Can Mitt Be Stopped? ‘A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Romney Inevitability’

Posted on | January 13, 2012 | 47 Comments

“The final tally in the New Hampshire primary showed Rick Santorum clinched fourth place and Newt Gingrich took fifth, according to the New Hampshire secretary of state.
“Throughout late Tuesday night and early [Wednesday] morning when the votes were tallied, Gingrich had been fourth, but Santorum overtook him, beating him by just 138 votes, with 23,174 votes for Gingrich and 23,312 for Santorum.”
— Boston Globe

On the phone with a friend this afternoon, we were talking about the Perry problem, which is beginning to depress me. Da Tech Guy is trying to be philosophical about it, but I’m getting discouraged, because it’s turning out as badly as I’d feared, and perhaps even worse. Frightening vibes of vindictive sadism are emanating from the Perry camp, and this is never a good sign.

Three days after Christmas, a CNN poll finally validated what I and others had been saying for weeks: Rick Santorum’s tireless campaigning in Iowa was producing a last-minute surge. And suddenly Santorum, who had spent months grousing about his relative lack of media coverage, was swarmed by reporters everywhere he went.

Almost as quickly, the Perrybots attacked. They had spent three weeks expecting that once Mitt Romney’s attack ads destroyed Gingrich in Iowa, the beneficiary would be The Only Candidate Who Could Beat Romney™ (as they had been marketing their guy since mid-summer). The fact that Iowa Republicans shifted instead to Santorum drove the Perrybots into unprecedented paroxysms of frothing rage.

What especially infuriated them was that the Perry campaign, which had been saturating Iowa with some $3 million of ads — including an ad that attacked both Gingrich and Romney — hadn’t anticipated Santorum’s December surge. So by the time it became apparent that Santorum was surging, it was too late for Perry to do anything more than hit Santorum with a last-minute radio ad, plus some cheap underhanded smear tactics like disseminating anonymous anti-Santorum flyers. (Which the Perry people then deviously tried to blame on Ron Paul’s campaign.)

Despite everything that the Perry campaign and its proxies could throw in at the last minute, however, Santorum came within eight votes of beating Romney in Iowa and, as I said to my friend on the phone today, “How much different would it have been if Erick Erickson hadn’t spent five days slamming Santorum at Red State? Couldn’t that have cost Santorum the votes he needed to beat Romney?”

Of course, the anti-Santorum messages didn’t stop after Iowa and this vengeful negativity from Perry’s people — as if Santorum unjustly deprived them of something that was rightly theirs — was not unnoticed, either by the Santorum campaign staff or by various journalists covering the campaign. A rather eminent pundit asked me last weekend in New Hampshire, “What the hell happened to Erickson?”

What is especially annoying about this is that, for all the harm inflicted on Santorum, they haven’t done Perry any good at all. He’s still down at the bottom of the GOP heap and, even if he gains ground in South Carolina now — as at least one anomalous poll suggests — all Perry can do is drain votes away from either Gingrich or Santorum, the two candidates with a plausible chance to beat Romney there.

So I was telling this to my friend, who has already joined the “Roll Over for Romney” camp, and explaining that I intend to fight as long as there is anything left to fight with, but was frustrated by the apparent determination of the Perry people that, if their guy can’t be the “Not Romney” alternative, then they’ll destroy whatever other “Not Romney” has a chance, just for the pure hateful spite of it.

It grieves me terribly to see such petulance from people I’ve long regarded as political allies, just as it embarrasses me to have to cite Bill Kristol (!) as an example of clear-thinking courage:

Thus Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal last Thursday: If Romney, having beaten Santorum by all of eight votes in Iowa, wins in New Hampshire, where he has a summer home and has been campaigning for six years—well, then we should all just accept the inevitability of Romney. After all, then “Romney is 2-0.” And if he’s 2-0, by whatever margins and in states with 11 electoral votes—“he becomes the prohibitive favorite” for the nomination.
Really? Well, no. But the point [of Rove’s argument] is to convince Santorum supporters, and those of you who might consider becoming Santorum supporters, that he has no chance, so as to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of Romney inevitability. After all, “Mr. Santorum shouldn’t kid himself; he faces huge obstacles. . . . He hasn’t had to endure withering scrutiny but will shortly. His chief opponent has tremendous organizational and financial advantages and has been through the rigors of a presidential primary race.” Rove does note with gracious condescension, “Mr. Santorum has a shot, and that’s all he could have hoped for.”
Actually, Santorum can hope to win. He has been running to win. And after what he pulled off in Iowa, it’s foolish to suggest he doesn’t have a chance to win. His Iowa performance, and his speech Tuesday night, were impressive enough to suggest to primary voters in subsequent states that they should make an effort to judge both his capacity to win and his capacity to govern.

