Yup. I said FL was the last stand for a conservative alternative to Romney and Newt had emerged as that candidate in SC. I said if Santorum stayed in, it was to benefit Romney.
Those here enraptured by the sanctimonious establishment hack Santorum would hear nothing of it. They didn't care about his voting record, his GOPe ties, he had a nice family and was talking their values and they followed him like the Pied Piper. They would travel thread-to-thread in attack mode.
Now unlike the op ed, I think Romney was the right candidate in the end. He had the right skill set for the mess we find ourselves in. Who among us could anticipate GOP turnout would be as low in light of the crowds? It came down to ground game and people, like those who supported Santorum, refusing to ever vote against Obama because Romney was the nominee.
The so-called Tea Party failed to stop Obama's agenda, it lost ground over 2010 and produced more US Senate candidates who failed in states Romney won easily with tens, even hundreds of thousands of votes difference. Now some seem to think this is a mandate to hijack the agenda. It is nothing of the kind. It's time for introspection, time to reexamine how primary candidates are chosen.
These winnable but lost seats were the difference between a GOP Senate and Harry Reid's expanded majority against all expectations.
I have not seen a single of Akin apologist here admit to being wrong about him staying in the race. Instead they attacked, they demonized, the slandered everyone from Romney to Palin, from DeMint to Ryan, to their fellow freepers as pro-abortionists.
“sanctimonious establishment hack Santorum”
That’s the cure! Less sanctimony more reach around the aisle.
By jove, I believe you’ve got it!
The only tiny thing I would disagree with you on is the Tea Party reference. There are two distinct strains of tea - at least two - and only one is the real liberty minded, limited government, anti Obama Care tea that was sparked by Rick Santelli and led to the formation of the tea party - which included a lot of social conservatives, but they were not there for the social issues per se.
And then there is the co opting of some of the tea party groups as a off shoot of and repackaing of pro life groups.
The first group gives us Marco Rubio, Lee from Utah, Johnson from Wisconsin, Cruz from Texas, Paul from Kentucky - and is kind of godfathered by DeMint. The second group gives us O Donnell, Angle, Akin and Mourdock. And Santorum. And what this clueless group doesn’t even understand is that Akin and Santorum are really long time tools of the establishment, but they are so despised for their utter lack of ability, that they then claim to be outsiders. And too many fall for it around here simply because they will babble endlessly about abortion. How about we save the country from Marxism and/or Islamic terror first, then win the arguments that we are right on regarding the other issues?
I’m a total Reagan conservative, but I’ll be darned if I’ll blindy support an idiot just because he is right on the social issues. There are non idiots who are also right on those issues.
Find me someone who can actually accomplish something for those issues, even if that is someone who doesn’t look like Brady Bunch central casting.
Amen bros, right on the money. The big difference between the Newt supporters and the Santorum supporters - is that the Newt supporters came back to him slowly fully aware of his flaws and his history. As such, there was never a cultish slavish lack of understanding of who we were dealing with. We saw him as the battered warrior, wiser for the successes and failures he had been a part of, like a Churchill - very flawed - but right for the times we are in.
The Santorum sweater vest cultists, on the other hand, saw Rick "take the slings and arrows" and his family out of church picnic central casting, and simply would not hear of his pro union, pro enviro, pro big government history. His over all record was pretty good, but some of his bad votes were on just awful issues. The way the ACU keeps score really is misleading in that regard.
The other thing they wouldn't hear is that in 15 years, when RS is as old as NEwt is now, he will probably have stepped into more doo doo than Newt ever did. That is, if anyone even cares what RS says. Newt's problem is that because he is who he is, every thing he ever says gets recorded.