Santorum on defensive as race turns to Louisiana

Facing heightened pressure to revive his presidential bid, Rick Santorum was forced to explain another apparent misstep as he courted Louisiana voters Friday, the eve of a critical contest in a Republican nomination battle that increasingly favors Mitt Romney.

Santorum said he would support the eventual GOP nominee - if it isn't him - despite what he insists are similarities between front-runner Romney and President Barack Obama that make them indistinguishable on some issues. He caused an intraparty uproar earlier in the week after suggesting he'd prefer a second term for Obama over a Romney presidency.

"I've said repeatedly and will continue to say, I'll vote for whoever the Republican nominee is and I will work for him," Santorum said as he walked back his original comments less than 24 hours before Louisiana polls were set to open. "Barack Obama is a disaster, but we can't have someone who agrees with him on some of the biggest issues of the day."

The situation underscored Santorum's challenges ahead of a Louisiana contest he's favored to win. Santorum has had success in the South, having won last week's contests in Alabama and Mississippi. Regardless of the outcome Saturday, however, Romney will have collected more delegates than his opponents combined as the race then turns to more favorable territory in the coming weeks.

Santorum's continued missteps are complicating a candidacy already struggling to overcome major financial and organizational deficiencies. Before losing this week's Illinois primary, Santorum hurt himself by declaring that neither the economy nor the nation's unemployment rate was his top concern.

"I think the biggest development of the last 24 hours was Sen. Santorum's remarkable mistake in suggesting that re-electing President Obama was acceptable under any circumstance," Republican contender Newt Gingrich told reporters in Port Fourchon, La. (snip)

This election has become a complete disaster already. Neither Romney or Santorum can deliver us from this predicament.

this is the best analysis I have read of what has happened this year, by TitansAFC, which is much like what happened in 2008, only a slight change in players. We can't just blame everything on the establishment. They do to us what we let them. Honestly, this is worth a few minutes to read and ponder:

"It’s Huckabee bullheadedly plowing ahead of Thompson by sheer belief in his own holiness all over again. The story always starts out the same: Conservatives get a credible alternative to the Establishment front-runner, and he starts getting attacked.

Then the SoCon who stayed under the radar (Huckabee then, Santorum now) becomes everyone’s plan B, because the guy who could have won (Thompson, Gingrich) was unloaded upon by the GOP-E money machine. Then the smug supporters of the upstart underdog all thump their chest and say “NO.....YOUR GUY SHOULD DROP OUT!!”

Then the vote is already split, the credible candidate becomes non-credible because of vote-splitting, and the upstart winds-up in second place because folks trying to beat the Establishment liberal switch to plan B because the smug voters of the only holy candidate make it loudly clear that they’re going to support the holy upstart candidate even if it means the Liberals win.

It JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.

In reality, what needed to happen was for Santorum to drop out early, when it became apparent that there was someone who could lead Romney in the polls for a long time, and when it was clear he had a friggin’ LITANY of ballot and delegate issues. Even if it was not Newt at the time (heck, replace Newt with Perry), Conservatives should have united around a single candidate with a full organization and little to no ballot and delegate issues, and there SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A PLAN B. Conservative should have been forced to STAY united, learn to DEFEND their candidate rather than defect because the rich, Establishment Liberal was able to smear the credible Conservative with overwhelming cash.

If there had been no Santorum, Newt would be leading right now. He would be leading because we would have been united against Romney from day one, and there would have been no defections based on the fact that - by simply running under the radar - someone else rises because they haven’t been unloaded on.

We CANNOT keep doing this. We CANNOT keep Santoruming and Huckabeeing ourselves based on some sick notion of the holiness of a politician. We cannot keep some broke one-percenter in the race because they were able to show well in Iowa after living there for two years and facing almost no attacks because of their low polling. We cannot keep rewarding these guys for throwing Hail Mary passes when we have a chance to defeat the Liberals. No more “shoestring” campaigns, no more one-percenters who surge in time to do well in Iowa, no more long-shot dreams based on the notion that some candidate is the mostest Christianest candidate of them all.

No more Huckabees, no more Santorums. No more long-shots who surge in Iowa. Rule them out before they ruin another Primary season. Santorum was never going to get 1144 delegates - it was NEVER going to happen. The fact that people bull-headedly refused to waver from him KILLED us - and then they turned around and taunted Newt and Perry voters for voting for Santorum in desperation, citing the vote count as if nobody knows what was actually happening. No more Santorums, no more Huckabees. No more long shots, period.

by TitansAFC

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2861639/posts?page=96#96

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