Not me
Posted on 01/25/2012 1:30:33 PM PST by TBBT
From NBC News:
Failing to show early signs of momentum in the Sunshine State, presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on Wednesday signaled he may be cutting out of Florida before the state’s Jan. 31 primary.
Speaking to reporters here, the former Pennsylvania senator said was unsure if he would be in Florida the night of the primary, committing only to campaigning in the state over the next two days. On Saturday, he’ll head home to Virginia for fundraisers and to prepare his tax records which he plans to soon make public.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Unfortunately, he now seems to think pandering to the illegal alien lobby is also a winning strategy.
I hope Rick will be staying...I hope IF he does drop out he’ll endorse Newt and Newt selects him as his VP
Yep, one word: Charisma.
No matter how gone one's message is, if one does not have Charisma, they cannot move crowds or stir the hopes of people. It's that simple. Reagan had it in abundance. Sarah has it. Newt has it to a degree.
gone = strong
One top of his embrace of W's big government and interventionist foreign meddling, Santorum is the most unlikeable candidate in the room: whiny, petulant, needy not unlike a certain senator in the White House now.
He's often been described by other freepers as a yippee dog hoping for the adults to drop some food scraps.
He'd bring back the worst of W without his executive experience or personal charm. That's why he's not catching on.
This can only help Newt in FL. If he drops out, even better. National polls tell us this is between Mitt and Newt. If Newt gets in, I’m sure he’ll have Santorum on his team.
I don’t agree with that take on Santorum and I’m strongly pro-Newt. I also find it inconceivable that Santorum will endorse Romney unless Romney becomes the nominee. Santorum has no future with Romney. The gulf on social conservativism (i.e. people who believe their religions and people who just follow it for show) is the single greatest dividing line in the party and only getting wider and wider as time goes on. And it is the social liberals who are causing the divide by hating social conservatives. Romney would have no room for Santorum in his adminstration. Newt and Santorum clearly have a long, positive relationship and can easily mend the minor wounds of this campaign. Santorum would have to endorse Newt if only because he might be picked by Newt for V.P. or another job, but he never would be by Romney. And I don’t blame him staying in the campaign. It is about time where he can see the tea leaves are not going to turn for him and this sounds like preparation for pulling out.
Not me
The whole worlds out to get Newt, isn’t it?
...or perhaps he is more savy that you can fathom. He has two things that Newt Gingrich needs to wrap this election up:
(1) 10% of the GOP
(2) Pennsylvania
Mr. Gingrich could stop all the in-fighting and save a ton of cash AND knock Romney out of the race with a simple agreement: A Santorum VP slot for a Gingrich endorsement
Home is Virginia, where Rick wouldn’t be able to vote for himself during the Virginia GOP Presidential Primary.
“I would like to say “no way” but then again, there is a certain Arlen Specter hanging over Mr. Santorum when it comes to supporting lefty Republicans.”
Yes, Rick Santorum made a huge mistake when he endorsed Specter over Pat Toomey in the GOP Senate primary, and I was as upset about that as anyone. This is the text of a letter I e-mailed Senator Santorum back then:
“Dear Senator Santorum:
Let me begin by saying that I am not a resident of Pennsylvania, so I am not technically your constituent. But as a member of the Republican leadership in the Senate, you represent Republicans throughout the nation, and as such I feel at the liberty to drop you this friendly note.
I am an active participant in the conservative movement, and regularly mention your name not only as an example of the type of leadership, platform and voting record Republicans need to get elected in competitive states and districts, but also as my preferred candidate for President in 2008. I defended you when you were unfairly attacked for your foresighted criticism of the pro-sodomy arguments in the Lawrence case, and I am certainly proud to have someone like you in the Senate to speak out and act on issues near and dear to me, such as opposition to abortion and judicial activism and support for tax relief and national defense. But I am at a loss for words when someone asks me why you are actively supporting the reelection of Senator Arlen Specter, who disagrees with us in every single one of those important issues.
I know that tradition dictates that incumbent Senators not oppose the reelection of their colleagues from the same party, especially when they represent the same state. And as Republican Conference Chairman, it would be unbecoming for you to actively campaign for the defeat of a Republican colleague. But is it really necessary for you to run commercials supporting Arlen Specter’s candidacy when he is running against Congressman Pat Toomey, a true conservative Republican from a blue-collar Democrat district (just like a certain Congressman Santorum from a decade ago) who can lead the party to a statewide victory?