Exactly so. For a long time, Santorum’s critics said he seemed “whiny” or “sanctimonious,” but in the past few weeks, Santorum seems to have gained confidence and found his voice, and people are responding to his positive message. Unlike either Gingrich or Perry, Santorum never resorted to using “Occupy Wall Street” arguments against Mitt Romney. And Santorum’s ad have been optimistic and inspirational:

The Santorum campaign has said they’ll spend $1 million to spread that message in South Carolina, and there is reason to hope that, with a week to go — and two debates — before next Saturday’s vote, he can finally score a breakthrough win.

Despite my own pro-Santorum bias, however, I’d be OK if somehow Gingrich pulls ahead to beat Romney. If the point is to stop Romney from clinching in South Carolina, it doesn’t really matter who stops him. But there are only so many anti-Romney votes to go around, and every vote wasted on Perry (currently 20.9 points behind Romney in the RCP average of South Carolina polls) is in effect a vote for Romney.

Think about it: When the votes in South Carolina are counted on the night of Jan. 21, if Romney wins by a margin smaller than the vote total for Rick Perry, the supporters of Perry will have inadvertantly handed the nomination to the RINO they spent six months denouncing as unacceptable to conservatives.

By all normal political logic, Perry’s humiliating fifth-place showing in Iowa should have been the end of his campaign, but his staff and consultants insisted that he had to keep going, if only to give them a chance to spend the rest of the millions in campaign cash he’d collected. Yet they have refined the avoidance of blame to a high art, so I’m sure when all is said and done, Dave Carney and his (well-compensated) friends will lay all the blame for their failures on some convenient scapegoat.

But this is depressing me, and I don’t want to be depressed. What I want is for people to wake the hell up and start thinking for themselves, and realize that trends in human affairs are never really inevitable. The actions of individuals make a difference, and if you have the courage to stand up and speak out, you can make trends happen, rather than always being the victim of somebody else’s trend.

That’s why I like Rick Santorum: He’s the guy who says you don’t have to vote for Romney just because somebody told you Romney’s “electable”

All the noise from all these pundits won’t amount to a hill of beans, if the people of South Carolina decide to take a stand and tell the pundits to go straight to hell. Join the fight — and fear the vest!

Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Polls, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, South Carolina

Comments

47 Responses to “Can Mitt Be Stopped? ‘A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Romney Inevitability’”

DAN
January 13th, 2012 @ 9:33 pm

Ever since Rick Perry went down, there’s only been one man who could stop Romney.

Unfortunately, you chose to waste your time and that of the country flirting with Cain.

But despite the time that Cain wasted, helping to defray the massive non-Romney vote out there, despite that there was still time for the party to gather around the one guy left with NATIONAL credibility and national appeal.

But again, unfortunately, you chose to echo the criticisms against that man, and participated in the massive aerial bombardment against him.

So in your unwise quest for political purity and perfection, ————————- we’re stuck with Romney.

And Romney is the most liberal candidate the Republicans have fielded since Ford. And he’s probably more liberal than Ford was!

Unimagined damage has been wrought to the cause of genuine conservatism, and unimagined damage has been done to the Grand Old Party.

Because of you, and many like you by the way, who have flitted here and there from one non-viable candidate to another, advancing various rationales all the while, ———- and now we’re stuck with a flat-out disaster.

We’re up the creek, and well and truly up that creek.

The only way to slow Romney is for every single non-Romney voter to throw their weight behind Gingrich in SC and in Florida. And even that will only lengthen the drama, that won’t be a stake through Romney.

Santorum voters and Perry’s people might bridle at that suggestion.

But what other option is there if one desires to slow Romney down.

When Perry stayed in for SC, he rendered massive damage to the cause of stopping Romney, for he then trifects all Conservative opposition to Romney!

If it had been simply Santorum and Gingrich remaining, that division of the vote might not have been as damaging. But Perry, even if he only takes away like 8% or something, even that is huge right now.

