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.
Very well said..both are movers and shakers. Not afraid to stand up to the powerful and fight for change. They rattle the comfort zone of the establishment and liberals who want to maintain their easy street grip on DC.
bookmark
Hmmmm, now where is that word, “legion,” mentioned in the Bible?
Well then, I guess Romney is 'insane'. To quote Allahpundit from Hot Air:
He (Romney) doesn’t care if his rallies leave you flat. He doesn’t care if pulling the lever for him reduces you to dry heaves in the voting booth. He cares about two things: 1,144 and 270, and he’s likely to achieve at least the first thanks to hard work, careful planning, and the great good luck of having extraordinarily weak competition. Those qualities — high energy, fortitude, diligence, not needing to be liked — could be huge assets in a president if he applied them to enacting a worthy policy agenda, starting with entitlement reform. But I don’t think he’d use them to policy ends; he’d use them to position himself for re-election by pandering to centrists, which means no meaningful entitlement reform or anything else. He’s telling you right here why he’d be such a risk in office to the right. When push comes to shove, you’ll always hold your nose and vote against the Democrat, no matter how annoyed at him you might be. And he knows it — and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t need his base to like him. That’s a recipe for squishiness.
Romney: Very conservative voters might not be with me now but they will be in November
I agree. The people need to be allowed to vote, instead of being told by "experts" who will be the candidate. Maybe it will turn out badly ... but what's this we have now, anyway?
This whole campaign has been a wasted opportunity for our voters. It’s a shame really. But a few things are clear:
People without ability resent ability.
People without intelligence resent intelligence.
People without confidence resent confidence and call it arrogance.
People without accomplishment tend to nit pick imperfections.
Newt is by far the most capable. But WTH, RS has 7 kids! Whoopee!
LLS
Is ensuring that Obama (the most pro-ABORT politician in the USA) is reelected... evil?
I just saw this and wanted to share:
Obama Discovers a Problem With Marxism
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2859801/posts?page=1
In it, an interviewer askes O what he thinks would be a fair price for Americans to pay for gasoline at the pump.
In asking, the interviewer mentions that “your opponents” say $2.50 per gallon is blah blah blah.....”
But guess who is the only opponent who does that and who has the American Engergy Plan to back it up?
And guess who wasn’t named by the questioner?
Oh, my.
Michele Bachmann had that idea months ago. She was treated horribly here.
Engergy = Energy
LLS
LOL at your post on Newt supporters hating a “true” conservative like Santorum as you expand on calling Newt “selfish and an idiot”
Newt is certainly not happy with the multi million dollar attacks and lies launched against him by the Romney campaign and neither are the Newt supporters.
Too bad you are unable to grasp the fact that many of us support Newt because we believe in him. We know of his accomplishments and we are not convinced Santorum is presidential material.
Just because he got a free pass for so long and the vetting of RS didnt even begin until late in the game..doesnt mean we are going to jump on his bandwagon.
As for me...I will do a write in for Newt but no to Santorum. If the voter’s want Santorum..let him win on his own merits..not on the chance that the Newt folks will rally behind him. He already won ONE election thanks to Newt’s gop revolution. He is on his own.
The lack of common sense becomes even MORE obvious.
This isn’t about Michele Bachmann.
Newt stealing from Michele Bachmann.
Is an insane thought.
You were pinged to show you that the media interviewer credited all of O’s opponents with calling for that gasoline price and getting there by a totally American Energy Policy.
When it isn’t “his opponents”, it’s Newt.
Now I will use the post to inform anyone with a less than insane thought process in response, who happens to be reading.
For the record, I didn’t treat her horribly. And she made herself a non factor by her own actions.
Neither here nor there, anyway.
Again, that link, to get to the point, which you ignored or were incapable of getting, or tried to cover up, is:
Obama Discovers a Problem With Marxism
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2859801/posts?page=1
Go there to find out that an interviewer of O credited “your opponents” with the gasoline price goal of $2.50 per gallon, when the truth is it was Newt he had to be thinking of, but Newt wasn’t named.
Perhaps the same reasoning could be said of Newt.
The others who have dropped out were wise enough to know they were a non factor and made the decision to do the right thing.
I am not surprised that Newt is unable to accept that simple fact with grace.
There is a very glaring reason that Newt isn't doing well, but he is too old and arrogant to fix it.
That should be printed onto a motivational poster. Excellent analysis.
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