Posted on 02/16/2012 1:47:07 PM PST by FresnoRobert
As the junior senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum shepherded welfare reform through the U.S. Senate in 1996. Given his limited tenure — he’d been elected to the Senate only two years before — the fact that Majority Leader Bob Dole selected Santorum to lead the effort is nothing short of remarkable, Santorum’s former colleagues say. It also is a testament to an overlooked virtue of the ex-senator’s: his pragmatism.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Facts are stubborn things aren’t they? But with the Rick haters, facts don’t matter. When they lose an argument based on facts it quickly degenerates into personal attacks or conspiracy theories. Sad really...
The unity of the left, the media, the GOP-e, the history making unity of all three on “Bloody Thursday”, the eagerness of a sizable number of Santorum supporters to defend, or lean towards, or offer up Mitt as better than Newt, and the fact that freerepublic endorses Newt, tells us who the real threat to Mitt Romney is.
Based upon your logic, it’s obviously a conspiracy.
You are saying the fact that he hasn’t cheated on his wife is a major negative for a candidate?
The fight between the moderates and the conservatives within the GOP, and the media always siding with the moderate GOP until the primary is over, is eternal, you don’t need to call it a conspiracy.
Now there’s a typical liberal tactic. Where in my post would you have gotten that from. Surely you’re not twisting my words like the good liberals do are you?
There were formerly accusations that Bachmann & Cain were “beards” as well in past postings by others. It seems to be a common theme.
For many, Santorum is the latest beard.
Those of us who have been fighting Romney for many years, something that you clearly think was wrong, have watched as when JR made it impossible to openly push Romney, Romney’s supporters switched to the next none threat to Mitt, as their beard, while continuing to attack Palin, or today Gingrich.
That happens in the media as well, Beck is an example of that, he can always attack the conservative threat to Mitt by promoting the less threatening conservative enough, beard.
You can assume what you like. I like Rick because he has had fewer lapses in judgement and was on the right side of TARP, Global Warming and Healthcare Reform. The second choice for me is Newt & I will absolutely support Newt if he is the nominee. He is second in my book because he has wandered and has high negatives (unelectable). Finally, if God forbid Mitt takes the nomination, I will hold my nose & vote for him. I just think he is a flip flopper politician in the worst way. I understand that there are those who refuse to do that but clearly Mitt is less damaging for our country than Obama and a refusal to vote at all is no different than pulling the lever FOR Obama. Our nation cannot withstand another 4 years of this. I care too much about the country to allow that to happen.
Your theory that Romney supporters are secretly supporting others (Rick, Michele, Herman) so Newt will fail is just ridiculous on it’s face. If there were that many Romney supporters, they could simply vote in unison for Romney and he would have already rolled to the nomination. The truth is just too much for you, so you concoct this elaborate reason why Newt cannot carry the day. It just doesn’t hold water.
Nonsense, those of us who have been fighting Romney here for years have watched that take place, freepers that we have been engaged in constantly since 2007 on almost a daily basis, we watched them pull that routine as they fought against Palin, most of them got banned because the beard routine was not enough to hide their secret Romney agenda, but some of them are still here, and we watched as they went from beard to beard, all the while as their subtext was a Romney agenda.
Even for those who choose Santorum first, Romney is second choice for many of them, I am on some of those threads right now.
Well, I guess we just disagree. I can see that Rick is trying to win. Newt shot himself in the foot by tring to go tit-for-tat with the highly negative Romney campaign. He was already on thin ground with those that were pissed about him pulling the rug out from under Paul Ryan. He seemed to confirm the concerns people had by attacking capitalism of all things when going after Romney. That was the last straw for many that were giving him the benifit of the doubt and already had serious concerns. Rick benifited from the Newt exodus. That is Newt’s fault and Ricks lucky timing, not anything else.
What happened is that everyone who is against the right, including Romney and his millions in funding, have done their best to stop Newt, 1 year ago, or 2 years ago, or 3 years ago, we could not have named who would be in the Newt position as the conservative threat to Romney, but we knew exactly what the response would be and how thorough it would be, and we conservatives worried about how effective it could be.
One thing that seems to be true about this move back and forth between Romney and Santorum supporters here at freerepublic, I cannot think of any of the past Romney fans, who are backing Newt.
Good Gosh, you are another sleeper account who just showed up last month to bash Newt Gingrich.
1 post in 2005, 1 post in 2007, 1 post in 2008, 1post in 2009, and suddenly this non stop month of attacking Newt.
It's a chance you take. Live with it, surgery or manipulation. I don't buy the chiropractor cracking two vertebrae. The chiropractor paid nothing of the $350,000 , it was passed on to his patients, you and I.