This is a disaster.
Anonymous
January 13th, 2012 @ 9:39 pm

DOOM!

Unless we do something about it…
Anonymous
January 13th, 2012 @ 9:43 pm

Had Cain managed to stay in the race…he would be front running with Romney (since Newt was bound to collapse and Bachmann and Perry will never come back).

Santorum is now the guy. But there is a reason it has taken him so much time to get ANY traction.
Denverwindowwashing
January 13th, 2012 @ 9:55 pm

To quote a movie about Dorothy Parker “I appreciate the sentiment but question the logic.”

You saw how Perry gave the finger to Iowa with his “Howdy. Thank you, Eric.”

And New Hampshire isn’t home to Texas fans.

So, as Newt has said over and over, South Carolina is where campaigns are valid or not in the Republican primary system.

That is the day Perry will bow out, exit, exaunt, leave, say bye-bye, etc.

But he needs to stay in the hunt until then for obvious Texan reasons.
Paul Zummo
January 13th, 2012 @ 10:13 pm

As a Perry supporter but who is starting to consider supporting the next best candidate (Santorum), I can’t help but agree with most of what you have written. EE and the rest of the crew at Red State have embroiled in some of the most ridiculous hyperbole as it relates to Santorum.

But I can’t help but think that you have some blood on your hands, Stacy (metaphorically speaking). It seems that a lot of conservative pundits have decided that the only way to deal with their non-preferred candidate is to tear them all down. You’ve been doing it with Perry since day one. Now, it’s one thing to offer criticisms of the other candidates, and boy, all of them are worthy of some criticism. But when guys like Santorum and Gingrich are described as socialists by some on the right, and Perry is similarly character assassinated, is it any surprise that ole Mittens squeaks through when each and every conservative opponent is maliciously taken apart by other conservatives?

If and when Romney wraps up the nomination there’s going to be a lot of bellyaching about the Establishment. Of course the Establishment pushed Romney down our throats. That was to be be expected. But when all is said and done conservatives are going to have to look in the mirror and blame ourselves.
Anonymous
January 13th, 2012 @ 10:16 pm

Even with Perry in the race, Gingrich is within the margin of error of Romney in South Carolina already, and Romney’s the one with the target painted on his back for the next 8 days.

Barring some kind of massive game-changer (we’ll see in the next couple of days whether the Establishment-manufactured “Bain Backlash” did the trick), Gingrich will at least de facto tie with, and more likely beat, Romney in South Carolina, even with Perry and Santorum still in play.

After that, Romney is done and Gingrich pretty much runs the table.
Vrbaiamonte
January 13th, 2012 @ 10:30 pm

So, Gingrich wins one and
Romney is done? You are dreaming. BTW, Romney will make a way better president than Gingrich should he win the general. Gingrich is one nasty SOB.
Vrbaiamonte
January 13th, 2012 @ 10:35 pm

You guys are hypocrites of the first degree. Gingrich is a nasty old man. He flip flops more than Romney. And his integrity level is below zero. Supporting him makes you guys hypocritical since you claim the moral majority.
Finrod Felagund
January 13th, 2012 @ 11:12 pm

This story may be the thing that derails Mitt Romney.

That’s not the original source, this is. The first link is what introduced me to the story.

Summary: Mitt Romney, age 36, and his family (wife, five boys) are taking a vacation on Lake Erie in Ontario and driving there from Boston. His solution to fit everything in the car, including the family dog, is to strap the dog carrier to the roof of the car, and put a custom windshield in front of it. But that’s just the setup of the story:

As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon,
keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first
sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was
dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been
riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly
pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a
hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway.
It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business:
emotion-free crisis management.

As the Fox News editorialist put it: “And what did Romney do, even after knowing of the dog’s diarrhea? Did he
realize that perhaps Seamus should be shown some mercy, cleaned up and
allowed in the car, to sleep on someone’s lap?”

He titled his piece “Why Romney’s ‘dog on car roof’ story makes him unfit to be president” and I can’t help but agree.
Adjoran
January 13th, 2012 @ 11:14 pm

Check your polls again. ARG hasn’t polled the state before, so there is no former poll to compare it to. Insider Advantage is run by a former Gingrich consultant and shows him down double digits in four weeks.
Adjoran
January 13th, 2012 @ 11:19 pm

The allegation that the Perry camp spread anonymous flyers against Santorum and tried to blame it on Paul seems pretty serious to me. Do you have any tangible evidence of that, or are you just venting smoke out the arse?

