Santorum can’t get 1,144 delegates, Newt or no Newt.
Yes.
Helping in some places, hurting in others.
That isn't the question, is Newt helping obummer??
I hope he is a burr in this guy’s saddle and a fly in his ointment.
Romney is a disease and Conservatism is it’s cure administered by Dr. Gingrich.
I hope he is a burr in this guy’s saddle and a fly in his ointment.
Romney is a disease and Conservatism is it’s cure administered by Dr. Gingrich.
Gingrich is the REASON Romney is leading. Not only can Newt NOT win the nomination under any ciscumstances, even if it were true that he could, his national negatives are massive and decades-entrenched and he would LOSE to Obama.
Santorum is a perfectly acceptable conservative who would likely win the nomination at this point if Gingrich would drop out (and start planning his next “sofa moment” with the Left or attack on Paul Ryan, etc.).
But Newt has one of the biggest egos in all of American politics. He won’t go away and he will make sure Romney wins. Not that he means to. He’s just too full of himself to admit he’s a distant 3rd and will remain a distant 3rd, an also-ran.
All that said, he’s very popular here at FR for reasons that take no heed of his pathologically flighty politics. And I have said all this at the risk of being called a troll, a Romneybot, a communist, terrorist, etc.
Instead of arguing against Mitt’s competition why don’t you jutting make the case for Mitt?
Or is culturally and corporate anathema to you?
Is too cute by half to have one person who is such a liberal weathervane it begs the refrain “This guys candidacy is so not necessary”.
Is too cute by half to have one person who is such a liberal weathervane it begs the refrain “This guys candidacy is so not necessary”.
The real problem is that Santorum will help Obama via the fact that Santorum is pretty much unelectable in the general election. Nominating Santorum will be nominating the one guy who would lose to Obama.
Then it matters not if Gingrich stays in Romney wins, if Gingrich gets out Romney wins, so save his doners some money.
Ego is a terrible thing to waste.
Santorum cannot win 1144 delegates and neither can Newt. If either or both were to quit, Romney could.
There’s your answer.
What else would you expect with someone with such an out of control EGO...
They all cheat on their wives, they always put themselves first even over country.
It is disgusting and a disgrace...
However with all that said I think the longer the primary runs without a clear winner the shorter the time-frame Obama has to focus his campaign on one individual.
Right now Obama has to spend money on three campaign approaches.
I think that Newt’s plan now is to stay alive for the brokered convention.
Charleswaynect, I'd appreciate your evaluation of this post. It seems to make a very similar case to what you said earlier in the primary season about the second choices of some Santorum and Gingrich supporters being either Mitt Romney or Ron Paul.
I saw the analysis in the New York Times but have been waiting to see a conservative review of that analysis. We now have that. I now want to see Santorum supporters specifically review this case.
At an absolute minimum, deciding whether this analysis of the role of Gingrich in the race is valid should affect how we handle Gingrich supporters. More to the point, I believe this analysis should affect the decisions by the two candidates themselves.
Newt Gingrich is a historian. How many people besides him even know about the 1920 brokered convention that replaced Republican frontrunner Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood following a bitterly divided Republican race, leading to the elevation of an unvetted President Harding who plunged America into a series of scandals from which we were saved as a political party mostly by the integrity of Vice President Calvin Coolidge? I'm consistently impressed by his grasp of American political history, even though I do not believe he is the best candidate we have.
In any case, we need as much information as we can get right now. Time is drawing very short to stop Mitt Romney, and we have no room to make mistakes.
_____
When challenged by Brett Baier, Gingrich was unable to name a single state that he could win. Indeed, after playing hard as a “Southern Candidate” Gingrich has lost three straight Southern States including two deep South States near his home state of Georgia, so it's hard to imagine Gingrich winning elsewhere. Still Gingrich claimed a role in the race.
His argument for continuing is that he and Senator Rick Santorum are playing a “tag team” that is denying Romney the nomination. Gingrich argues that should he leave the race, his supporters will split between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney and that Romney will turn all of his considerable resources on defeating his remaining foe-Santorum.... The first argument is worthy of some consideration. The idea that the presence of two conservatives in the race has hurt Romney's progress is at least mathematically accurate. One can't take Newt Gingrich's total support and added it to Rick Santorum. Without Gingrich in the race, some of Gingrich's support would go to Romney.
Who cares? Newt is the only one with any ideas. If Newt drops out the entire race will be about condoms and internet porn.