FReepmail “Antoninus” to be added or removed.
Posted on 03/13/2012 11:35:26 PM PDT by Steelfish
After Wins, Santorum Says It's Time 'For Conservatives To Pull Together'
By Michael Finnegan and John Hoeffel Los Angeles Times March 13, 2012 — Rick Santorum scored two major victories in his insurgent campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, winning the Alabama and Mississippi primaries and dealing a potentially crippling blow to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
With most of the votes tallied, Gingrich was running second in both states, followed closely by Mitt Romney.
The twin losses for Gingrich, who devoted a full week to zigzagging across the two states by bus, effectively crushed his effort to resuscitate his candidacy in the South, notwithstanding his vow Tuesday night to press forward.
For Santorum, the victories in the heart of the Republican Party's Deep South stronghold could help establish him as its lone conservative alternative to Romney. Having now won 10 contests in states spanning the nation, Santorum heads into the next round of contests in Missouri, Illinois and Louisiana with a burst of momentum.
"We did it again!" the former Pennsylvania senator told cheering supporters at a celebration in Lafayette, La.
Only Romney had little to lose in Alabama and Mississippi. The former Massachusetts governor, whose talk of eating grits and catfish proved to be awkward overtures to locals, called Tuesday's contests an "away game," forgoing the formality of an election-night party in Alabama or Mississippi to travel to New York City for fundraisers this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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According to some propagandists at Politico, Newt lost BIG, but I like Halstonin’s take:
Party: Republican
Reply #4
Mar. 14, 2012 - 1:43 AM EST
“Losing big? Ms. Gibson, I’m sorry, but your headline puts the credibility of your entire article in question. I’m no fan of Newt Gingrich, but he didn’t in any way “lose big.” The GOP nomination comes down to the delegates, not who “wins” each state, and Gingrich came in a close second in both Alabama and Mississippi- in other words he leaves with about the same number of delegates as Rick Santorum, and more than Mitt Romney (who came in third place in both states, beaten by Gingrich despite vastly outspending him in both places). Since Romney was trounced in both states, despite spending way more than Santorum, Gingrich and Paul combined, maybe Romney should drop out of the race based on this logic? Also keep in mind:
- In contrast to the generally narrow wins (for any candidate) in the primaries of the last few few weeks, Gingrich’s wins have been strong and decisive. He got nearly half the total vote in Georgia- which is far, far better than Romney did in his own home turf of Michigan- and he clobbered both Romney and Santorum in South Carolina, where Romney outspent him and the other candidates by many millions of dollars.
- South Carolina is also the only early primary where the GOP saw an increase in turnout compared to 2008, and Gingrich won it decisively. (The GOP winner in South Carolina has also been the nominee in all of the previous primary seasons, so that was no small feat on Gingrich’s part.) This suggests that Gingrich has an ability to motivate GOP voter enthusiasm in a way that his rivals don’t, especially Mitt Romney.
- Gingrich has a large number of second-place finishes in many other states, for example he did better than Santorum in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada, he tied Romney in Oklahoma, and he beat Romney in both Alabama and Mississippi. IOW Gingrich is very much in the thick of it.
- The race is still fluid enough that it can change on a dime. This is partly because of the debates, in which Gingrich performs well. It’s also because Romney will now be focusing on attacking Rick Santorum, which can allow Gingrich to sneak in and gain broader support- just as Romney’s attacks on Gingrich allowed Santorum to sneak in and take Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota.
- We’re barely through half the primaries, and Romney in particular will be struggling with the upcoming states. Romney got a misleading boost in his delegate count thanks to the early primaries being ridiculously skewed in his favor- packed with Mormon states (among the GOP voters in the primaries and caucuses), Romney home states (Michigan- which he still almost lost- Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine) and states that he’d won in 2008 (Minnesota for example), and yet Romney still flopped. By contrast, the upcoming states are probably friendlier territory for Newt. He’s long had popularity in Louisiana (even more so than Alabama and Mississippi), which shares many cultural and political ties with Georgia, as well as in Arkansas.
