Posted on 03/08/2012 10:46:35 PM PST by Fred
Rick Santorum won’t be winning any delegates in four of Illinois’ 18 congressional districts next month. But, at least in the 13th District, it won’t be because he didn’t try.
Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). (Julie Denesha/Getty Images)On Jan. 6, the state filing deadline, a Santorum volunteer had brought to the board of elections an envelope containing nominating petitions for a slate of three Santorum delegates in the 13th, the State Journal-Register reports.
But the petitions were never submitted. A volunteer inadvertently failed to take them out of the envelope, the Journal Register reports, and the envelope wound up in the trash.
Even if those petitions had been handed in, the Journal-Register story said, it’s possible they would have been challenged. The Santorum camp was only able to round up some 50 signatures for its slate of delegates in the district, well short of the 600 required.
All in all, the Santorum campaign’s organizational missteps mean that it is already at a deficit of at least 30 delegates in the races playing out over the next month – even before voters in those contests have cast their ballots...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Never underestimate the power of prayer, things can change overnight and they will with enough prayer. If not, we'll end up with Obamney.
Without a return to the founding and supporting Judeo-Christian principles, this nation will fall like ALL other atheistic, pagan, unGodly nations in the world have all throughout the history of the world. What does it take to get through to people? Why do you think God would treat us any different than them? Why do we think God will allow us to kill innocent defenseless little boys and girls and the elderly and the disabled and the too costly, etc, yet condemn all other nations for doing that? Are we really that unbelieving that we think there is no God and no repercussions for our paganism and secularism?
Our nation is in this predicament, because of its loss of morality and yet many Americans, and Freepers alike, still cling to their atheistic socialist secularist stances that brought us to this brink of destruction.
A little hard-headed...thick in the skull...hard in the heart...dense, one can say.
Here's the source to the success of this nation, apparently many need to be reminded: Pray to God, the Father Almighty, for mercy and pray for God's grace to this nation, for the sake of His sorrowful Passion.
Eternal Father, we offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Amen.
We must stop turning a blind eye to evil and stop electing those who promote the gravest of evils. He's not going to tolerate it any longer at all.
RNC: Gingrich Leads Santorum in Primary Delegates
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/gingrich-leads-santorum-delegates/2012/03/08/id/431949
Poppycock. He didn't have the MONEY. He was spending it all in Iowa. Santorum has done more with less than any other candidate. If Newt didn't have Sheldon Adelson behind him, we wouldn't be having this conversation and Romney would be toast.
The only difference is Sheldon Adelson.
The only difference is Sheldon Adelson.
Thank you Jack. I’m praying for Rick’s victory.
Actually, Democrats are organizing to vote for Santorum.
Sorry folks, Santorum has turned out to be a ‘default’ candidate, who’s only credit to even still being talked about is the pure lack of confidence the Republican electorate has with this entire field. This is a guy who never seriously took on the task to attain the office of President. Never ready for prime-time.
Carry is right.
Politicians, like generals, routinely have problems because they're trying to fight with the lessons learned from the last war.
That's why we have the Army War College to try to figure out future threats, but even with billions of dollars in the Pentagon budget, that isn't enough to predict the dynamics of future wars with precision. Nobody could have anticipated the massive role of IEDs in the current conflict. Almost nobody had Islamofascism on their radar screens during the 2000 presidential campaign, way back before 9/11 hit us. Once Iraq did get on our radar screen, we made major mistakes about the presence of weapons of mass destruction, the likelihood of Saddam Hussein's generals revolting, and other things as well. It's not as if our military leaders are stupid; they simply have no way to know with certainty which of our enemies will pick a fight and how they'll choose to fight that fight.
Politics is the same way. Most of us understood that the collapse of the McCain-Feingold restrictions on campaign financing and the Citizens United decision enabling Super PACs would affect the 2012 presidential campaign, but it has done so in unanticipated ways.
What happened very late in the day, after the campaign was already beginning to see actual voters going to the polls, was that two key conservative donors, one each for Gingrich and Santorum, decided they would use the new financing rules under the Citizens United court decision to make it possible for their candidate to have a fighting chance, rather than being destroyed by massive negative advertising campaigns paid for by Mitt Romney's money. That money was not available to Santorum or Gingrich until recently, and both candidates are still struggling with screwups dating back to the days when they were running campaigns on a shoestring and Rick Perry was the only conservative candidate with any kind of significant financial backing.
It used to be that an underfinanced grassroots candidate who won Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina would get a huge boost, not just in momentum but also in finances and volunteers, as donors flocked to a perceived winner who shared their values and supporters of withdrawn candidates signed up with others close to them on the ideological spectrum.
Now, however, the massive money that Mitt Romney has thrown into the campaign has changed the dynamics.
