Posted on 04/14/2012 5:09:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
Mitt Romney would be wise to take a good hard look at what Rick Santorum did right and what he did wrong during his campaign. In his quest to unseat President Obama, Romney will face some of the same challenges Santorum faced.
Back in the summer of 2011, nobody thought Santorum had a shot at the Republican nomination. Nationally, he was polling at about 3 percent. But through sheer hard work and persistence, he won the Iowa caucus and was catapulted into the big time.
There are many lessons to be learned from Santorum's political journey, beginning with having a dream and fighting like hell to make it happen. The senator did that, and it makes him a noble figure to those of us who admire achievement.
But Santorum also made some vivid mistakes in underestimating the secular culture and the intent of the media. And this is where the Romney tutorial begins.
The national press is generally biased toward the left and has the long knives out for anyone spouting spiritual beliefs. Once Santorum began answering questions about his theology, it began to damage his political message. And when he criticized John F. Kennedy on the separation of church and state issue, the media went wild. You don't mess with JFK.
ABC's George Stephanopoulos defined the skeptical tone toward Santorum in January during the New Hampshire debate. He zeroed in on the senator's moral view of contraception, and foolishly, Santorum engaged. He should have simply said: "Hey, George, I have seven kids. I don't know much about it." End of exposition.
But no. Santorum rambled on about the downside of birth control, something most Americans simply don't want to hear about. Although most citizens are believers, the USA has become a largely secular country, and voters do not want politicians telling them how to conduct their private lives.
Soon, Santorum was besieged by questions about his faith-based belief system and, again, entered into the conversation, answering questions about the morality of homosexuality and the like. In doing so, he walked into a swamp he couldn't get out of and was marginalized as a religious zealot.
Memo to Romney: If the media ask you about Adam and Eve, simply say they didn't have jobs and it's Obama's fault. Keep the conversation on issues that matter to the voters. The media don't really care what you think about Cain and Abel or what you believe spiritually. They simply want to make you look like Elmer Gantry.
In the end, Santorum's spirited challenge to Romney actually better defined the governor for the voters, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your viewpoint. But going forward, Romney will face the same sand traps that bedeviled Santorum. Best to walk around them, Governor, because once you get in, you'll never get out.
You are avoiding discussing the problem statement. Rick Santorum said that as President he was going to do what no other President before him has done, and that is to talk about why contraception is "not okay". THAT is the problem. Had he just said he's Catholic and personally agrees with the church there would not have been much of an issue. Had he joked about it like O'Reilly and you suggest and said "hey, Ive got 7 kids so I don't know much about it", there wouldn't have been much of a problem. Where Santorum screwed up is by outright saying one of the things he would do as President is talk about why contraception is "not okay"
Here is the quote which is the one that was on video and got him in so much trouble:
One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, 'Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.' It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.
Santorum never walked that back. No, he wasn't ever talking about banning contraception, but he did want to talk about, as President, why it was "not okay". I'm sorry, but that isn't the President's job. The public is never going to elect a candidate who says these sorts of things at this time. Who knows what the future holds, maybe some virus will kill half the public and society will find a pressing need to have many more babies. If that happens, Santorum's views might make him electable. But right now, no, not a chance. He should never have said that.
However, I can't blame Santorum for saying something that is consistent with his conservative Roman Catholic position. It was going to come out no matter what — unpopular faith-based positions always get trotted out for attention in campaigns if the candidate is a devout believer, and it's going to be happening soon with Romney's Mormonism. What Santorum did was link contraception with rampant sexual immorality, and that's an issue on which most conservative Christians will agree with him no matter whether they agree on contraception or not.
That linkage can be defended easily by pointing out that the liberals love sexual freedom based on the widespread availability of contraception, with abortion as a backup if it doesn't work.
As an evangelical Protestant who is not convinced birth control is sin, I'm not going to say what Santorum said. But I have equally unpopular religious views which I would not back down from if the issues were to be raised in a political campaign.
Being honest and being willing to offend people in a campaign is not something that annoys me in a conservative politician. The same forthrightness that got Santorum into trouble is what got him a lot of votes, including from people who didn't agree with him on the contraception issue or his fundamental Roman Catholic beliefs.
I believe Santorum could have recovered from the contraception issue. Most people who strongly opposed him on that wouldn't have voted against him anyway in the primary, but would have voted for him in the general election on the grounds that Obama is far worse.
