Posted on 02/14/2012 6:47:22 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Consider this a corroboration of Gallup and Pew, both of which have recorded a surge for Rick Santorum that makes him the national frontrunner — if not in each state. The CBS/New York Times poll shows Santorum gaining 14 points in a single month, eclipsing Mitt Romney by three points (still within the MOE), whose support stayed virtually unchanged from January. Almost all of the gain comes at the expense of Newt Gingrich, who dropped to fourth place behind Ron Paul among Republican primary voters:
Rick Santorum has pulled slightly ahead of Mitt Romney in Republican primary voters’ preference for the presidential nomination, a national CBS News/New York Times Poll shows.
Ron Paul is now in third, followed by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
Among self-described conservative voters, the shift has been fairly dramatic. A month ago in this poll series, conservatives were equally split between Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum at 25/25/24 respectively. Now, however, Santorum’s support in this demo has risen to 38%, while Romney has remained steady at 24% and Gingrich dropped by about half to 12%. The same thing has happened to Tea Party support and evangelicals. The dynamic seems to be a movement away from Gingrich and a consolidation among conservative voters behind Santorum as the alternative to Romney, at least for now.
There are a few things to note about this poll, however. This is a poll of registered voters, not likely voters, which is not as predictive a model and is a curious sampling choice in the middle of the actual primary voting. These results come from a larger survey, most of whose results will be announced later. The overall sample was 1,064 registered voters, but only 331 of those planned to vote in a Republican primary. At least a few of those will be independents rather than Republicans, so the partisan split of the overall survey is likely to be highly skewed to Democrats. That doesn’t matter for these results, but a sample of 331 registered voters for a national poll is on the small side. Keep that in mind.
Now that Santorum has become a legitimate force in the race, he’s getting some attention from the usual suspects. Member of Occupy Tacoma tried to crash a Santorum event, and Politico reports that Santorum responded by calling them agents of “true intolerance”:
Filling the front row at the Washington State History Museum where Santorum spoke, a group of Occupy protesters disrupted the event, forcing Santorum to engage them. Occupy Tacoma, the local branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is camped out right next to the museum, and advertised Santorum’s visit on its web site.
“I think it’s really important for you to understand what this radical element represents, because what they represent is true intolerance,” Santorum said, after two protesters were taken to the ground and placed in handcuffs by police.
The protesters, Santorum suggested, “instead of standing here unemployed, yelling at somebody” should instead “go out and get a job.”
Santorum’s supporters roared their approval, chanting “get a job” back at the Occupiers.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then …
He was my 3rd choice line in the sand candidate.
I think he’ll be a good president but we can make him a great president.
Rick/Newt or Newt/Rick.
Not surprised by these latest polling numbers.
For now.... Perry, Cain, Gingrich......
He’s the weakest of the 3, and Obama will decimate him in a debate, and we will lose again.
I hope Santorum wins it. Even if he can’t beat Obama, he’s the only candidate I can vote for and feel okay in my conscience. When I voted in the primary in my state, I just got a sick feeling when I looked at Romney and Newt. I felt like I was compromising and selling myself out by voting for them.
He certainly is saying all the right things now. Unlike Willard.
He was really a solid Conservative as my Senator. He takes a lot of heat over 2 things.
-His support of Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2006. I chalk this up to “being a loyal party guy”, much in the way Sarah Palin felt compelled to campaign for McCain in Arizona. I think this will now benefit Rick as it will give the GOP establishment some second-thoughts about taking him out at the kneecaps. If they do this to such a loyal soldier, odds are they will never convince anyone again to ever do that for them in the future.
-His blowout loss to Bob Casey, Jr. whose IQ would place him somewhere in the legume family of vegetables. People outside Pennsylvania do not understand how this happened. It happened because Casey deliberately mislead the huge pool of senile voters in this state into believing that he was his dead father, a very popular Governor. And the #1 priority issue in any statewide election in PA has always been FREE STUFF FOR SENIOR CITIZENS. Casey ran around telling seasoned citizens that the reason they did not have more free stuff was that the Eeeeeeevil Moron George W. Bush was flushing all that money down a rathole in Iraq.
Sadly, most of them bought it.
“I hope Santorum wins it. Even if he can’t beat Obama, he’s the only candidate I can vote for and feel okay in my conscience. When I voted in the primary in my state, I just got a sick feeling when I looked at Romney and Newt. I felt like I was compromising and selling myself out by voting for them.”
As Rush has (accurately) said, mid-term elections are ALWAYS a referendum on the incumbent. It really doesn’t matter who the opponent is. So if the country is as angry at Obama as it was a year ago, Rick should have no trouble winning.
Romney could never beat Obama. Many conservatives would rather stay home than vote for the pretender.
A lot of supposed conservatives are really gullible these days. Santorum is a backstabber who is only helping Romney.
FURS!
Muslim Brotherhood Warns U.S. Aid Cut May Affect Egypt’s Peace Treaty With Israel
Terrorists are WARNING/THREATENING the USA!Obama already gave them pot loads of OUR money!
FUBO!
I do not buy Gingrich's anti-Santorum propaganda.
I don't see how Santorum is any more liberal than Gingrich is.
I do see how much more relatable Santorum is than Gingrich.
“Romney could never beat Obama. Many conservatives would rather stay home than vote for the pretender.”
I promised myself I would never vote for McCain, because of his and Kerry’s sellout of the POW/MIA’s in ‘93.
But when the day came in 2008, I held my nose and voted R anyway.
I won’t do that again, ever! A non-vote for Romney is at the very least a message to the establishment republicans (and Carl Rove) that we are sick of getting their chosen candidate forced upon us.
The difference between Santorum and those two is that he's smart enough to let the public figure out that Gregory is an idiot without needing to appear combative. It's like Reagan saying, "There you go again."
Look at how "combative" wore on the public perception of both Palin and Newt. Look at the distraction Romney's lies have been to Newt, forcing him to spend his time "fighting back" instead of advancing his agenda. Inasmuch as "fighting back" is needed, it is important that a President not be seen as stooping to doing so. It's better to leave such battles to others. Newt didn't have the money for that, which is why a squeaky clean record is so important in a conservative candidate.
LINK? Proof? Evidence? of any kind?
I saw the same thing said on this forum about Perry and Bachmann being in the tank for Romney.It is Bullcrap.
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