I am especially disheartened by your claim that Arlen Specter votes with conservatives “on votes that matter.” When the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, which you had been fighting for years to pass, got to the floor last year, it was nearly derailed by a sham substitute amendment by Dick Durbin that would not have prohibited a single abortion so long as the doctor stated that the mother’s health (including mental health) may be in danger. You know better than I that passage of the substitute amendment would have signaled the defeat of the PBA ban, and would have been a major setback in the pro-life movement. I remember that you spoke eloquently on the Senate floor as to why the sham substitute had to be defeated, and that the only way to end that heinous practice was to vote against Durbin’s substitute amendment. Wouldn’t you call that a “vote that matters”? I sure do. And, in case you’ve forgotten, Arlen Specter voted in favor of Durbin’s sham substitute, and the only reason it failed was because a few Democrat Senators, most of whom were up for reelection in 2004, voted against the amendment. Arlen Specter can only fool ignorant pro-lifers into believing that he supported the PBA ban, since he voted for its final passage, the results of which were a foregone conclusion. (Why, even Tom Daschle voted for the final bill! I hope that, in his Senate race against John Thune, Daschle doesn’t run ads saying that he supported President Bush’s agenda “on votes that matter.”) But most pro-lifers are not that ignorant, and we will not support someone like Arlen Specter for reelection.
I could go on for paragraphs about Specter’s voting record, the dangers posed by someone as unreliable as him serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (had Specter not opposed Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned in Planned Parenthood v. Casey back in 1992, which would have saved millions of lives), the fact that Governor Rendell would name Specter’s replacement in case he can’t serve out his entire six-year term, and how Specter’s proven inability to attract votes from blue-collar Democrats in the Pittsburgh area and in the “T,” not to mention the fact that he cannot rally the conservative base, will make him more vulnerable to a challenge from Congressman Hoeffel (who will not allow Specter to win by his usual margins in the Philly metro area) than would Pat Toomey (who would defeat Hoeffel by winning votes from pro-life, pro-gun, pro-defense Democrats, the group that gave you two House victories and two Senate victories), but I know that you already know all of that. My plea to you is that you think about these things, and reconsider your participation in an active campaign to defeat Pat Toomey in the GOP primary. If, God forbid, Specter defeats Toomey, then it would certainly be acceptable for you to campaign actively for Specter’s reelection. But now is not the time to go wobbly.
I hope that you receive this note in the spirit with which it was intended, and that, after meditation and prayer, you do the right thing.
Sincerely yours in Christ,”
So, irrespective of how Rick Santorum was pressured by President Bush and by PA Republicans to be “congenial” and “support the incumbent” who “would keep the seat safe,” I will not defend Rick Santorum’s cowardly endorsement of RINO Arlen Specter in 2004. But that being said, Newt Gingrich’s full-throated endorsement of DIABLO Dede Scozzafava (compared to whom Specter voted like Jesse Helms) in the 2009 special election, and doubling-down after it became clear that Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman (i) was far, far more conservative than her and (ii) had an exponentially better chance of defeating Democrat Bill Owens, was a million times worse by any objective standard.
That being said, I would never accuse Newt Gingrich of being a RINO, much less of trying to tank a primary so that a liberal such as Mitt Romney could win. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are both conservatives, but they are also human and thus sinners (as we all are), and they’ve made mistakes in the past (as we all have). Gingrich and Santorum are both trying to achieve the same thing—become the GOP nominee for president—and they both want to earn the nomination for the same reasons: because they believe in their hearts that they would be the best possible conservative standardbearer to defeat Obama in the general election. They are not running to sell books or try to get VP or Cabinet appointments. It is disgraceful for a conservative to get so embroiled in the primary horserace that he or she throws around such accusations about people who have been fighting for conservative values for decades.
I did not know that Santorum did also... are you sure ?
I do recall President Bush and Senator Santorum backing Spector over Toomey ... made me sick.
I don’t think the country can handle that much “straight talk”. But I would certainly like it.
Rick will be going home because he’s out of money. He’s not going to raise any money coming in third or fourth in Fl. He’s done.
There to celebrate the Fannie Mae commitment was none other than Newt Gingrich, the Georgia Republican who was Speaker of the House of Representatives and a big proponent of reducing government's size.
"Fannie Mae is an excellent example of a former government institution fulfilling its mandate while functioning in the market economy," Gingrich crowed, not quite accurately, for there was nothing "former" about Fannie Mae's government status.
Be careful chucking those rocks at all the other big government candidates in the race. One of them is likely to hit Newt square in the back of the head.
Haven’t candidates sat out a state’s primary before?
——Can someone explain to me why Santorum is not catching on?-——
Because is a loser.
He is a great conservative but is not percieved as someone who can win.
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