[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Santorum will get slaughtered in a campaign. He has just said too many things that will alienate too many voters. Redstate.com had a nice article explaining it.

http://www.redstate.com/joshleguern/2012/02/13/three-reasons-santorum-will-lose-against-obama/

Then there is the money quote, which kind of makes me ill:

“One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a Libertarianish right. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. That is not how traditional conservatives view the world.”

Now, I do think Santorum is right to the extent there is some tension between social conservativism and libertarian conservatism, though abortion is a unique issue that even many libertarian conservatives oppose. But so directly picking a fight with libertarian leaning conservatives is just dumb. If you toss the "that government is best which governs least" element out, there just aren't enough votes to give a Republican a majority.

So I suppose that means I'm still stuck on Newt's moon colony.

[ohioWfan]

It's not 'picking a fight' with libertarians to point out that they are at odds with complete conservatism. They are.

Libertarians are fiscal conservatives, and social liberals, and that makes them only half way there.

If a libertarian is actually a thoughtful conservative (I'm sure a handful are), then they will vote for one of the two conservatives left in the race. Newt or Rick.

[presently no screen name]

He has just said too many things that will alienate too many voters.

Especially conservatives.

[ohioWfan]

It's not 'picking a fight' with libertarians to point out that they are at odds with complete conservatism. They are.

Libertarians are fiscal conservatives, and social liberals, and that makes them only half way there.

If a libertarian is actually a thoughtful conservative (I'm sure a handful are), then they will vote for one of the two conservatives left in the race. Newt or Rick.