Posted on 03/20/2012 8:54:14 PM PDT by VinL
The Santorum campaign appears to be taking a slightly new tack on Newt Gingrich’s continued presence in the race.
Instead of calling on Mr. Gingrich to drop out of the race, they called for Mr. Gingrich’s supporters to come to their side.
“It’s time for Gingrich supporters to get behind us if they truly want to have a conservative candidate; it’s up to Newt Gingrich to decide what his future is,” John Brabender, Mr. Santorum’s top strategist, told reporters after Mr. Santorum and a crowd of about 200 people had left the hotel ballroom here where Mr. Santorum had conceded the Illinois primary.
The Santorum campaign has been saying for weeks that Mr. Gingrich was siphoning votes from Mr. Santorum and has all but called for Mr. Gingrich to drop out.
Mr. Brabender said that Mr. Gingrich’s support was eroding and that some of his voters had already moved to Mr. Santorum, but he took a more welcoming approach than he had in the past.
“We need not only Gingrich supporters,” he said. “We would love to have Newt Gingrich be an important voice for our campaign, quite frankly. We would like to have people who are working for Gingrich to be working for us. We would like some of his fund-raising people to be working for us.”
He said those Gingrich supporters had to ask themselves if their goal was to have a conservative nominee, in which case, “it’s time to unify.”
With the Illinois loss hanging heavily in the air, Mr. Brabender stressed that the race was now an incremental one for delegates.
“People are getting too focused on winning states, and that’s not the contest anymore,” he said. “The contest is winning your share of stuff.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Tom Hagen: What did he say?
Sonny Corleone: What did he say, badda-beep, badda-boop, badda-boop, badda-beep.....
Just imagine where Santorum would be if Newt dropped out and all the gunning was aimed at Santorum. He'd drop out tomorrow and endorse Mitt Romney as the "real conservative" I suppose.
No thanks
That’s way they call it brokered.
I’m sure plenty of Gingrich supporters would come over to Santorum’s side. I am just as sure that plenty of them will go to Mitt Romney.
Heard Newt speaking tonight about Obama’s attention being focused on him. Newt rattles their cages.
No way would I support a big govt spender like Santorum.
Since Newt is by far and away more intelligent than either Romney or Santorum, he probably has the election end game all figured out by now.
“No way would I support a big govt spender like Santorum.”
But he’s very pure.
I’m sure plenty of Gingrich supporters would come over to Santorum’s side
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Only the really holy ones— Sinners and constitutionalists hang with Newt skywalker.
-:) Vin
I’m with Newt all the way! :)
Don’t forget Ron Paul is against Newt too. His ads in Iowa were even worse than Romneys. I heard on Fox tonight that Santorum is 1 mil in debt. Remember the guy who is finding Newt said he would switch the money to Romney if Newt can’t perform because he wants to get someone he feels can beat Obama. Newt does not want that to happen for sure. I am just rambling on incoherently about these things but I feel maybe they are all very relevant in regard to how Newt and Rick proceed.
Woops s/b funding..not finding
He also pushes their buttons and triggers their worst nightmares... :)
If you have any free time this coming week, please make phone calls for Newt into Louisiana. there was a tremendous outreach of calls made in SC, and Newt cited them as one of the important reasons for his SC success.
I believe Newt supporters on FR can be very effective, and that their passion for Newt will be obvious over the phone. The people in SC were very happy to hear a "human" voice on the other end of the phone, and were very impressed to hear from people across the country.
If you are shy, don't be. Just give it a try. After the first several calls, you will start to enjoy it. Promise! It takes about an hour to make 10 calls, and if you can do just 1 hour per day, and urge others to do likewise, it will make a huge difference!
Just go to Newt's Network, and click on Make the Call:
http://www.newtsnetwork.com
That make both Santorum and Newt Campaign in Debt.
They better be working on an alliance. They can settle who take P/VP in Tampa.
Isn’t Santorum at least smart enough to know that he is probably going to alienate and anger Newt’s supporters with this kind of talk...
It’s not a new approach. It’s what they’ve been doing. IT’s what they said a week ago, and two weeks ago. Santorum said he wasn’t going to ask Gingrich to quit.
Isn’t Santorum at least smart enough to know that he is probably going to alienate and anger Newt’s supporters with this kind of talk...
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Nope. -:)
(TBF, right now, he’s desperate. Tonight, it finally hit him- he’s going no where. He even ran himself out of Romney’s good graces. His only chance is to go back to his mentor, apologize, seek his counsel- and see if something yet can be salvaged out of the mess rick created.)
Now there, you are absolutely correct.
The only difference I sense is in tone- the spokesman’s meanderings sounded desperate, imo.
I imagine it is. Things are not going well for the conservative front against Romney. Santorum/Gingrich together didn’t beat Romney in Illinois.
They will likely beat Romney, maybe even put him 3rd, in Loiusiana. But even if we beat Romney in every Republican state, it won’t be enough. He has to lose in democratic states, and while Santorum got close, the combined attacks by the other three candidates have shown him to be a flawed candidate.
Gingrich has never come close to beating Romney in a democratic state, and shows no sign of every getting close — the race has shown him to be a flawed candidate.
Romney is a flawed candidate, but somehow manages to keep winning a majority of the delegates, and now he’s getting close to winning a majority of the raw vote totals.
We need some game-changer to turn things around. But what would that be?
Thanks I will do that and will also remind the voters in LA that Santorum voted AGAINST diverting funds from the bridge to nowhere to aid the Katrina victims.
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