- The most favorable scenario for Newt is probably a brokered convention, and considering his revivals before (going into Dec 2011 and in South Carolina), he could still very much be important then esp if he does well in the debates. Brokered conventions wouldn’t necessarily be damaging to either party- there’s a long history of them, and if anything it can sometimes allow them a chance to hash out their coalitional issues and improve their platform, so it could be favorable to either party using it. It may also be to the benefit of the GOP’s conservative wing, and to Gingrich in particular. Going into the winner-take-all states- like Texas and California- may pose a re-think to avoid a split in the conservative vote, but up until then, it may be advantageous for Gingrich to rack up delegates and essentially tag-team with Santorum against Romney. He would then have far more sway in the convention, and considering the unpredictability of the process thus far, could very well come back again.
Many factors at work here, but the bottom line is that it’s still relatively early in the nominating process, and Newt still has good reasons to stay in.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73986.html#ixzz1p4QnXQ5d
Add me to your “Ping” list please!
Sweater Vest certainly has an ability to get democrats to vote for him in open primary states, I’ll give him that.
I like both Newt and Rick, and could vote for either. However, I find it very off putting by Newt only supporters with their constant put downs of Rick - such as sweater vest. What if Newt was continually called womanizer? We do need to pull together in this election to get the marxist out of office.
RICK SANTORUM IN HAWAII (28%) HAS NOW MOVED INTO **SECOND PLACE** IN THE CAUCUSES, DISPLACING RON PAUL, to MITT ROMNEY'S 31%, COMING UP ON WILLARD'S HEELS
(16% of precincts in). Newt Gingrich last/fourth. 2:45 a.m. Eastern
It’s over...the anti Mitt candidate HAS to be Santo...#’s wise
You might like his take but it makes no difference, it was a big loss for Newt, whether you want to face it or not. Try as you may there is no way this can be painted as a victory fot Newt.
Newt is the brightest bulb in this dim trio of bulbs, but he will not win, and I for one would be very happy if he could, unlike a host of Newt supporters trying as hard as they can to be insulting to all the Social Conservatives here trying to stave of Romney.
We shall see what the morrow brings, but I for one am sick of the circular firing squad.
WOW. Didn’t see that coming. I figured it would be Ramney/Paul and then Newt/Rick. This is surprising.
HAWAII so far:
1) ROMNEY
2) SANTORUM (close. reallllllll close)
3) PAUL
4) GINGRICH
He's a fraud
Seesawed a bit so that now Romney is in the lead on Big Island, that might account for the slight widening of the Santorum-Romney gap. We will see how Kauai breaks. Anyone know if it is generally more conservative than Oahu or not? Maybe not a high turn out there perhaps.
I should add the vote sep in Hawaii (20 delegates) between all four candidates is about the same, with 20% of caucus precincts in. Something like a 400 vote sep. between each of them.....
Anyone else who is curious what is going on in the land of Steve McGarrett and Magnum PI, here is an live link to incoming totals.
http://www.cbsnews.com/primary-election-results-2012/state.shtml?state=HI
Actually, Newt does continually get scorned as a womanizer by the Santorumites here.
Gap (w/29 % now reporting) is now about 56 votes between Bishop Romney in FIRST and "Big Ricky" (Santorum) on his tail in SECOND. Having said that, Ron Paul coming up now in some other tabulations to be just a few votes behind Santorum for second, very close behind Rick. Newt kind of more or less stuck in a pineapple field ditch in fourth, with a 90 vote sep. between him and Paul.
Honolulu County (essentially Oahu) has flipped a bit in favor of Romney now. Santorum giving the Bishop a fight in Maui County. Interesting. Kauai Island tabulations still out. Since we are not Democrats, the mules on Molokai have not been registered to vote, nor have any dead and buried Hawaiians in Niihau.
Newt has warts, many more than Santorum, as have been often referred to here.
I would LOVE to have Newt win, but it is very unlikely.
In my state (Ohio) Santorum was not on the entire ballot and we vote for delegates. I voted for Santorum and for Newt where Santorum wasn't on the ballot. I live in a Democrat district that is a strong old school Democrat Catholic UNION Middle Class standing. On My street alone there are five Santorum signs and hundreds in the neighborhood. Almost No Newt signs and, if possible, fewer Romney signs (haven't scene any).
This is the area and demographic that the Republicans MUST TAKE. They lost it to Obama in 2008 and won it back BIG in 2010.
Well said about Ohio. We really need those Democrat votes in November which are probably now MORE THAN FED UP WITH OBAMA.
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