Posted on 04/15/2012 2:47:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The exit of Rick Santorum from the Republican presidential primary essentially clears the path Mitt Romney is traveling to become the party's nominee against U.S. President Obama in November but Romney still has to win the hearts of GOP voters as well as the party's nomination.
Romney had 573 delegates per the Republican National Committee's count to Santorum's 202 delegates when the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania withdrew last week. But he has yet to stir a fire in the belly of the party's evangelical and conservative wings as he moves closer to the 1,144 delegates needed to claim the nomination.
"Some of Santorum's delegates will immediately shift to Romney, some will gradually shift, and a hard core group will probably go to another candidate or remain uncommitted," political commentator Steven Schier of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., said. "This last group will probably not be large enough to disrupt a Romney coronation at the convention."
The final Gallup poll conducted during the party preference process, released last week, indicated Romney is the preferred presidential candidate of 42 percent of Republicans polled nationwide, among the lowest measured in a final primary poll since 1972, Gallup said. Santorum was the choice of 24 percent of Republicans in the poll completed before he made his announcement, the Princeton, N.J., pollster said.
Even though he trailed -- badly -- in money and delegates, Santorum's strong performance created a sometimes bruising primary campaign. Santorum won 11 states before he bowed out ahead of his home state's primary April 24 where several polls indicated Santorum held a slim single-digit lead over Romney and one survey showed Romney leading Santorum.
Santorum's withdrawal cleared the way for Republicans to rally around Romney, and three prominent conservatives, Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Rick Scott of Florida, and Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania endorsed Romney hours after Santorum announced his departure.
Conservative leaders who had rallied around Santorum's campaign, however, have raised doubts that faction of the Republican Party could readily embrace Romney, seen by that wing as too moderate, The New York Times reported.
Conservative activist Richard Viguerie was blunt, especially since Romney unleashed a barrage against Santorum and other conservative candidates.
"After having destroyed every conservative that came on the scene," Viguerie said, "you can't say 'You have to line up behind me.' No, no, no. Conservatives are not going to jump until they hear where Governor Romney wants to take everybody."
"I just think it's going to be a much harder lift to take someone who seems like a moderate and try to get conservatives excited about it," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told CNN.
Perkins said Romney shouldn't expect to collect the same type of support Santorum got if the former Massachusetts governor doesn't fully embrace the principles of the socially conservative organization.
"And so if the party is moving in a different direction, we are not going there," Perkins said. "The only reason there was an alignment with Rick Santorum from our constituency is because Rick embraced the ideas, the policies and the principles that our organization and our constituency believes in and so to the degree that one candidate or another aligns with that, they're going to find support. If they don't, they're not going to get the unbridled enthusiastic support that Rick Santorum enjoys."
Even though Santorum's departure removes the last major stumbling block to Romney's nomination two other candidates -- former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas -- said they would stay in the race until the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., with each claiming he represents the conservative alternative.
Without flat-out saying Gingrich and Paul should end their bids, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told CNN, "I think they should all look at the math."
"Gingrich and Paul may remain on the stump, but they will receive relatively limited media attention because the nomination contest is essentially over," Schier said. "Romney's challenge regarding these candidates is obtaining their strong personal support by the convention so that he can launch the fall campaign without a divided party."
Gingrich and Paul both have personal agendas they want to bring to the fore, Schier said.
"For Paul, it is libertarianism. For Gingrich, it is strong social and fiscal conservatism," the commentator said. "For these reasons, they remain at least nominally active candidates. It would be best for Romney if both candidates dropped out and endorsed him, but neither is likely to create considerable disruption at the convention."
Romney and Santorum traded vitriol throughout the campaign, but former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a leader on Romney's campaign team, said he expected Santorum to rally behind Romney.
"[We] need all of the pieces to come together to make this a successful campaign," said Pawlenty, who abandoned his bid to be the GOP nominee after the Iowa straw poll last summer. "But ... there's a grand tradition of people competing hard for party nominations" then uniting against a common foe.
Priebus said told CNN he believed Republicans would be "100 percent unified behind our nominee."
"I think time heals some wounds," the RNC leader said. "And I also think that over time, over the next several weeks, I think our party gets completely unified."
The main challenge for Romney within the GOP is "generating enthusiasm among the evangelicals and strong conservatives who have thus far disdained him," Schier said. "He needs their strong support in the form of volunteer hours and campaign contributions. He will be conducting an outreach over the next several months to secure that support because he needs their support to be competitive with President Obama this fall."
No one here is voting for Obama.
And those with Mr. Jim are voting for Conservatives only, both now and in November.
Romney gets no vote from us.
-——No one here is voting for Obama.———
Candor7 apparently will vote for obama....... see his post above, 22 and 25
Don’t go there, please. A vote is a personal endorsement. A vote is material assistance. This is not simply a game of chess. Either of these men are so base, so malevolent in their policies and deeds, that one becomes a guilty accomplice by assisting either one.
Your vote is precious. Your vote is sacred. Don’t sully it by handing it to either of these smirking, bloodyhanded villains.
“There is merely irrational, mindless stupidity in voting for Obama”
Or indeed any corrupt malefator.
