Santorum is not really what he claims to be. He was all for Romney in this 2008 campaign photo.
Posted on 02/27/2012 6:08:31 AM PST by SeekAndFind
For a while after Rick Santorum’s sweep in early February, it appeared that Mitt Romney might be on the ropes in the Republican primary. Santorum once held a significant lead in Michigan and close to a tie in Arizona, and seemed poised for another multi-state upset. According to the latest polling from PPP in both states, though, the momentum has swung in the other direction. In PPP’s poll of Michigan, Romney has begun to edge Santorum one day ahead of their primary, but also with a significant lead in early voting:
Mitt Romney’s taken a small lead over Rick Santorum in PPP’s newest Michigan poll. He’s at 39% to 37% for Santorum, 13% for Ron Paul, and 9% for Newt Gingrich. Compared to a week ago Romney’s gained 6 points, while Santorum’s just stayed in place.
Romney will go into election day with a large lead in the bank. Only 16% of Michigan voters say they’ve already cast their ballots, but Romney has a whooping 62-29 advantage over Santorum with that group. Santorum actually leads Romney 39-34 with those who are planning to cast their votes on Tuesday, but he’d need to win election day voters by even more than that to neutralize the advantage Romney’s built up.
The last week of the campaign in Michigan has seen significant damage to Santorum’s image with GOP voters in the state. His net favorability has declined 29 points from +44 (67/23) to now only +15 (54/39). Negative attacks on Romney meanwhile have had no negative effect with his favorability steady at +20 (57/37). Two weeks ago Santorum’s net favorability in Michigan was 34 points better than Romney’s. Now Romney’s is 5 points better than Santorum’s. Those kinds of wild swings are the story of the GOP race.
One place Santorum may have hurt himself in the last week is an overemphasis on social issues. 69% of voters say they’re generally more concerned with economic issues this year to only 17% who pick social issues. And with the overwhelming majority of voters more concerned about the economy, Romney leads Santorum 45-30. Santorum’s winning those more concerned about social issues 79-12 but it’s just not that big a piece of the pie.
The debate did Santorum no favors in Michigan, although it may have been the aftermath of the debate that did more damage. Instead of focusing on a positive message, Santorum felt the need to go after Romney hard — much like Newt Gingrich did in Florida. Santorum got his surge by sticking to blue-collar economics and directing his passionate attacks against Barack Obama rather than his Republican competitors; it appears that the mediocre debate performance knocked Santorum off of his previously-successful strategy.
The sample in this case looks pretty solid. The D/R/I in the sample for Michigan’s open primary is 5/67/28 — a near duplicate of the exit poll from Michigan’s 2008 primary of 7/68/25. Forty-two percent identified themselves as evangelical Christians, which seems high against the 2008 exit polling, which didn’t ask the question the same way but had 40% Protestants, 29% Catholics, and 19% “other Christians.” Whatever problems Santorum has in this poll, they’re not related to the sampling.
Arizona would have been a long shot for Santorum under any circumstances, and PPP’s new poll makes it clear that Romney will get an easy ride in the winner-take-all state:
Mitt Romney is headed for an overwhelming victory in Arizona’s primary on Tuesday. He’s at 43% to 26% for Rick Santorum, 18% for Newt Gingrich, and 11% for Ron Paul.
You can make a fair argument that Romney’s already won the Arizona primary. Almost half of those planning to vote have already cast their ballots, and Romney has a 48-25 advantage over Santorum with those folks. That lead makes it nearly impossible for Santorum to make up the difference on election day, and Romney has a 39-27 advantage with those planning to vote on Tuesday anyway.
Romney’s winning basically winning every voter group in Arizona, even those he’s tended to do quite poorly with. He leads Santorum 39-33 with Evangelicals, 39-23 with Tea Party voters (Santorum’s in 3rd, Gingrich is actually 2nd at 30%), and 37-29 with those describing themselves as ‘very conservative.’ We project the Mormon vote at 14%. Romney leads 77-9 with them, but he has a 38-29 advantage with non-Mormons as well. Seniors are a key base of support for him in Arizona as they are everywhere. He leads 53-22 with them.
ARG has it much closer in Arizona at 39/35 Romney in a poll taken Thursday and Friday. However, they also show a big advantage for Romney among early voters, 50/29, and 48% of their sample had already cast their ballots.
A loss in Arizona won’t matter as much to Santorum as a loss in Michigan will. A loss in a key Rust Belt state, where Santorum’s draw among blue-collar workers should be felt most, will be seen as a setback after his large polling leads of a week ago. Santorum needs the momentum from at least one win to help him sail through a tough Super Tuesday next week. We’ll see what other pollsters say about Michigan today, but with Rasmussen also seeing a Santorum slide to second (by six points rather than two), the PPP poll doesn’t look like an outlier.
Tomorrow's results will tell us which poll is more accurate.
Arizona: The state that gave us the last Terrific GOP nominee !
