
According to this report:
So far, Romney has bought $5.6 million worth of airtime and the pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, has shelled out a whopping $8.2 million, according to a Republican media buyer who is tracking ad spending in the state.The dollar figure isn't important, it's the ratio; Florida is a more expsnsive state than say Michigan or Ohio. Santorum had as much spent against him proportionally as Gingrich did.Compare that to $837,000 spent by the Gingrich campaign and the nearly $3 million of airtime bought by Winning Our Future,
...
As in five-to-one: that’s the ratio — just about — by which Romney and his allies have outspent Newt Gingrich and his allies on TV.
Romney Advantage in Money over Santorum::
Michigan: Romney/Superpac: $4.3 mil, Santorum/Superpac $2.3 mil (2:1)Ohio Advertisement:
Arizona: Romney/Superapc: $660,000; Santorum/Superpac: $52,000: (12:1)
Mitt Romney's team has spent the most in Ohio so far; the campaign itself has spent $1.5 million throughout the state, while the Romney-backing Restore Our Future has put up another $2.3 million. [$3.8 mil] ... Rick Santorum is the only other candidate to spend heavily in Ohio; he's dropped $408,000 on ads, while the Red White and Blue Fund has run up a $515,000 tab [$923,000]" - 4:1.So as you can see, in just three elections in a couple of weeks, Romney spent almost 10 million attacking Santorum, and outspent him by ratios of 2:1, 12:1, and 4:1. Santorum is getting the same treatment Gingrich got.
I hope these facts have been enlightening for you. Please spread the word about the incorrect assertion that GIngrich won the florida district competition.
My hope is we are both idiots. I would love to be wrong. But I don’t think so.
At this point you need to use your instincts. National polls mean nothing. Carter was ahead of Reagan by 30 points at this point in his election cycle. The national polls move drastically. They really are meaningless. Now the polls showing and election a few days out tend to be pretty good.
I take it back a number of years further back than you. I think you are dead wrong. Rick’s problem is he has about 60% of the conservative base of the republican party. He has to have more than that to win. His other problem is that he truely excites the other side. If you can’t get all your base and you get the other side mad, then you are in real trouble. You are not going to win me over, we just disagree. I am right of course. Just joking. Maybe you are.
“...an article intimating there would be something coming out in the next few days that could tie Rick to the Paterno/Sandusky scandal in some way.”
The Romney sleeze machine at work. Unbelievable.
And by the end of April 30, of 1980, Carter Vs Reagan: Dead Heat
Polls are a measurement. You use them as data, like you would use any other information. They might not be accurate, but they are a better basis for objective analysis than what people "feel", or their "instincts" -- there are experts who HAVE good instincts, but I wouldn't trust the typical voter's "instincts", given that the polls are hardly trustworthy and they are reflective of a larger sampling of voter's "instincts" than the anecdotes we get here.
If one is arguing that Santorum can't be elected because the electorate is turned off by his views, but polls are consistantly showing he is within striking distance, that certainly suggests that people are wrong about the impact of his views on the electorate.
And if people say Gingrich will crush Obama because he can attract voters, but polls consistantly show he's losing by double-digits, that suggests that, at this moment, Gingrich isn't doing a good job of attracting voters.
Maybe Gingrich will figure out how to get people to like him. Maybe people will get more educated about Santorum and reject him.
But use your instincts -- which candidate do people know more positive things about, Santorum or Gingrich? Gingrich was in the news for decades, and among republicans had a lot of positive news cycles until he started doing un-conservative things. Gingrich has had much more money to spend this cycle putting out positive advertisement. Santorum has had millions spent telling people negative things about him, and has had little money to spend to put out a positive message.
And since Santorum isn't know, it is more likely his numbers could swing, positive or negative, but he is very positive right now in favorability.
Gingrich is very well-known, and it is likely nothing he can do can swing his favorability much one way or another, and right now it's rather unfavorable.
So my instincts tell me there is more upside potential to Santorum than Gingrich, and that Gingrich isn't performing well in his current state, and has little chance to CHANGE that perception.
Well, I still think you are wrong. Yes, my very old instincts. And yes the polls are much better, and I am not sure my memory is as good as it once was about all the polling about Reagan. Just remember some of the same things being said about him, and yes he was a well known figure. I hope Rick has a larger upside, and I hope he gets better articulating his message. And here goes the kicker that will stir everyone up. My opinion is that George Bush when it come to crossover voters, (not democrats but independants and moderate republicans.) was way ahead of Rick Santorum at this point in his carrear. This is of course opinion. But, polls or no, I have not missed the outcome an election in over 40 years at least. But I could be wrong, I am over due.