I can't say that about Mitt Romney.
Ditto!
True enough, I certainly would have.
I just want to be clear about my point since you've been willing to discuss the issue.
I personally like Rick Santorum. I personally have no issue or problem at all with those that believe contraception is "not okay". I also believe that declining birthrates in the West is a real, significant problem.
I do not have any problem with contraception, but I am not in anyway worried about voting for someone who does. So long as they don't want to ban it and take our choices away, it is NOT an issue that personally concerned me about Santorum.
My problem with Rick is purely political. I don't believe someone that discusses those sorts of things has even the slightest chance of winning a general election. Therefore I see it as pointless to support them. I write those kinds of candidates off because I know they can't win. Electability really does matter. If being right were enough in life, we wouldn't have 16 trillion in debt, 4 dollar gas, 8.2% unemployment, etc, etc. The problem is, to change anything you have to win and I believe Rick Santorum would have, however well intentioned, made the issue of the election social issues like contraception and porn - which is EXACTLY what Obama and his minions want because they do not want to talk about the economy.
Because I have been involved with electoral politics for a very long time at many different levels, I've learned that it is insane to ignore political realities. We can wish that the regular guy (perhaps a neighbor), non politician, devout Christian who is super smart, conservative and would make great decisions could be president - but human nature is what it is and they will almost always lose to a polished, charismatic politician. There is just no escaping this fact. So we first must find a candidate who has at least a reasonable chance to win a general election (which means all the people, not just GOP primary voters). Rick Santorum simply wasn't that guy. He did well as a social conservative, but don't forget that some of that vote was simply a protest vote against Willard the RINO. Santorum basically got the same demographic that voted for Huckabee (and Robertson before he dropped out). Those guys simply can't win national elections.
You’re are TOTALLY wrong..
That debate wasn’t even remembered in the carpet bombing that went on in Florida - and I know, I was there.
Romney ran 17 million dollars of negative advertising against Newt. Jeb Bush and all of his florida toadies and minions were behind the scenes working for him. Marco Rubio came out and almost endorsed Romney, there were filthy lies all over the place.
Did you even hear of bloody thursday?
There were romney surrogates showing at every newt stop and holding cause with the press and blasting Newt and lying about him... Mitt romney, by some estimates, ran about 200,000 robocalls the last week, his mailings were about a 4-inch stack the last week of the campaign.
the state GOP was bussing in people to Mitt events, and Mitt’s ads were horrific, not just the usual slime, they were horrific and filled with lies. The washington post said one 30 sec ad had 4 lies in it... that’s one lie every 6 seconds in one spot... there were 120,000.
The last 3 days before the vote, if you watched tv anywhere in florida there were approximately 5 anti-newt ads per hour - that is how deep his ad buys were.
Romney hired telemarketers to make live voice calls for him, and the entire GOP conservative echelon was spewing on about Newt... from the a b and c teams. And there were a few counties borderline North that usually report fairly early, that reported very very late and showed with Romney with a razor thin, and you know what that means.
Let me tell you something, Newt could have have hit 3 grand slams in the debate, undisputed, unquestioned and he would have still lost florida. Because Romney would have just amped up his attack accordingly to meet newt’s threshold.
There was a conference call with Mitt and his staff before his campaigning began in earnest and the goal was to destroy Newt... destroy him.
And mitt signed off on it.
Santorum never received that kind of treatment up until the day he quite because he was never the threat Newt was...
Instead of badmouthing Newt re Florida understand this:
He won all of the counties in teh north...
He still made a decent showing and had Santorum done right by his country he could have came out and helped Newt before he ran home and asked his supporters to vote for Newt...
AND FINALLY, Newt survived. He wasn’t meant to survive. Romney intended for Newt to be carried off the battlefield after florida, forever dispensed with, and his path clear to the nomination.
NEWT IS STILL HERE. Battered, bloodied, healing and fighting on.
To be clear, I don’t disagree Newt lost that debate. All I am saying things would have turned out the same had he won it...
Newt is still fighting, if you truly do support him please help..
www.newt.org
www.newt.org/donate
You’re are TOTALLY wrong..
That debate wasn’t even remembered in the carpet bombing that went on in Florida - and I know, I was there.
Romney ran 17 million dollars of negative advertising against Newt. Jeb Bush and all of his florida toadies and minions were behind the scenes working for him. Marco Rubio came out and almost endorsed Romney, there were filthy lies all over the place.
