Posted on 03/07/2012 6:11:49 PM PST by Steelfish
March 8 Republican Split Decision Romney had a good night but Santorum has cause to fight on.
If Republican poohbahs were hoping that Super Tuesday's 10 contests would settle the Republican primary contest, they woke up Wednesday disappointed. While Mitt Romney had a good night and stretched his lead among delegates, Rick Santorum did well enough to more than justify staying in the race.
The good news for Mr. Romney is that he won easily where he had to—in New England and Virginia—and went on to win narrowly the crucial showdown in Ohio. The pundits made much of the large vote for Ron Paul in Vermont and Virginia, which was no doubt a protest vote against Mr. Romney or the entire field. But the former Massachusetts Governor still gathered most of the delegates and it appeared more than 40 of 49 delegates in Virginia.
Mr. Romney did well with what is becoming a familiar coalition: party regulars, college grads and those making more than $100,000 a year, voters who think the economy is the most important issue, and those who think he has the best chance of defeating President Obama.
It's clear that most tea partiers and the most conservative voters still prefer another candidate, but Mr. Romney won enough of them to prevail. His pro-growth 20% tax cut and tax reform outline, unveiled before Michigan, have been important to winning over conservative skeptics who favor substance over biography. Two weeks ago he was trailing Mr. Santorum badly in Ohio, and exit polls showed Mr. Romney picking up the bulk of those who decided in the last week.
Yet Mr. Santorum also did well in Ohio because he continues to carve out pluralities among tea party supporters, cultural conservatives, younger voters, and those who didn't attend college and aren't affluent.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Since the Democrat race was meaningless (except for the Congressional race involving Kucinich and Kaptur), were Democrats able to vote in the Republican primary? In Michigan the Obama forces encouraged Democrats to vote for Santorum to embarrass Romney in his native state. Did they do the same thing in Ohio? Regardless of which candidate they think easiest to beat, they probably want a long-drawn-out primary battle to weaken the eventual nominee.
Well said! Very true.
here i try to think out of the box, reach out w/ an olive branch because of our common enemies (Obama, and Romney who will lose hopelessly to him), look at some creative way to solve a serious conservative political impasse centering on two candidates and their respective camps, discuss as a gentleman, and you have to reply with a snide reply on Santorum’s position. can’t you see the effort that I think is necessary and am trying to perhaps kickstart here? can we knock off the “incoming” friendly fire just for a moment to settle this thing somehow, when we have bigger fish to fry, such as a minor issue as the future of our very Republic? i am not going to get in a pissing contest here or take the bait in terms of debating on Santorum, i am going to stand by my original comment that some kind of meeting of the minds must start.
Snide, no. This just lays out the fundamental problem between the factions of conservativism.
It’s wishful thinking to try and get small-government conservatives to support candidates that believe in government (Romney, Santorum).
Whereas all the other stripes of conservativism can support, in varying degrees, a candidate that believes in the smallest government possible.
Why no one can see that, I don’t know.
Buying into Global Warming—what, pray tell,role of GOVERNMENT is there in the mind of any purveyors—anyone who signs on or signed on in the past, to such academic hogwash?
But this is tantamount to saying we need to coalesce around a man who can’t consistently garner more than 15% of Republican primary voters.
This is our problem. Newt’s got the best ideas, has the best intellect and is the best debater of the four candidates.
Yet he’s not connecting. All he’s doing is splitting the conservative vote and allowing Mittens to sneak and shuffle his way to the nomination.
Sorry, I know this is close to heresy, but we gotta think whether we’d prefer a conservative in the White House or 4 more years of Obama.
And I got news for you. Rick IS a conservative. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be the pick of the Republican party in places like Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Go back to the very beginning of Free Republic.
Find all articles that are either tagged "Santorum" or have "Rick Santorum" is the key person of discussion in the article and then the FReeper discussion thread that follows.
Total these all up.
Then look at the number of posts in each of these articles and get a predominental sentiment overview from within the comments, then furthermore, listing the number of:
a) FR Threads predominently POSITIVE on (then) Senator Santorum and then later former Senator Santorum at the time, since the beginning of FR until this week.
b) FR Threads predominently NEGATIVE on the Senator, since the beginning of FR until this week.
I would like to see just how bashed he was on Free Republic for YEARS on end, as opposed to how he was well-received as a conservative.
I would love to see these figures and extrapolate the larger meaning behind.
I am almost sure that the spike in negative articles or comments or Rick only comes in the last six months or so as very minute part of FR's nearly 14 years of existence, and that the prime reason and only reason they are negative against Rick is because, well, he is not Speaker Gingrich.
Would really love to see the data on this. Of course I do believe there would be a spike of negativity on the vote relating to Arlen Spector without a doubt but I would bet a bottom dollar that Santorum had been of friend of Free Republic for years on end, and now suddenly, in some narrow, selfish and parochial quarters, is the worst man on the facce of the earth, worse than marxist Emperor Obama it seems (I saw people on here who said they would actually vote for Obama over Santorum in such a match up in November. I saw others who said they would vote for Romney over Santorum if Gingrich dropped out. Or just stay home in November if he gained the nomination. Incredible. Just dayam! Moshe Dayam!)
You basically reiterate my original post... but then demand what is impossible. IE: to have those conservatives who believe in the smallest government possible vote for someone that believes that government is the preferred way to inculcate morality into the populace.
Do you not see the fundamental insanity of trying to do this?
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