Sorry about your wife, there are legitimate claims. But imo claims of back and neck pain is in too many cases a way to scam the system.
Granted, Newt supported Scozzafava, Gilchrist,Schwarz, and also Specter, but, and important but, he did not represent the states of the 4 of them.
When Gingrich in a GPO fund raiser said they would support a pro choice candidate to gain control of the house, I stopped being a contributor. Newts' job was to keep control of the house, Santorums' was to respresent his constituents wishes.
Newt did his, although I disagree, but Santorum did not.
I’ll have to ask you to point our some of these Santorum people who are actually closet Romney people, as I don’t personally know any such.
I can vote for Santorum easily, and have had notions that it would possibly be good for him to run for years, thanks to his frequent radio spots with people I listen to.
He is upbeat and hopeful enough that moderates and independents could vote for him - though I am sure in the general he will be caricatured as somewhat to the right of Hitler (sic). The campaign against him now could actually help in that circumstance.
Romney can’t get my vote at all, why put someone in office whom the Republicans will not fight as he implements the same odious policies any (D) would?
I don’t see these two becoming political bedfellows at all, but I suppose I could be wrong. If it came down to a Romney Santorum ticket, see point two above. I am not going to vote for a heart attack again, did that last time.
Gingrich, I can vote for, but know many female conservatives who can’t stand him, and I am not sure I didn’t feel cheated on myself, well before his infamous pictures and positions on MGW.
See that quote from Santorum in post 15 to see that they are political bedfellows. Romney was Santorum’s choice for President last time, now Romney talks of Santorum being his veep, one thing they share, defeat that conservative guy Newt.
Your defense of Santorum is typical, that he is moderate and not very conservative, non threatening to those that abhor or fear conservative candidates.
That is why the Palin/Reagan, conservative branch of the Republican base supports Speaker Gingrich, while the Romney/Santorum branch support their favorite between those two.
You have a 1999 sign up date, if you were conservative you would recognize the Romney followers that you would have been doing battle with for the last 5 1/2 years.
I am not really a fan of the “don’t run someone so conservative they offend the masses” theory, I think it is a mistake that got us McCain, and continually gets the GOP in trouble with conservatives, who tend to win the masses when left to campaign on their own. So I am a little disappointed to find myself appearing to offer such a defense. Perhaps I need to reword it later when I have time/sleep.
I see Santorum as consistently conservative in areas that matter, and presumably will trickle down to economic areas where he seems a little weaker. When I hear him speak, I hear someone likeable, whom I know to share many core values with me.
Despite Gingrich’s riding the conservative groundswell in the nineties, I haven’t seen him as consistent, except as a politician. He got a raw deal, but he also failed to deliver on commitments (perhaps he was outmaneuvered, I do not know). When I listen to him, I like what he says, but I do not know if I know or trust him in the same way.
My take was that the Contract with America was evidence that we want unabashed conservatism and will vote for it. Then, once in power, the GOP began to act like it needed to cross the aisle, and be non offensive, and not be all the things it claimed when courting our vote, I suppose to try to get the votes of the people it did not need to sweep in, anyway, or perhaps just to be liked.
Back to post 15 - I suppose the smartest course would have been to endorse no one. What a wretched field we had when everyone had to point to Romney as the most conservative horse in the race.
Whatever. Sounds like you just found another conspiracy.
I lurked here for years before I started posting. I do not go about attacking Newt. I am excited about Rick and I defend Rick because he is my pick. Seems to me that there are a few hard core Newt supporters who think it’s OK to post falsehoods or articles with no context that are right out of the DNC & Romney playbook. I have seen attacks on Rick’s family, on Bella, on his wife that I find pretty disgusting and right out of the pit of hell. If you think that is a conspiracy then fine. You should be a Ron Paul supporter. There is a new conspiracy around every corner.
I was never a past Romney fan. Some people think Rick is the better choice and some people just can’t live with being wrong.
Since you made that up, care to explain it? I know that you moderates blocked the two term California Governor from the Presidency aqainst Nixon, and then against Ford in 1976, and then we conservatives managed to get past you in 1980, it worked out pretty well.
You got your way again with HW Bush, Bob Dole, and John McCain, now you have Romney or Santorum fighting for the safe moderate position, since you guys fought a battle to the death against Palin for 3 years.
You reveal yourself when you denigrate the historical move to the right that Gingrich helped orchestrate in the 1990s, a pay off of many, many years of his behind the scenes strategies, and actions, even the manipulating of cable TV.
Gingrich had great success with the Contract with America, the man that Santorum wanted to be President in 2008 was against it of course.
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