Posted on 04/15/2012 2:47:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The exit of Rick Santorum from the Republican presidential primary essentially clears the path Mitt Romney is traveling to become the party's nominee against U.S. President Obama in November but Romney still has to win the hearts of GOP voters as well as the party's nomination.
Romney had 573 delegates per the Republican National Committee's count to Santorum's 202 delegates when the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania withdrew last week. But he has yet to stir a fire in the belly of the party's evangelical and conservative wings as he moves closer to the 1,144 delegates needed to claim the nomination.
"Some of Santorum's delegates will immediately shift to Romney, some will gradually shift, and a hard core group will probably go to another candidate or remain uncommitted," political commentator Steven Schier of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., said. "This last group will probably not be large enough to disrupt a Romney coronation at the convention."
The final Gallup poll conducted during the party preference process, released last week, indicated Romney is the preferred presidential candidate of 42 percent of Republicans polled nationwide, among the lowest measured in a final primary poll since 1972, Gallup said. Santorum was the choice of 24 percent of Republicans in the poll completed before he made his announcement, the Princeton, N.J., pollster said.
Even though he trailed -- badly -- in money and delegates, Santorum's strong performance created a sometimes bruising primary campaign. Santorum won 11 states before he bowed out ahead of his home state's primary April 24 where several polls indicated Santorum held a slim single-digit lead over Romney and one survey showed Romney leading Santorum.
Santorum's withdrawal cleared the way for Republicans to rally around Romney, and three prominent conservatives, Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Rick Scott of Florida, and Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania endorsed Romney hours after Santorum announced his departure.
Conservative leaders who had rallied around Santorum's campaign, however, have raised doubts that faction of the Republican Party could readily embrace Romney, seen by that wing as too moderate, The New York Times reported.
Conservative activist Richard Viguerie was blunt, especially since Romney unleashed a barrage against Santorum and other conservative candidates.
"After having destroyed every conservative that came on the scene," Viguerie said, "you can't say 'You have to line up behind me.' No, no, no. Conservatives are not going to jump until they hear where Governor Romney wants to take everybody."
"I just think it's going to be a much harder lift to take someone who seems like a moderate and try to get conservatives excited about it," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told CNN.
Perkins said Romney shouldn't expect to collect the same type of support Santorum got if the former Massachusetts governor doesn't fully embrace the principles of the socially conservative organization.
"And so if the party is moving in a different direction, we are not going there," Perkins said. "The only reason there was an alignment with Rick Santorum from our constituency is because Rick embraced the ideas, the policies and the principles that our organization and our constituency believes in and so to the degree that one candidate or another aligns with that, they're going to find support. If they don't, they're not going to get the unbridled enthusiastic support that Rick Santorum enjoys."
Even though Santorum's departure removes the last major stumbling block to Romney's nomination two other candidates -- former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas -- said they would stay in the race until the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., with each claiming he represents the conservative alternative.
Without flat-out saying Gingrich and Paul should end their bids, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told CNN, "I think they should all look at the math."
"Gingrich and Paul may remain on the stump, but they will receive relatively limited media attention because the nomination contest is essentially over," Schier said. "Romney's challenge regarding these candidates is obtaining their strong personal support by the convention so that he can launch the fall campaign without a divided party."
Gingrich and Paul both have personal agendas they want to bring to the fore, Schier said.
"For Paul, it is libertarianism. For Gingrich, it is strong social and fiscal conservatism," the commentator said. "For these reasons, they remain at least nominally active candidates. It would be best for Romney if both candidates dropped out and endorsed him, but neither is likely to create considerable disruption at the convention."
Romney and Santorum traded vitriol throughout the campaign, but former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a leader on Romney's campaign team, said he expected Santorum to rally behind Romney.
"[We] need all of the pieces to come together to make this a successful campaign," said Pawlenty, who abandoned his bid to be the GOP nominee after the Iowa straw poll last summer. "But ... there's a grand tradition of people competing hard for party nominations" then uniting against a common foe.
Priebus said told CNN he believed Republicans would be "100 percent unified behind our nominee."