Arizona, where mormons vote mormon with no thought for the welfare of the country, just for the welfare of their religion. That is NOT conservatism!
| Poll | Date | Sample | MoE | Romney | Santorum | Paul | Gingrich | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCP Average | 2/23 - 2/26 | -- | -- | 37.8 | 35.3 | 12.3 | 10.0 | Romney +2.5 |
| PPP (D) | 2/26 - 2/26 | 421 LV | 4.8 | 39 | 37 | 13 | 9 | Romney +2 |
| Mitchell/Rosetta Stone | 2/26 - 2/26 | 858 LV | 3.3 | 35 | 37 | 8 | 9 | Santorum +2 |
| WeAskAmerica | 2/26 - 2/26 | 984 LV | 3.1 | 37 | 33 | 18 | 13 | Romney +4 |
Why don’t the “Republicans’ in AZ just admit they are Democrats and leave the GOP? They add absolutely no value to the party.
Wonder if Mittens made a sizable donation to Gov. Jan for her recent endorsement. Blechhhhh =(
ARG also has Santorum leading Romney in Michigan, 37-35.
The PPP poll is a very small sample, only 421 LVs with nearly a 5% margin of error.
The other current poll that shows Romney ahead (by 4) is WE ASK AMERICA, which inflates Paul’s numbers to 18% and Newt’s to 13% even though both have abandoned the state. This one is really fishy, since there is no way that nearly a third of the Michigan electorate is going to waste its time going to the polls to vote for two candidates who admit they can’t win or even come in second there adn both of whom have abandoned the state.
The Mitchell Rosetta Stone poll is the only one of the three to have polled last week (and had Romney ahead by two on Thursday). It sampled 358 likely voters, more than twice PPP’s sample. In comparing their data then and now, they detect an unmistakable trend to Santorum which has put hiim ahead 37-35. They assess Paul’s and Gingrich’s strength in single digits, where it most likely is. Its poll has 11% undecided, and these undecideds shlud break heavily in Santorum’s favor since Romney is a known (and despised) quantity.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2012/Mitchell_RosettaStone_MI_0227.pdf
Pretty impressive Newt’s close to Rick and beating him in the Tea Party vote in AZ without even campaigning there. Could be the start of a new batch of Newtmentum.
So why does Romney do so well with seniors here and in FL? Is it because as soon as any candidate mentions reforming Social Security they get written off? Heaven forbid people should care enough about their grandkids to get them off of a broken entitlement system.
Mitt’s hero Joseph Smith had his eye on the presidency.
While campaigning for President of the United States in 1844, Smith had opportunity to take political positions on issues of the day.[406] Smith considered the United States Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, to be inspired by God and “the Saints’ best and perhaps only defense.”[407] He believed a strong central government crucial to the nation’s well-being but thought democracy better than tyranny—although he also taught that a theocratic monarchy was the ideal form of government.[408] In foreign affairs, Smith was an expansionist, though he viewed “expansionism as brotherhood.”[409]
Smith favored a strong central bank and high tariffs to protect American business and agriculture. He disfavored imprisonment of convicts except for murder, preferring efforts to reform criminals through labor; he also opposed courts-martial for military deserters. He supported capital punishment but opposed hanging,[410] preferring execution by firing squad or beheading in order to “spill [the criminal’s] blood on the ground, and let the smoke thereof ascend up to God.”[411]
Despite having published a pro-slavery essay in 1836,[412] Smith later strongly opposed slavery.[413] During his presidential campaign, he proposed abolishing slavery by 1850 and compensating slaveholders[414] through sale of public lands.[415] Smith did not believe blacks to be genetically inferior to whites;[416] he welcomed both freemen and slaves into the church.[417] But he opposed baptizing slaves without permission of their masters, and he opposed miscegenation.[418]
Smith declared that he would be one of the instruments in fulfilling Nebuchadnezzar’s statue vision in the Book of Daniel: that secular government would be destroyed without “sword or gun”,[419] and would be replaced with a “theodemocratic” Kingdom of God.[420] Smith taught that this kingdom would be multidenominational and democratic so long as the people chose wisely.[421]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith,_Jr#Political_views
Those if us voting for Newt certainly do not see it as wasting our time.
Neither of the other 2 offered much more than annoying ads during the 7 oclock hour.
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has big lead in Tennessee, poll shows
http://tfponline.com/news/2012/feb/27/presidential-candidate-rick-santorum-has-big-lead-/?local
Non-Mormans also favoring Mittens in AZ.
I am of a certain race/gender, and religion, but, if I ever were to put that as the criteria for selecting a President, my voter card should be pulled.
I THINK THEREFORE I AM A CONSERVATIVE. (and in that thinking, I am not thinking of self, but for the greatness of America and our childrens future.)
SO TRUE, and it is disgusting. I am old, but that is all I think about, otherwise I would not give a damn about any election, I'm dying out.
Newt Gingrich has the perfect plan, that does not disrupt their SS checks, and yet these seniors are afraid??? How the heck did they live to be this old without thinking?
Makes me embarrassed to be associated with them. Selfish and self centered, with the "I got mine, you get yours", and "I'm spending their inheritance", attitudes.
Santorum is not really what he claims to be. He was all for Romney in this 2008 campaign photo.
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