If somebody in Iowa told Stacy their second cousin’s uncle’s friend heard straight from the waitress who served Perry’s team breakfast, well, that’s about as reliable as the New York Times since Pinch Sulzberger took the reins.

All the hand-wringing about negative campaigning is for sissies. Politics ain’t beanbag, Molly. If someone lies about you, you point it out. Does that even it out? Not usually, but that’s life in the big time. If you don’t like the heat, get out of the dang kitchen and shut the heck up.

So, Kristol and Rove are disagreeing? Pass the popcorn. They’re both talking heads, long removed from the arena. Only your own insecurity makes you care what either of them think about your chances or anyone else’s. Neither is on anyone’s payroll, conspiracy nuts, except the media outlets which pay for them to get you all hyperventilated over what they say.
Anonymous
January 13th, 2012 @ 11:42 pm

Actually, Insider Advantage shows him closer to Mitt than ARG does — less than 2 points behind.

The interesting thing about the ARG poll is not that it confirms the trend. It’s that it shows Gingrich whipping Romney’s ass among the most likely of likely voters — Tea Partiers and evangelicals. The only place where Romney beats Gingrich is with independents, but with them, Paul beats Romney.

There is no Romney “base” in South Carolina for him to hold together for the next 8 days. His voters are the flotsam, and flotsam washes away when the wave hits.
Adjoran
January 13th, 2012 @ 11:46 pm

Bottom line: Romney isn’t quite inevitable, but it would probably take a shockingly high-profile move like a late entry from Palin or Jeb Bush (who is rumored to be set to endorse Romney after SC but before Florida votes) and the rest of the field except Paul stepping aside.

None of the current candidates except Romney will be the nominee. People should still vote their best judgment, but you have to face facts. No non-incumbent Republican has ever won both Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina has NEVER failed to vote for the eventual nominee. Romney is ahead in SC now, although within striking distance of Gingrich. But Gingrich has been backtracking his lies about Bain and socialist sloganeering the last couple of days, not reflected in polls.

In politics, history is a reliable guide. No one has ever won the Republican nomination without winning at least one of the first three contests. Won, as in first place. Moral victories are for losers.

Is Romney ideal? Of course not, not by a long shot. But he is hardly as “moderate” or “liberal” as he is accused of being IF you look at the actual record instead of the sound bite crap, but we each have our own attention span. Certainly Gingrich and Santorum don’t have any clear claim to being “more conservative” for their body of work, and they weren’t running or governing in Massachusetts.

Fact is, Reagan remembered he is Constitutionally ineligible and decided not to run, and we failed at finding a reasonable facsimile. “Electability” isn’t the only criterion, but it is one. And Romney certainly isn’t a lock to beat Obama – but neither are the others.
Bob Belvedere
January 14th, 2012 @ 12:12 am

Hello, Dcmick! I see, for some reason, you’ve decided to adopt a third name here as you tout Newton Leroy.
Tennwriter
January 14th, 2012 @ 12:28 am

Santorum has electability. Gingrich has some. Paul has less. Romney is somewhere between Gingrich and Paul when it comes to electability although I’m sure a Ronulan could come up with a good arguemtn for Paul being more electable. We’re not discussing winning the nomination. The power brokers might push him down the R’s throat for the nom, but they won’t be able to push him over the victory against Obama.

And I find it kinda hard to get that concerned. There is a good arguement to be made that if the powerful want to mess with us that bad, we should let them have their fill of it. Maybe another four years of Obama will make them learn a lesson.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 1:55 am

Santorum’s about as electable as Charles Manson. Mondale was able to carry one state in 1984. Santorum wouldn’t measure up to that stellar record.
ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 6:56 am

You’re god damn right Gingrich is one nasty SOB, and that’s exactly what we need right now, one hella nasty SOB. Somebody who will say, “Hey Bob Schieffer, you drooling old faggot, fuck you.” I’m sick of being nice with fucking leftist garbage whom I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire, unless I could piss on them without pissing on the fire.
ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 6:57 am

Errrr, is Rasmussen run by a Gingrich consultant? Face it, Adj, YER BOYS GOIN DOWN.
Datechguy's Blog » Blog Archive » Building up or Pulling Down The Rick Perry Campaign » Datechguy's Blog
January 14th, 2012 @ 7:04 am

[…] Stacy lays down the law: By all normal political logic, Perry’s humiliating fifth-place showing in Iowa should have been […]
ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 7:14 am

No it won’t. When people say that, they are working on the premise that the GOP leaders care that much about winning a presidential election. They do, but not as much as you might think. Their main priority is keeping control of the Republican Party and its agenda, such as it is, which doesn’t amount to much.

