Posted on 03/16/2012 2:20:05 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
It was unbelievable: After Newt Gingrich failed to win both Alabama and Mississippi in the GOP race for president, most members of the mainstream media and political strategists with whom I talked readily admitted, off the record, that he was the most qualified among the Republican candidates to serve as president.
Now these are objective pros that have been around presidential politics for years. I have no doubt they were telling me the truth because these folks only tell you this stuff when it is relatively clear that the candidate is no longer a viable alternative.
Best on foreign policy The Gingrich campaign is pushing the concept that, by staying in the contest, Gingrich could help take away enough delegates to deprive Mitt Romney the numbers needed to have the GOP nomination locked up by the time the candidates reach the convention in Tampa.
Obviously, as a friend of Gingrich’s, I am not going to argue with their decision to press forward. Their frustration is that their candidate knows more about foreign policy and defense matters in his little finger than the other two leading candidates know in their entire body.
It is likely they find it incredible that a man who could out-debate Barack Obama is now in this predicament.
But the reality is that no camp agrees with any other camp’s delegate math.
Romney, who has spent a fortune to amass his delegates, believes the numbers suggest that he will have no problem locking the nomination up by or before the last contested state.
The fact that Romney continues to gather delegates in areas he himself considers “away games” suggests that his staying power might just deliver a requisite number of delegates before the convention.
As for Santorum, his camp believes their best chance is for Gingrich to exit stage left and allow there to become a consolidation of “conservative” voters who, by their calculations, would leave Romney pulling his usual 35 percent in most states and give Santorum huge wins in critical upcoming contests.
That sounds great for Santorum, but it might not work out as planned. Unless Santorum received an outright endorsement from Gingrich, a portion of Newt’s votes might stray to Romney.
The truth is no one knows what will happen. But for my friend Newt there are certain things I hope will take place.
First, I hope that if the money starts to truly disappear, he will scale his efforts back appropriately. That does not necessarily mean leaving the race, but it does mean picking and choosing battles and making sure that the end result of those battles will not be disastrous.
The second thing I hope he will do is start to put aside any personal feelings he might have toward any of his fellow candidates. It appears he is well on his way as to Santorum. But it is also clear that the path toward a relationship with Romney seems rocky.
What Romney should do And really, who has the responsibility to repair that relationship? The answer is Romney.
If Romney’s math is right and he does get the GOP nomination, he is insane to believe that followers of Gingrich or Santorum will flock to the polls to support him. He would need Gingrich, Santorum, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann on his team to have a prayer of not repeating a “John McCain, Part Two.”
Oh, and add to that Sarah Palin, whose voice has only been made stronger in recent weeks.
No, I would not ask Newt to leave the race. I have seen his seemingly impossible schemes work too many times. But what I would ask of the other two major GOP candidates would be to show this man some respect.
He has earned it, and they will need him in November ... if not sooner.
My feeling of distaste for Romney is because he has absolutely no conservative ideas, and aside from his current social conservative positions and the occasional thing he steals after Gingrich has said it, neither does Santorum. They are both comfortable with things exactly as they are and neither one of them would or could make any changes in the socialist welfare-nanny state that the US is becoming.
Gingrich is the only one who has any plans or even sees that there is a significant problem with our current course and that to continue in this direction would fundamentally remake the US into something that it was never meant to be, a Euro-socialist state where citizens exist for and at the whim of the state.
I hope Sarah Palin comes out and says something. The program they made about her was obviously an attempt to neutralize her before she even hit the scene, and I think that the reason she did not formally endorse Gingrich was because she knew it was coming out and wanted to see what kind of an effect it was going to have. Frankly, I think it will only be important to the people who already hated her, so I’m not sure it’s going to make a difference.
But we’ll see. Santorum and Romney have both ridiculed Gingrich for his ideas, just the way the Establishment pols ridiculed Palin for her ideas, and unfortunately, ridicule works when it is taken up by the press. Perhaps the real problem is that Americans have grown timid and don’t want any ideas; they’ve resigned their future and that of their children to this vast socialist mega-state that has been growing over the last decades and has gone into a major growth spurt under the Marxist Obama.
But here’s hoping that I’m underestimating the voters and maybe Sarah will appear and people will rally to the cause.
I said it before and mention it again, if Romney gets the nomination I will not vote for him and I have a hunch that many others feel the same as I do. Chances are that by default this “Poor excuse” who runs the show right now might get re-elected.
Sad to say and heaven help us, may be this is just what this country needs to hit bottom hard so more people wake up. From what I can see there are only two people right now who could bring about a true change to this screwed up political landscape and this would be Newt or Palin.
From experience I know, most people are creatures of habit and will not change unless forced to do so. May be it will take an event of Biblical proportions, or perhaps a war or some other unimaginable tragedy to bring about this change, but I have become sure and certain about one another thing besides Death and Taxes and that is, things can not continue as they are. What will trigger this change your guess is about as good as mine.
Sooner or later just as with a disease, stupidity and ignorance has to run its course and I do believe that we are just about at this point in time.
