FReepmail “Antoninus” to be added or removed.
Posted on 03/18/2012 1:14:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Conventional wisdom --- particularly as articulated by Karl Rove and Ann Coulter --- still says Mitt Romney is the most "electable" GOP presidential candidate. The MSM repeats that notion ad nauseum, too. After Rick Santorum won Mississippi and Alabama, for example, MSNBC.com ran an article with the headline, "Romney's electability doesn't help him break through." The Washington Post's Dan Balz wrote a piece headlined, "Rick Santorum hoping ideology will trump electability" as though Rick Santorum lacks electability. Two examples among many.
But a Friday poll from Rasmussen Reports suggests Romney might be less electable and Santorum more so than Rove, Coulter and the MSM would have voters believe.
President Obama now trails former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum by four points in a hypothetical 2012 matchup in combined polling of key swing states Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. The president continues to hold a modest lead in those states.
Santorum leads the president 48% to 44% in the so-called Core Four states. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate in this matchup, and two percent (2%) are undecided. This marks a shift from last week, when the president was slightly ahead of Santorum. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Obama remains ahead of Romney 46% to 42%, showing no change from last week. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate in this matchup, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Forbes’ Scott Harrington distills the argument against Romney’s electability and for Santorum’s competitive edge in a few brief bullet points:
- Along with entitlement spending in general, the central long-term issue confronting the electorate will be the Affordable Care Act — President Obama’s signature legislation — unless it is substantially overturned by the Supreme Court this summer.
- Because key features of the Affordable Care Act mimic the Massachusetts health care reform law championed by Governor Romney, his nomination would substantially neuter this central campaign issue. He would be unable to effectively lever opposition to the health care law in media campaigns or in the Presidential debates.
- The President clearly wants to campaign against Wall Street and the “1 percent.” Governor Romney would be an easy mark. Senator Santorum would not. It might be difficult to win an election with a campaign based on bogus allegations that Senator Santorum wants to prevent women from practicing contraception.
Harrington also notes that Romney still suffers from a robotic presentation of himself, while Santorum — with his passionate, un-tele-prompted speeches — has connected with voters on a gut level.
The Buckley Rule makes sense if you’re Nate Silver and an expert on electability. For the rest of us, it might make sense to just vote for the guy we’d really like to be president.
Rove and Coulter should shut their mouths
I cannot stand both.
Brit Hume shilling again on panel with Bret Baier today..got agitated when AB Stoddard said the voters don’t care about delegate counts.
Why doesn’t he just don a Mittens for President tee shirt?
Santorum is siphoning a key Democratic bloc- voters earning under $100k and those without a college degree. These are Reagan Democrats, and he has the advantage of tunrning rust-belt states red.
“President Obama now trails former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum by four points in a hypothetical 2012 matchup in combined polling of key swing states Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. The president continues to hold a modest lead in those states.”
Don’t those two sentence contradict each other? Or is this what they mean by “leading from behind”?
FReepmail “Antoninus” to be added or removed.
Time for the moderates to put aside their rigid beliefs and vote for the most electable candidate for the good of the party and the nation.
The liberals are voting for him.
Gosh, people are so asleep. We are being so played.
There is no ground swell for santos. People are trying to stop Romney and they are giving us Eddie Haskell.
Never thought I would see the day that Rove, Coulter, and the MSM were all on the same page.
I'll write-in before voting for the only Republican who firmly guarantees 4 more years of 0bama.
I'll take Eddie over the white version of 0bama any day!
People are trying to stop Romney and they are giving us Eddie Haskell.
Thank God. The voters this year are very smart. They don’t want another McCain which is basically what Romney is but worse. So they have taken control and voting for the conservative in the race and that is Rick Santorum. I could not be happier with the voter this year.
Hilarious!
Everything else, like what I do, is silly conjecture.
They said the same things about Reagan that they’re saying about Santorum. The one thing that Reagan lacked that Santorum could gain is a strong running mate. (cough newt cough)
That is a canard that was fabricated by the Romney people. It is a lie like everything that comes out of Milts mouth.
What a bunch of idiots.
LOL. The all-important moderates are falling all over themselves to vote for free contraception since the dims trotted Pelosi and Fluke out on stage.