I think Rick’s endorsement is waiting on Romney’s family and Romney’s backers to loosen it with cash (or promises of campaign debt clearing help once he endorses Mitt). But not so quickly as to anger his supporters. It is all very much of a pattern.
The mAsshole has 6 months to run left. If he does I may do the unthinkable. In my case the best that the Monied Milquetoast Mormon can hope for is my neutrality.
‘She’s the absolute best.’
Well then - that makes at least three of us (spouse here) who saw Sarah on FOX this weekend.
Wouldn’t be surprised that show is repeated later today, Sunday.
Highly recommend watching it.
Off to dreamland - - -
BUMP!
I will go there. We must fight and defeat a fascist mopvement. Do you think for a moment that is not the case?
This is not business as usual. The GOP is incapable of defeuining the fascist threat OR fighting it. It must go.
We will not defeat fascism at the polls. We will defeat it through warfare , either political or conventional.
The GOP doesn’t even KNOW there is a war.
The GOP is not worthy of even one conservative’s vote.
Vote for Obama , destroy the GOP, and then destroy the Obama movement, thats the plan we MUST all now face.
I am just waiting to see whether Newt has a hope in hell.He could still pull it out, but conservative people are just too complacent, it seems.
I will go there. We must fight and defeat a fascist mopvement. Do you think for a moment that is not the case?
This is not business as usual. The GOP is incapable of defeuining the fascist threat OR fighting it. It must go.
We will not defeat fascism at the polls. We will defeat it through warfare , either political or conventional.
The GOP doesn’t even KNOW there is a war.
The GOP is not worthy of even one conservative’s vote.
Vote for Obama , destroy the GOP, and then destroy the Obama movement, thats the plan we MUST all now face.
I am just waiting to see whether Newt has a hope in hell.He could still pull it out, but conservative people are just too complacent, it seems.
PS NEWT fan here - - -
Don’t put that on your conscience my friend. Please. Simple or simplistic as it sounds, voting for either Romney or Obama is a sin. An affront to God. Picking one or the other is like deciding whether you will blow your brains out with a revolver or an automatic. The correct answer is NEITHER one, because you are not going there.
GOPe = Whig Party
“We were so quick to get solidly behing both of them as minority “conservatives” and never really vetted them through all the fawning.”
Salient point. I liked Jindal and now this. How could he support Romney..?! Romney destroyed every conservative with his barrage of negative ads and money....it was disgusting. While every other candidate was telling you WHY to vote for them...Romney was telling everyone WHY you shouldn’t.
Now we’re left with just him....yawn....yuck
Guess I gotta hold my nose and vote for him simply for the
future supreme court nomination thats coming up.
I especially love the repeated references that Romney is seen as "too moderate." Were he any where near moderate, it wouldn't be so painful. He's Obama-white for cryin' out loud.
If little Ricky would commit his delagates to Newt, it would be a race for the nomination, with Mitt having a lead, but not insurmountable. That are some big states yet to vote.
It would change the entire race, the mood of the party and the strength of the 2012 ticket going up against Obama.
Newt Gingrich is going after unpledged delegates - that haven't committed in primaries - including upcoming PA (72), and already completed MT (26) and (IL (69) delegates, since these delegates remain unpledged regardless of primary vote.
AND though there are going to be some “winner take all” primaries, the following contests are also on the schedule:
RI (16) proportional
NY (92) proportional
WVA (28) proportional -- elect delegates (who list their presidential pick on ballot)
NC (52) proportional
OR (25) proportional
AK (33) proportional
KY (42) proportional
TX (155) proportional
CA (169) proportional (by district)
NM (20) proportional
SD (25) proportional
There there are the Contested delegates: …. “delegates have to be "uncontested" in order to count. The frontrunner's rivals argue some of the states that awarded Romney all of their delegates violated Republican National Committee rules when they moved their contests ahead of April 1 and therefore should distribute delegates proportionally. This dispute, if it continues, would not be ruled on until the August convention in Tampa.
"All the media counts right now give him all of Florida, which is against the rules, all of Arizona, which is against the rules, and all of Idaho," Gingrich said Monday. "Those are all three proportional states and they should only be counting his share. So he has to win 1,144 uncontested delegates."
FL: 50 delegates
ID: 32 delegates
AZ: 29 delegates
RNC neutrality challenged on Romney…… “The list of specific grievances ranges from issues that even the party acknowledges are legitimate, to those that they dismiss as desperate fixations from Romney’s flailing rivals.
For example, the committee agrees that some states that went for Romney jumped the line in the primary schedule, a violation of party rules. But RNC defenders shrug off other complaints, like that they undercut Santorum and Gingrich by formatting a delegate tracking list to pad Romney’s tally, by forming a fundraising alliance this week with Romney and by highlighting a rule that would block an unlikely path to the nomination for Gingrich.
And it’s possible they’ll be other clashes in the coming weeks, with the RNC signaling Thursday its opposition to a push by Santorum backers in Texas to alter the rules surrounding that state’s May 29 primary to help the former Pennsylvania Senator.
Critics of the RNC’s handling of the primary are so sensitive to signs that the committee may be pulling for Romney that they’ve even detected evidence of favoritism in the staff ties between his campaign and the RNC — though some concede such speculation veers more toward conspiracy theory than legitimate concern.”….
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