Posted on 03/16/2012 9:52:44 PM PDT by Steelfish
Gingrich Forges Ahead As A Spoiler
By Daniel Malloy and Katie Leslie The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CHICAGO -- Newt Gingrich has unabashedly taken on the role of spoiler in the Republican presidential nomination contest, as a pair of losses in Tuesday’s Deep South primaries cemented his position on the margins of the race.
(snip)
Appearing on a radio show Wednesday morning in Chicago, Gingrich talked about the results in Alabama and Mississippi -- where he came in second to former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania -- as if he and Santorum were a kind of conservative tag team.
“Between the two of us last night we got two-thirds of the delegates that were available,” Gingrich said. “Romney I think had his front-runner status deeply weakened when he could only get about one-third of the delegates that were available. And I think that there’s a fairly good likelihood that we’re going to end the nominating process in June with no one having an absolute majority, and that will be one of the most interesting 60-day discussions we’ve ever had.”
Gingrich said he believed such an outcome would lead to a wild brokered convention.
“It really could be a very open, very creative convention,” he said.
That is not the way Team Santorum sees it. Tuesday night on CNN, Santorum spokeswoman Alice Stewart said Gingrich should “absolutely” drop out to allow for a two-man race between her candidate and Romney.
Georgia-based conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson joined the dropout chorus Wednesday morning, writing on the RedState blog: “It is time for Newt Gingrich to exit.”
“Gingrich’s final act could be king maker by getting out and endorsing," Erickson wrote, "but pride cometh before the fall.”
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Erik is conservative?
I've seen him on cnn and he is to the right of candy night-crawler, and maybe paul begala, but john king and the "snake" are as conservative as is erik the red.
Erik is as conservative as mittens, and just as trustworthy.
Romney has already doubled down on Santorum. He has no need to attack Newt now because Newt splits the conservative vote and allows Romney to take the most delegates.
Newts is basically done, and if Newt stays in, Santorum will soon be done.
Romney will get his delegates before the convention.
The only way Newt has a chance at their presidency or being part of the next administration is for him to drop out and campaign for Rick, and ideally have Rick announce him as V.P. Otherwise Romney is on track to win the nomination straight up by June with around 1,200 delegates. Most of the upcoming races are following winner-take-all rules in which case 2 conservatives will often split the vote and hand the liberal the win, identical to the Clinton/Bush/Perot race.
If Newt stays in, there won’t be a convention fight. Even if there is a convention fight, Newt or Rick can’t win it unless they team up and combine their delegates. So why should they not team up now when it can benefit them more? Newt should keep giving speeches and campaigning, just as Cain and Perry have done for him.
Rick has already been the focus of negative campaigning by Romney. He got publically drawn and quartered by Romney and Paul in the last debate. Are people seriously trying to argue that Romnney has been “holding back” on Santorum? Romney shill Drudge has been plastering his top news with negative Santorum stories for a while now and, like Romney’s other advertising, has been largely ignoring Newt, except in Southern states where Newt was competitive.
All we hear is “rah rah, go Newt” in favor of Newt staying in. What we don’t see is specific, detailed mathematical analysis of the delegates showing how Newt and Rick staying in leads Romney to be denied 1,144 delegates. Yet we have much analysis showing how Newt dropping out helps Romney lose more contests and delegates in a two-man race, due to the 800 out of 1200 delegates coming up from various winner-take-all contests.
If current polling holds with Newt behind Rick in every state, then he is going to keep functioning as a Ross Perot spoiler in 2/3rds of the upcoming contests. In AL and MI he already helped Romney get more delegates than he would have if Rick would have been able to get over 50% and trigger winner-take-all rules.
The polling showing how many Newt voters would go to Rick is meaningless. Number one, half the states have already voted, so what good is a national poll? Secondly, if Newt campaigns for Rick and is announced for V.P., that will sway many more Newt voters.
Exactly. As proven in Missouri, in conservative states, the vast majority of Newt voters would be going to Rick. In liberal states, they would go by a large margin to Romney. But, Newt's percentage of the vote and number of delegates is significant in conservative states and minimal in the more liberal ones.
Well Forest, time will tell which one of us is correct.
Yesterday morning, Romney was on FOX and Friends. He was asked about Newt staying in. He was just fine with it. Not one disparaging word.
Did you really expect him to say anything else?
No I didn’t, and it isn’t hard to figure out why. He had plenty to say about Santorum.
Okay. You run with that. You obviously have a very firm grip on it.
Face it. Why would you spend money on a person who is no longer a threat to you just by doing the math?
You wouldn’t. If Romney still felt Newt was a threat he would spend his big bucks to smear Newt like he did in Florida.
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