The four state poll was a single Rasmussen poll conducted with all four states combined at one point in time. If the states are polled individually, obama still has a bit of a lead. Seems like an odd poll. I guess Rasmussen wanted to get a snapshot of four key states comparing how Santorum and Romney stacked up against obama in the general.
Rove and coulter are “conventional wisdom”? Hee hee hee hee! With wisdom like that, who needs dummies?
Glad to know the things I saw and read about in Michigan, the campaigns being organized on sites like Daily Kos, and the smiles on Democrat strategist’s and MSM “analysts’s” faces whenever Rick wins a primary or caucus are just canards.
good polls, hopefully the numbers hold,...making Romney less viable in the argument for the nomination.
Brit Hume ...
Why doesn’t he just don a Mittens for President tee shirt?
Why doesn’t the whole fox team wear one that says “we don’t have core values or personalities and we dont want them in our president”?
Lol, I must have read that same thing 4 times. Leading from behind is obama’s specialty.
Fox News is like a George w “compassionate” conservative. In other words, they think conservatives are racist bigot a-holes, and they want to show that they are NOT conservatives but want to get conservative money and votes. “We are the cool conservatives, the ones with no values”. “We push Romney as the only choice; you decide.”
Not only will they run against Milt’s Mormonism or Newt/Rick’s Catholicism, but against Gov. Sarah Palin:
Imagine a world with McCain and Palin in charge
Both Sen. John McCain and ex-Gov. Sarah Palin continue to criticize President Barack Obama’s foreign policies.
Had they been elected, it is apparent that we would now be at war with Iran and Syria, and the dysfunctional war with Afghanistan would have no end in sight. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler would be defunct. Our unemployment rate would be over 10 percent. Home-grown terrorism would be rampant as both are rabidly pro-Israel, which denotes their contempt for Muslims, even those living lawfully and peacefully within our borders.
The hubris, bellicosity and intolerance these two expound are exactly what the U.S. and the world need to vigorously avoid.
Imagine our world today with these two in charge. Think about that when you vote in November.
Jeff Bigler
Wailuku
Only in a fantasy world would a McCain administration be so inept.
Newt, Santorum, Mitt, Paul.....regardless of who gets the nomination, you betcha I am ABO.
With enemies like them, Santo doesn't need friends LOL.
Establishment GOP does not have the votes or the money in primaries. People do. I do not understand why we allow open primaries. Only registered republicans should select our nominee.
I agree with post 14, get your willard on.online
If my memory serves me correctly, I recall Santorum received 5% of votes in Michigan from registered democrats. So it is all a mixed bag, full of mischief. GOP must kepp all primaries closed to all who are not registered republicans.
I won’t vote for Romney. I will go third party or write in someone, but no way romney for me.
Me either. What made Ann turn?
It’s a little hard to believe Liberals are voting for Santorum instead of Romney since Romney is clearing the more liberal of the two. Liberals typically don’t like extremely Conservative candidates period.
***
This way, all 3 candidates waste more time and money on each other. That’s my ‘splanation.
What are they going to do when Newt or Rick win the Presidency with no electability? :)
Republicans crossed over and voted for Obama against Hillary in 2008 because they thought Hillary was more electable. Didn't work out so hot, did it?
Santorum WILL be the nominee for the Republican party, because NONE of the delegates will cross over to vote for Romney at a broken convention, and Gingrich will throw his support behind Santorum. The odds of Mitt winning the majority of the remaining delegates are slim, the probability is that Santorum and Gingrich will win the majority of the remaining delegates, which means that at a broken convention, which WILL happen, Santorum will win. Thank God!
Reagan Republican are reluctantly going with Santorum and wishing he’d take a few hours and watch some old Reagan videos on Youtube to learn how to handle the campaign. This is why I don’t like lawyers as candidates and I don’t like guys who took a pass on the Service.
Brit Hume is a Romney RINO dedicated to Romney, Soros
and Obama.
He supports Rove, Soros, and the backstabbing of true
conservatives.
Hume leads the FOX-BAIN Biased News Service
at the Sunday Romney-Pimp Fest.
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