Yes, Santorum got money and supporters after his virtual tie in Iowa. Yes, Gingrich got the same after winning South Carolina. The problem is that this year, with Mitt Romney throwing money into massive negative advertising campaigns, the candidates have been forced to spend their money in high-dollar advertising costs. While money did come in after the early-state victories, it wasn't enough to buy ads as well as pay staffers for necessary duties like collecting signatures and other on-the-ground things.
From what I can tell, Newt Gingrich got snookered in Virginia by a deliberate screwup with one paid person. It looks like something somewhat similar happened in Illinois with a Santorum volunteer, though it appears to be an honest mistake rather than deliberate deception.
All of us in business have made bad hiring decisions. Stuff happens in campaigns, and when you don't have enough money to be double-sure everything has been done right, sooner or later your failure to double- and triple-check will blow up in your face.
I've written some severely critical things on Free Republic earlier about the signature screwup in Virginia. That is one of my biggest problems with both Santorum and Gingrich — it is simply inexcusable, even though it's understandable due to a lack of money. We simply do not have conservative candidates with the caliber of campaigns we should have had this year.
I'm very unhappy about that, and even if we don't hold it against Santorum and Gingrich, President Obama will.
What's the lesson to be learned? Apparently the lesson is that if you want to run for president as a challenger to the establishment, you have to find one or more key financial backers with very deep pockets long before the first votes are cast in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. I'm not sure I like that answer, but as of today, it looks like it's the only way to run a campaign if you're an insurgent going up against a moneyed powerhouse like Mitt Romney.
I was thinking the same thing. The Gingrich supporters on this forum have been his biggest obstacle to my support.
I will say that I like Newt Gingrich, and think he would be at least a marginally better candidate than Santorum; he might also be a better PResident, in some ways but not in others.
IF Gingrich had been on my ballot in Virginia, I would have happily voted for him.
If Gingrich had competed in and won the states Santorum won, I would be happy, because it would mean we had coalesced.
He didn’t, and that’s the only reason I’m not “on board”. He’s skipping too many states, he’s got a strategy that guarantees nobody but Romney can win the nomination outright. But if he managed to pull off big wins next week, and managed to get back to polling first, and people stopped feeling negative about him, I’d be very happy.
So nothing his supporters do here makes any difference to my support of any candidate.
But part of me hopes that Santorum does it instead, simply to spite some of the Newt supporters here. And while I wish he had not collapsed in the polls, part of me wasn’t too upset, simply because of his supporters.
I understand your stance here, and I think it’s an entirely reasoned approach. We agree on some of it, and disagree on some of it, but I find that disagreement mild and appreciate the comments.
Thank you.
BTW: It does bother me that he is skipping states. His strategy does seem to be paying off, but there are times when you can be too cute by half, and he’s verging on that quite strongly with me.
Virginia? Didn't even submit paperwork. DC? Not on the ballot. Ohio? Lost delegates he earned because of paperwork. TN? He had not a single delegate on the ballot. IL? Similar to Ohio... where else does his campaign have problems?
Virginia was a different story. Like Perry, Newt submitted more than enough signatures, a larger than expected number deemed invalid by the party. Santorum didn't even bother.
In TN? Newt had a slate of delates on the ballot. While Santorum won the state, he had NO delegates on the ballot. He has to depend upon the party to give him some.
Is Newt losing delegates he earned through votes cast because of the campaign's paperwork failure as happened in Ohio with Santorum, as may happen in Michigan and elsewhere?
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil... sainted Santorum can do no wrong. /s
Exactly, and when a Santorum robot loses the debate, they start throwing tou are evil and follow satan crap...
Your usual your hand-waving crap.
The real difference here is Sheldon Adelson's money, without which Newt wouldn't even be in this race any more. Money pays for organization, which puts the people in upcoming states to get the ballot qualification work done. The "failings" you attribute to Santorum's lack of viability had to do with lack of a paid organization. He had to make touch choices to work within limited means and made more victories out of it, by far, than Newt has realized. By contrast, there is no lack in Newt's history of pandering after issues fashionable among campaign donors, not to mention following their ephemeral changes in direction.
Newt's failing in Virginia was lack of organization as well, as competent campaign organization would have assured ballot qualification. You know very well he was deserted by his own hirelings early in the campaign. That is either lack of discernment in hiring lack of leadership reflecting Newt's well known propensity to PO the people who work with him. Take your pick.
The media concentrated on Newt missing a Missouri beauty contest where no delegates were being awarded.
The media ignored Santorum's delegate problems in Ohio, Illinois, Tennesee...
Random mistake I'm sure /s
The delegates go to the one who takes second in the district.What? What does the winner get? Kraft cheese?
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