"I think time heals some wounds," the RNC leader said. "And I also think that over time, over the next several weeks, I think our party gets completely unified."
The main challenge for Romney within the GOP is "generating enthusiasm among the evangelicals and strong conservatives who have thus far disdained him," Schier said. "He needs their strong support in the form of volunteer hours and campaign contributions. He will be conducting an outreach over the next several months to secure that support because he needs their support to be competitive with President Obama this fall."
I will go there. We must fight and defeat a fascist mopvement. Do you think for a moment that is not the case?
This is not business as usual. The GOP is incapable of defeuining the fascist threat OR fighting it. It must go.
We will not defeat fascism at the polls. We will defeat it through warfare , either political or conventional.
The GOP doesn’t even KNOW there is a war.
The GOP is not worthy of even one conservative’s vote.
Vote for Obama , destroy the GOP, and then destroy the Obama movement, thats the plan we MUST all now face.
I am just waiting to see whether Newt has a hope in hell.He could still pull it out, but conservative people are just too complacent, it seems.
I will go there. We must fight and defeat a fascist mopvement. Do you think for a moment that is not the case?
This is not business as usual. The GOP is incapable of defeuining the fascist threat OR fighting it. It must go.
We will not defeat fascism at the polls. We will defeat it through warfare , either political or conventional.
The GOP doesn’t even KNOW there is a war.
The GOP is not worthy of even one conservative’s vote.
Vote for Obama , destroy the GOP, and then destroy the Obama movement, thats the plan we MUST all now face.
I am just waiting to see whether Newt has a hope in hell.He could still pull it out, but conservative people are just too complacent, it seems.
PS NEWT fan here - - -
Don’t put that on your conscience my friend. Please. Simple or simplistic as it sounds, voting for either Romney or Obama is a sin. An affront to God. Picking one or the other is like deciding whether you will blow your brains out with a revolver or an automatic. The correct answer is NEITHER one, because you are not going there.
GOPe = Whig Party
“We were so quick to get solidly behing both of them as minority “conservatives” and never really vetted them through all the fawning.”
Salient point. I liked Jindal and now this. How could he support Romney..?! Romney destroyed every conservative with his barrage of negative ads and money....it was disgusting. While every other candidate was telling you WHY to vote for them...Romney was telling everyone WHY you shouldn’t.
Now we’re left with just him....yawn....yuck
Guess I gotta hold my nose and vote for him simply for the
future supreme court nomination thats coming up.
I especially love the repeated references that Romney is seen as "too moderate." Were he any where near moderate, it wouldn't be so painful. He's Obama-white for cryin' out loud.
If little Ricky would commit his delagates to Newt, it would be a race for the nomination, with Mitt having a lead, but not insurmountable. That are some big states yet to vote.
It would change the entire race, the mood of the party and the strength of the 2012 ticket going up against Obama.
Newt Gingrich is going after unpledged delegates - that haven't committed in primaries - including upcoming PA (72), and already completed MT (26) and (IL (69) delegates, since these delegates remain unpledged regardless of primary vote.
AND though there are going to be some “winner take all” primaries, the following contests are also on the schedule:
RI (16) proportional
NY (92) proportional
WVA (28) proportional -- elect delegates (who list their presidential pick on ballot)
NC (52) proportional
OR (25) proportional
AK (33) proportional
KY (42) proportional
TX (155) proportional
CA (169) proportional (by district)
NM (20) proportional
SD (25) proportional
There there are the Contested delegates: …. “delegates have to be "uncontested" in order to count. The frontrunner's rivals argue some of the states that awarded Romney all of their delegates violated Republican National Committee rules when they moved their contests ahead of April 1 and therefore should distribute delegates proportionally. This dispute, if it continues, would not be ruled on until the August convention in Tampa.
"All the media counts right now give him all of Florida, which is against the rules, all of Arizona, which is against the rules, and all of Idaho," Gingrich said Monday. "Those are all three proportional states and they should only be counting his share. So he has to win 1,144 uncontested delegates."