Sarah once said on Hannity that she had to be very careful about her public support for any candidate because she could hurt them as much as help them. My hope against hope is that is why she hasn't endorsed Newt. She sure has come closer and closer to it.
Take it all the way to Tampa.
Remember when “anyone could beat Obama”
Well, make that anyone but Santorum, Romney or Paul
If we dont fight this, we lost. And if we lost, our Country is lost.
The Speaker should stay in.
The Master of Dirty TRicks, Lies and Cheating
is Mitt Romney ... who should drop out.
I’m not worried about the convention. I’m worried about how voters are going to feel after the convention if Romney takes it (which unfortunately I think he will). Then, will the Santorum and Gingrich backers put party before principle and back Romney? To go by the sentiments on this board, not likely. What then?
If Romney gets the nomination, anyone who still says “not Romney” is giving a bye to one of Zer0’s voters. If somehow either Santorum or Gingrich carries the day, do you really think either of them can honestly pull the ever-fickle independents? Just how many Gingrich backers will willingly stand behind Santorum if he gets the nomination?
In a recent thread, someone was tallying the delegates, and mentioned that the “not-Romney” percentage outweighed Romney’s delegates. But, what we don’t really know is are those really not-Romney, or are they pro-Gingrich, pro-Santorum, and pro-Paul?
NEWT WILL BE ON FOX AND FRIENDS AT 7:20 A.M. WHAT A GREAT WAY TO START THE DAY!
The guy we need to get to leave is Santorum. Donald Trump (on Hannity yesterday afternoon) actually used the C word ("Clown") wrt Santorum, noting that the idea of a sitting 2-term US senator getting annihilated by 19 points the way Santorum did is utterly unique in the past 100 years of history of the US senate, and that the people who heaved his butt like that were the people who knew him best.
Besides, no one hates Santorum. Just that he's not sufficiently Conservative for some.
You'll have to get with him and straighten him out on some things ~ like ALWAYS voting for a balanced budget ~ which seems like a little thing to some but it's actually big time to a critical component of the Republican voting base.
Just no moral standards there.
Somebody told them they could get cheap medical insurance and have the troops home by X-mas and they believed it. Then, when the guy they voted for got into office they found out he was just another big government liberal, medical insurance was going to go sky high, and he wasn't the man his father was at all.
Santorum didn't compromise his values in that election ~ and that's an unusual talent in any politician.
Pennsylvania Republican Delegate Process... * The at-large delegates, chosen by the state's Republican State Committee, will go to the Republican National Convention officially "Unpledged". [Rule 8.3]
In addition, 3 party leaders, the National Committeeman, the National Committeewoman, and the chairman of the Pennsylvania's Republican Party, will attend the convention as unpledged delegates by virtue of their position. [end excerpt]
Newt Gingrich recently said:
..."“What crashed in 2006 is trying to govern as though we are Democrats,” he told the crowd. “We cannot be a normal party. If we run a normal campaign trying to govern within the framework of the current system, we have no future because people would rather have Democrats doing it -- they at least enjoy it. We are miserable trying to govern within their system. We are in the business of changing Washington, not being accepted by it. It’s a fundamentally different model.”....
____________________________________
We go to the convention. We fight these entrenched party leaders like there is no tomorrow.
One thing is certain, if we don't fight like hell now against the GOP-e pick they are not going to give conservatives another chance. It's time to rally the spirit of 2010 and march on Tampa!
Four minutes from now. Time to turn on the TV.
Off to hear Newt!
A couple of points:
1) Primaries as they exist now have been assimilated by the enemy and should be abandoned.
2) The convention should be restored as a deliberative body. A winner chosen in March may be a loser by August.
3) The GOP as a national force is finished. Can you imagine a true deliberative convention manned by your local GOP "leaders"? I rest my case.
Then, will the Santorum and Gingrich backers put party before principle and back Romney?
Many won’t. If Mutt refuses to tack right to win the nomination he’ll surely move left for the general election. I’ll put my efforts toward a more conservative Congress to work against Obama in his second term.
“...if Romney gets the nomination I will not vote for him...”
THIS particular election is far too CRUCIAL for that supreme lack of common sense.
LLS
I'm beginning to agree with that.
I certainly agree with your first two points. Primaries now are so manipulated that even the voters find them frustrating. The "early voting" in primaries in particular has been something vulnerable to manipulation; in Florida, for example, where we can vote far in advance of the actual date, Romney had already gotten a huge number of early votes (probably mostly from the elderly). Evidently it is legal to release the numbers on early voting, so this made it look as if there was absolutely no way he could lose. People were told time and again that Romney had had gotten 60% in early voting and people will virtually always go for the one they think is going to be the winner. At the same time, while this may be true, many voters later said they regretted having voted for Romney and felt stampeded into it, but it was too late to change it on election day, obviously.
But aside from that, perhaps the time for the GOP has come and gone, because it is no longer offering any significant alternative to the Dems. In fact, its whole reason for being seems to have become to keep the more conservative folks in line so they're civil and obedient to their Dem masters.
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