Did you even hear of bloody thursday?
There were romney surrogates showing at every newt stop and holding cause with the press and blasting Newt and lying about him... Mitt romney, by some estimates, ran about 200,000 robocalls the last week, his mailings were about a 4-inch stack the last week of the campaign.
the state GOP was bussing in people to Mitt events, and Mitt’s ads were horrific, not just the usual slime, they were horrific and filled with lies. The washington post said one 30 sec ad had 4 lies in it... that’s one lie every 6 seconds in one spot... there were 120,000.
The last 3 days before the vote, if you watched tv anywhere in florida there were approximately 5 anti-newt ads per hour - that is how deep his ad buys were.
Romney hired telemarketers to make live voice calls for him, and the entire GOP conservative echelon was spewing on about Newt... from the a b and c teams. And there were a few counties borderline North that usually report fairly early, that reported very very late and showed with Romney with a razor thin, and you know what that means.
Let me tell you something, Newt could have have hit 3 grand slams in the debate, undisputed, unquestioned and he would have still lost florida. Because Romney would have just amped up his attack accordingly to meet newt’s threshold.
There was a conference call with Mitt and his staff before his campaigning began in earnest and the goal was to destroy Newt... destroy him.
And mitt signed off on it.
Santorum never received that kind of treatment up until the day he quite because he was never the threat Newt was...
Instead of badmouthing Newt re Florida understand this:
He won all of the counties in teh north...
He still made a decent showing and had Santorum done right by his country he could have came out and helped Newt before he ran home and asked his supporters to vote for Newt...
AND FINALLY, Newt survived. He wasn’t meant to survive. Romney intended for Newt to be carried off the battlefield after florida, forever dispensed with, and his path clear to the nomination.
NEWT IS STILL HERE. Battered, bloodied, healing and fighting on.
To be clear, I don’t disagree Newt lost that debate. All I am saying things would have turned out the same had he won it...
Newt is still fighting, if you truly do support him please help..
www.newt.org
www.newt.org/donate
You’re are TOTALLY wrong..
That debate wasn’t even remembered in the carpet bombing that went on in Florida - and I know, I was there.
Romney ran 17 million dollars of negative advertising against Newt. Jeb Bush and all of his florida toadies and minions were behind the scenes working for him. Marco Rubio came out and almost endorsed Romney, there were filthy lies all over the place.
Did you even hear of bloody thursday?
There were romney surrogates showing at every newt stop and holding cause with the press and blasting Newt and lying about him... Mitt romney, by some estimates, ran about 200,000 robocalls the last week, his mailings were about a 4-inch stack the last week of the campaign.
the state GOP was bussing in people to Mitt events, and Mitt’s ads were horrific, not just the usual slime, they were horrific and filled with lies. The washington post said one 30 sec ad had 4 lies in it... that’s one lie every 6 seconds in one spot... there were 120,000.
The last 3 days before the vote, if you watched tv anywhere in florida there were approximately 5 anti-newt ads per hour - that is how deep his ad buys were.
Romney hired telemarketers to make live voice calls for him, and the entire GOP conservative echelon was spewing on about Newt... from the a b and c teams. And there were a few counties borderline North that usually report fairly early, that reported very very late and showed with Romney with a razor thin, and you know what that means.
Let me tell you something, Newt could have have hit 3 grand slams in the debate, undisputed, unquestioned and he would have still lost florida. Because Romney would have just amped up his attack accordingly to meet newt’s threshold.
There was a conference call with Mitt and his staff before his campaigning began in earnest and the goal was to destroy Newt... destroy him.
And mitt signed off on it.
Santorum never received that kind of treatment up until the day he quite because he was never the threat Newt was...
Instead of badmouthing Newt re Florida understand this:
He won all of the counties in teh north...
He still made a decent showing and had Santorum done right by his country he could have came out and helped Newt before he ran home and asked his supporters to vote for Newt...
AND FINALLY, Newt survived. He wasn’t meant to survive. Romney intended for Newt to be carried off the battlefield after florida, forever dispensed with, and his path clear to the nomination.
NEWT IS STILL HERE. Battered, bloodied, healing and fighting on.
To be clear, I don’t disagree Newt lost that debate. All I am saying things would have turned out the same had he won it...
Newt is still fighting, if you truly do support him please help..
www.newt.org
www.newt.org/donate
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