FL: 50 delegates
ID: 32 delegates
AZ: 29 delegates
RNC neutrality challenged on Romney…… “The list of specific grievances ranges from issues that even the party acknowledges are legitimate, to those that they dismiss as desperate fixations from Romney’s flailing rivals.
For example, the committee agrees that some states that went for Romney jumped the line in the primary schedule, a violation of party rules. But RNC defenders shrug off other complaints, like that they undercut Santorum and Gingrich by formatting a delegate tracking list to pad Romney’s tally, by forming a fundraising alliance this week with Romney and by highlighting a rule that would block an unlikely path to the nomination for Gingrich.
And it’s possible they’ll be other clashes in the coming weeks, with the RNC signaling Thursday its opposition to a push by Santorum backers in Texas to alter the rules surrounding that state’s May 29 primary to help the former Pennsylvania Senator.
Critics of the RNC’s handling of the primary are so sensitive to signs that the committee may be pulling for Romney that they’ve even detected evidence of favoritism in the staff ties between his campaign and the RNC — though some concede such speculation veers more toward conspiracy theory than legitimate concern.”….
The Man With The Plan Can!
After that many years of lying, I doubt he even knows.
Was that an Idiocracy reference?
Kiss this baby, Mittens!
LoL!!!!
Oh my.
As in, give us a lobotomy.
“The GOP doesn’t even KNOW there is a war.”
I agree on the fascism although it is actually homegrown Anerican Progressive, but there is no war. This is GOP teamwork with the Democrats. Both parties will work in tendem to stir this up until some flashpoint, then FedCare Inc. will clamp down on all Americans. They will have arrived at their destination then. Have you not seen the emerging police state apparatus that EVERY administration has been adding to in the past quarter century?
There is no accident that one of these candidates comes from a ‘black liberation theology’ ‘church’, and the other is from a historically ‘white and delightsome’ ‘church’. This is theater, and these men are props.
I can see the PSA spots now, as GHW Bush and WJB Clinton sit on a couch together, taking turns speaking their lines about calm, order, and unity during the ‘temporary’ crisis, and the need to control ‘extreme’ rhetoric and actors on both sides.
Think like a condescending elitist looking down on a game board , and see how this picture changes. This is the perspective from which they are viewing this cycle. Remember the photo of Bush 1, Bush 2.5 and Obama sitting together, relaxed and laughing? Why so friendly? Why are they even gathered together? Right, left, center, we are all being played in the base. The real rivalry is top/down, not left/right. That is why they are laughing. That is why they are relaxed and cordial with one another.
Thank you for stating the most obvious and critical dynamic in this year's election. Conservatives want Obama not simply removed from office but tried for treason. This will happen under a veto proof Congress. Such a Congress is virtually assured in the coming election.
A Romney presidency will perpetuate and increase the current policies of Obama. In truth, the best way for Obama to protect his accomplishments is for Romney to defeat him.
It is not possible to underestimate the duplicity and lack of moral courage of Romney. He is vapid and deceitful. He will never garner the support of the moral majority.
A lobotomy would be another way that they could get me to pull the lever (press the touchscreen) for Willard. Or they could just kill me and have me vote from the grave.
Vivo Cristo Rey!
We will not waste our limited resources on FR in support for a liberal progressive LIAR
Is she still talking about Scott and Lacy Peterson? I gave up on her after about 18 months of that in a row.
I wish I could barf on command.. With cameras rolling I would walk right up and shake this phoney’s hand.
Does Romney have conscious? Either he is oblivious to the destruction and the moral conundrum he is putting the majority of the party in, which makes him incompetent to serve, or he knows and is evil. Either way my conscious will be clearer than the mAsshole's is going to be. But that is for the our Maker to decide in the end.
For some reason the old RINO inspired fear tactics are not working this time.
I am a vindictive A$$hole, once i flip to anti-GOP noting will change my mind. When I leave the GOP plantation it will be forever.
I don't think he is a phony at all. He is right up front in his trashing Conservatism and is distancing himself from the base. I read "him" Lima Charlie.
“Romney is as radically liberal as any candidate the democrats have ever run.”
He may not be as conservative as you or I, but that is ridiculous. You honestly think Romney is as far left as our Marxist President, a man raised by dedicated communists?