VP’s do squat, he would have more power as Chief of Staff. We don’t need another old VP, because when the President leaves, there is no one to inherit the leadership. Note Cheny as an example.
Drudge is a little biased in favor of the gay marriage proponent, you know the one that denied he did it.
The Newt that stole Christmas, will unite across the party lines. Yep, sure would like to have some of what you are drinking.
You are both idiots.
Mitt cannot be defeated at the current trajectory and 2 extra points for Rick isn’t going to do it. That’s why I’ve been saying Newt has to withdraw, endorse Rick, and Rick has to announce that Newt will be his V.P. all at the same time. He has to ensure he gets at least 75% of Newt’s support. Only then can they possibly deny Romney the 1,144 delegates he will otherwise accumulate by June.
Any article that doesn’t get into an explanation of delegates and the winner-take-all rules in the various states isn’t worth spit. This race is all about delegate math now, and the math is in Romney’s favor in the upcoming races.
They've already been advertising against Rick. The way Mitt hammered him in the debate was as damaging as anything and took its toll. But what more do they have to unload against him? Like it or not, he's somehow weathered the attacks better than Newt did and remained competitive. And Mitt's money problems have been documented so he might not be able to unload quite as much as he did before.
Yes and with 800+ delegates upcoming from winner-take-all states, and only 400+ from proportional, they risk handing Mitt more delegates by splitting the vote in Bush/Perot fashion. The Illinois poll out now shows them doing EXACTLY that.
Whether or not this is a viable strategy remains to be seen.
Everyone who's shown evidence that they actually looked at the numbers, the delegates and the allocation rules in the upcoming states seems to agree that it is not a viable strategy, unless Newt drops out or voters simply ignore him 100% in most upcoming states. I have yet to see anyone show me on paper how Mitt ends up with less than 1,144 delegates if this 4-man race continues through June. I just see a lot of people crossing their fingers, "hoping," and not being able to get the counterintuitive fact that Newt dropping out and joining forces with Rick HELPS Newt, because there won't be a convention floor fight otherwise.
It doesn't, and the fact that RINO-approved media FOX News is pushing this now, WITHOUT giving you mathematical figures to back it up, should tell you that they're lying and that Newt staying in helps Mitt. I've seen about 5 analyses of the upcoming states and delegate allocation recently, and every analysis indicates Mitt is headed to the nomination under the current trajectory. If Newt can get his supporters to go to Rick, then Rick can win, or vice versa. But I don't know how you would convince Rick to drop out when he's ahead of Newt in delegates, popular vote, states won and the current polls.
I’m not even saying it makes a huge numerical difference if Newt or Rick drops out and endorses the other. But it could make a difference of 100-250 delegates, and that’s all we would need to deny Mitt the nomination and throw it to a floor fight.
They had about 280,000 show up. In 2008 only 140,000 showed up for the Republican primary. Although the Democrat primary had 430,000 show up.
Because of 2/3rds of upcoming delegates coming from winner-take-all contests, we're more likely to get to a brokered convention (i.e. deny Mitt 1,144 delegates) with only one guy left in the race. Newt and Rick are currently causing a Bush/Perot style split in Illinois polls which is putting Romney in the lead. Since districts are winner-take-all there, he could walk away with all 69 delegates despite Rick and Newt's combined votes being higher than his.
The best thing you can do is vote for Rick in Missouri because Newt staying in is making it more likely Romney hits 1,144 delegates and we don't get to a brokered convention. Paradoxically, Newt needs to get out now so he can get back in later.
That's the way Alabama was. Which is another example of how Newt being in the race helped Romney extend his delegate lead.
Other states with that rule in place upcoming are New York, Texas, and I think Connecticut. We can probably shut Mitt out in Texas if we have a one-on-one race, which is probably necessary to denying him 1,144 delegates.
Many more upcoming states are winner-take-all no matter what though, not just if you get to 50%. 2 out of 3 delegates remaining are allocated in some form of winner-take-all. So exactly what happened in Alabama will continue in a 3-man race and almost certainly hand Romney the nomination.
Newt said on Greta last night that if Romney is within 50 delegates of 1,144, there won't be a contested convention. He said he'd need to be about 100-150 delegates short to make that happen. He may be considering Ron Paul's delegates and the 100-150 that are unpledged state party members.
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