Come on Steel— let’s have the antecedent to that quote:
“Over the long span of his career, no one – save Ronald Reagan – did more while in public office to advance the conservative cause than did Newt Gingrich.” Viquerie
That’s why I find this fellow’s logic specious. He doesn’t say Rick did more than anyone for conservatism while in office— Newt did. Why then does he support Rick?
Elementary my dear Watson, the results on the ground speak for themselves. Newt spoke about his “southern strategy” and at one point his campaign manager said that AL and MS were must wins for him staying in the race.That strategy is now reduced to rubble.
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.