Don't forget ........... He's "Team Player" who is, was, and always will be an "Establishment" Republican. My word, I've gone down the voting list from Sarah Palin to Newt and I'm going no further. I'll not vote for someone who should actually be running on the Democrat ticket as a moderate Democrat. Let'r rip!
Clearly you know nothing of the spiritual and religious convictions that drive Romney. He takes a different road to the same destination as Obama. Both are morally decadent.
The GOP is only a pretend opposition party. They are one of the 2 branches of the Incumbency Party of Ivy League Lawyers. It’s been that way for decades, these 2 parties have had a lock on the USA for nearly 2 centuries. One of the branches needs to be cut first, if that is the GOP so be it. FUMR
Voting for Obama, knowing what he will do to the country, is an act of sedition. A short hop from treason.
Nah, Romney is a second hand communist. While he is not a dyed in wool commie ..everything in his political history indicates he went along with their programs. So, he’s either a sell out or a go along to get along ..either way not gonna be good for the people.
Definitely not a reformer.
Colorado Republicans split delegate votes between Romney, unified Paul and Santorum supporters
I care far less about his spiritual and religious convictions than his economic convictions, which is what separates him from the current Marxist, and is what will affect the stability of our country.
“So, he’s either a sell out or a go along to get along...”
Which is why we need to take the house and senate, and force him to “go along” with the handful of real conservatives we’ve got. But he has to be there, not Obama, who will appoint more Kagans, veto more of Paul Ryan’s budgets, and continue to drag the country into a Marxist dystopia.
Obama second term might bring this whole socialist/individual freedom conflict to a head. Would be interesting to see. It has to be resolved, why not now?
I make my own decisions based on my own research and what I perceive to be the best interest of my childern, grandchildren and the country.
I need no direction.....you do what you think best and I will do what I think best.
There is no comparison between Romney, however weak, and the Evil ObamaNation in the White House.
“Which is why we need to take the house and senate”
Yep, one of only two options we have (3 if count a miracle=Newt)
The other option is a brokered convention..(Palin?)
Yes. His cronyism tied to government is simply another form of socialism. He is a different form of socialism than is Obama, but socialism is socialism.
Benito would have been Romney’s good friend.
I’m getting to the end of my day CT!
It’s pretty standard for the top guy to help erase the competitors campaign debt. Romney will undoubtedly help Santorum erase his. Gingrich may end up on his own, which really means he will stiff his vendors. I hope Newt is man enough to pay the bills he racked up.
Newt Gingrich to hold forum in Richardson [Texas this Monday] “Former House Speaker and Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich is scheduled to hold a public forum Monday in Richardson.
The meeting is set for 4 p.m. at Pappasito's Cantina, 723 Central Expressway. Space is limited and the audience will be part of a 30-mintue question and answer period.”……..
Fred Grandy Interviews Newt Gingrich [Secure Freedom Radio] "Presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shares his foreign policy strategy for Middle East. Gingrich touches on every country of the region from Iran to Saudi Arabia to Turkey and finally Afghanistan and speaks about the policies that would be implemented in a Gingrich Presidency."
While you and others on this site are serving as Romney's door porters, 55,000+ Lds missionaries -- like what Romney was -- are knocking on front doors trying to spiritually enslave your children and grandchildren.
Mormons' legalism is so great, ya gotta go back to the Pharisees to find an equivalency. And what was Jesus' assessment of the Pharisees? 15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. (Matthew 23:15)
Yeah, you be sure to train those next generations to vote for...
>.. the socialists (like Romney)
...& the pro-aborts (like Romney)
...& the liberal judge appointers (like Romney)
...& idolaters (like Romney)
That way, when it comes time, they, too, can vote for somebody to the left of Obama -- because that candidate will be bound to be an "improvement" vs. whoever the Dems throw up there...
[Where "lessers-of-two-evils" voting gets us as a nation...evil...pure evil...with conservatives openly confessing they endorse such self-confessed 'evil']
You will not understand his economic convictions unless you understand their source. His religion informs all of his political life. Ignore his religion and you ignore the man.
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