Those polls are next to worthless. At this point in the contest when Reagan beat Carter he was down 30 points.
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.
From the survey in the article:
"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."
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Newt can coalesce all factions of the party.
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).
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.