You talk a lot about who is the most "electable." IMO, it's silly to think any of these guys are unelectable when they have performed as well as they have in the primaries. Some people theorize that only ONE factor has any influence on who gets elected president, the economy. It's hard to argue that, looking back on past races, although in Bush/Gore's case, you'd have to say the economy decides the popular vote, but not necessarily who wins.
The bottom line here, if you prefer Romney, then your strategy makes perfect sense. Two conservatives splitting the vote is handing Romney extra delegates, as it did in Alabama where a single opponent getting 50% of the vote would have denied him delegates. Two conservatives will hand him even more going forward, where 800 of the remaining 1200 delegates fall under some form of winner-take-all rules.
Newt has weathered a lot going this far and really has very little to lose staying in the race.
Not true. This vote splitting is on track to help Romney get to over 1,144 delegates by June. With a single conservative taking advantage of the highly increased upcoming winner-take-all contests, Romney could be denied probably 100-250 delegates he would get in a 3-man race. We'll see what happens on Tuesday, where in Illinois Romney could win the entire 69 delegates if he wins each district with a mere plurality of the vote, as the polls show him getting now. It is a direct delegate election, hence if Romney gets 35% of the vote in every district and everyone else gets less, he gets all the delegates. Newt and Rick's votes combined in the current polls would exceed Romney's total there by a big margin, enough for them, if combined into one ticket, to win all the delegates.
What I'm advocating is not Newt dropping out, but him teaming up with Rick. Rick would have to go along with it too of course. And if he doesn't, there is certainly a chance he won't get enough of Newt's votes to help him win these contests. It doesn't matter which one of them drops out and joins the other as a V.P. pick, but there appears to be no mathematical way based on current polling to stop Romney from winning the nomination without switching to a 2-man-1-fruitcake (Paul) race where that consolidated conservative candidate finds a way to get all the votes Newt and Rick are currently getting separately.
Jedi, what do you say to those of us who believe Santorum for whatever bitterly regretable reason having to everything to do with his low IQ for reading even the obvious signals, and continuing to ignore any and all consideration of Newt Gingrich.
Seriously, Rick will be mortally wounded politically before his lightswitch snaps on to his own need for Newtron assistance.
Newt needs none of this. He knows his delegates and is holding them together FOR Santorum, otherwise, Newt can go back to work at home, cut loose his delegates, wave bye to those who promptly leave for the Romney camp.
It’s Rick who doesn’t have a job. Newt has one.
What I’m advocating is not Newt dropping out, but him teaming up with Rick.
Exactly, it doesn’t matter if we get 4 more years of Obama or 8 years of Mutt. Either way the USA as founded by the Constitution will be over for good.