Even after winning Iowa...understandable because it was a caucus state, and he and his family virtually lived there for two years... it would still be Newt if Santorum had dropped out and endorsed him and conservatives had rallied around him as the anti Romney, telling Mitt to take his lying ad millions and shove it.
JCB asked, just name even one state Santorum caused Newt to lose.
So I named two.
It won’t wash to say, oh, I meant name a state Santorum caused Newt to lose to ROMNEY.
But the big picture is so clear, and is what Santorum diehards won’t admit, which is that Newt had the best qualified candidacy against Mitt, but he wasn’t deemed personally perfect enough therefore they jumped to the deemed-more-perfect Santorum, thus damning Newt’s candidacy.
Now neither one of them can get there.
JCB asked, just name even one state Santorum caused Newt to lose.
So I named two. It won’t wash to say, oh, I meant name a state Santorum caused Newt to lose to ROMNEY.
But the big picture is so clear, and is what Santorum diehards won’t admit, which is that Newt had the best qualified candidacy against Mitt, but he wasn’t deemed personally perfect enough therefore they jumped to the deemed-more-perfect Santorum, thus damning Newt’s candidacy.
Now neither one of them can get there.
A very wise freeper had this to say about what you are stating. Both of your posts together form a great primer on how the evangelicals have pulled this crap 2 cycles in a row now. they gave us obama, they will give us romney, if we don't fight like the country's survival depends on us..
"It’s Huckabee bullheadedly plowing ahead of Thompson by sheer belief in his own holiness all over again. The story always starts out the same: Conservatives get a credible alternative to the Establishment front-runner, and he starts getting attacked.
Then the SoCon who stayed under the radar (Huckabee then, Santorum now) becomes everyone’s plan B, because the guy who could have won (Thompson, Gingrich) was unloaded upon by the GOP-E money machine. Then the smug supporters of the upstart underdog all thump their chest and say “NO.....YOUR GUY SHOULD DROP OUT!!”
Then the vote is already split, the credible candidate becomes non-credible because of vote-splitting, and the upstart winds-up in second place because folks trying to beat the Establishment liberal switch to plan B because the smug voters of the only holy candidate make it loudly clear that they’re going to support the holy upstart candidate even if it means the Liberals win. It JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.
In reality, what needed to happen was for Santorum to drop out early, when it became apparent that there was someone who could lead Romney in the polls for a long time, and when it was clear he had a friggin’ LITANY of ballot and delegate issues. Even if it was not Newt at the time (heck, replace Newt with Perry), Conservatives should have united around a single candidate with a full organization and little to no ballot and delegate issues, and there SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A PLAN B. Conservative should have been forced to STAY united, learn to DEFEND their candidate rather than defect because the rich, Establishment Liberal was able to smear the credible Conservative with overwhelming cash.
If there had been no Santorum, Newt would be leading right now. He would be leading because we would have been united against Romney from day one, and there would have been no defections based on the fact that - by simply running under the radar - someone else rises because they haven’t been unloaded on.
We CANNOT keep doing this. We CANNOT keep Santoruming and Huckabeeing ourselves based on some sick notion of the holiness of a politician. We cannot keep some broke one-percenter in the race because they were able to show well in Iowa after living there for two years and facing almost no attacks because of their low polling. We cannot keep rewarding these guys for throwing Hail Mary passes when we have a chance to defeat the Liberals. No more “shoestring” campaigns, no more one-percenters who surge in time to do well in Iowa, no more long-shot dreams based on the notion that some candidate is the mostest Christianest candidate of them all.
No more Huckabees, no more Santorums. No more long-shots who surge in Iowa. Rule them out before they ruin another Primary season. Santorum was never going to get 1144 delegates - it was NEVER going to happen. The fact that people bull-headedly refused to waver from him KILLED us - and then they turned around and taunted Newt and Perry voters for voting for Santorum in desperation, citing the vote count as if nobody knows what was actually happening. No more Santorums, no more Huckabees. No more long shots, period." ~ TitansAFC
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2861639/posts?page=96#96
“But the big picture is so clear, and is what Santorum diehards won’t admit, which is that Newt had the best qualified candidacy against Mitt”
Virginia proved this not to be the case, which is why the VA ballot loss was so devastating to his campaign at the time. Yes, he was riding high in the polls, well above Romney in December.
Iowa reinforced the perception that Newt was not competitive with Romney. He wasn’t a factor there at all.
Newt has had severe cash and organization problems that have persisted through his campaign now. Even in the best of cases, I really can’t see how he would have overcome Romney’s advantages in a two- man race. I remember the polls, and Romney destroyed him in the head to head, whereas Santorum defeated Romney.
It’s all about favourability. Santorum has had much higher favourables than Newt, that when you take out people, he’s generally their second choice. Not so with Newt.
If you can show me a head to head poll from back then that shows otherwise, I’d like to see it.