They’d rather go down to a Barry Goldwater level defeat than see conservatives in control of the Republican Party apparatus. Adjoran will snort and howl about people saying stuff like that, but facts are facts. The leaders of the GOP and possibly most of their most highly elected officials care mainly about tax breaks and targeted regulatory exemptions, and of course government contracts for a favored few.

They don’t give a rats ass about little Susie getting an abortion so she can continue her post high school education, or whether or not little Johnny is told by educators that its all right to be gay and that he should be out and proud about it. They don’t give a shit that our border security is a joke or that the next assault on the 2nd Amendment is just right around the corner.

Anybody who thinks the GOP establishment gives a fried diddly fuck about those things are betraying a level of mental and emotional retardation that is almost admirable as an illustration of American conservative naivete.
ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 7:15 am

No it won’t. When people say that, they are working on the premise that the GOP leaders care that much about winning a presidential election. They do, but not as much as you might think. Their main priority is keeping control of the Republican Party and its agenda, such as it is, which doesn’t amount to much.

They’d rather go down to a Barry Goldwater level defeat than see conservatives in control of the Republican Party apparatus. Adjoran will snort and howl about people saying stuff like that, but facts are facts. The leaders of the GOP and possibly most of their most highly elected officials care mainly about tax breaks and targeted regulatory exemptions, and of course government contracts for a favored few.

They don’t give a rats ass about little Susie getting an abortion so she can continue her post high school education, or whether or not little Johnny is told by educators that its all right to be gay and that he should be out and proud about it. They don’t give a shit that our border security is a joke or that the next assault on the 2nd Amendment is just right around the corner.

Anybody who thinks the GOP establishment gives a fried diddly fuck about those things are betraying a level of mental and emotional retardation that is almost admirable as an illustration of American conservative naivete.
Paul Zummo
January 14th, 2012 @ 8:20 am

This is so monumentally stupid that it discredits much of anything else you write. The idea that Santorum, at a minimum, wouldn’t be able to carry states like South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, Mississippi, Alabama, and others makes absolutely no sense. If the man is so completely outside the norm politically, how the hell did he win state-wide election in a leaning-blue state twice?
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 8:52 am

Linked @ RR:

Angry Clingers UNITE!
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 9:26 am

Paul,

Hyperbole, c’est moi.

Let me put it this way: Back before Newt started proving he could win the nomination, I set the electoral college over/under on an inevitable-looking Romney at 90.

That wasn’t hyperbole. I don’t joke about gambling.

I haven’t toted up an over/under electoral chart on Santorum, but if I did I’m confident the point would be set lower.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 10:14 am

I agree on the Gingrich point. He Might…be worse than Romney.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 10:19 am

Gingrich will SAY all I’d that all while enacting a legislation only seen in Barack Obama’s leftist wet dreams.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 10:21 am

That is the stupidiest article and reaction to a non-event ever…
ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 12:10 pm

Where are you getting this garbage? All of this over sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi? What kind of leftist legislation did Gingrich ever support? Seriously. He makes a good case that he’s responsible for most of the good things that happened during the Clinton years. The fact that the establishment GOP hates him should tell you something.
Paul Zummo
January 14th, 2012 @ 12:23 pm

There are 19 states that will vote Republican even if an inanimate carbon rod is the nominee – or Romney, which is basically the same thing. I haven’t tallied them together, but that’s a min. of 150 electoral votes or so.

Again, I don’t see how someone who won a statewide election in a blue state twice is somehow going to do worse than John freaking McCain.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 12:27 pm

He won statewide elections twice in the same state that elected Arlen Specter, and for the same reasons. He also lost in 2006 for the same reason that Specter did (Pennsylvania’s gotten more actual conservative, enough so that gay-baiting no longer serves as sufficient cover for being a big-government careerist).
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 1:35 pm

Knappster:
As a PA resident, your last post makes no sense.
Santorum ran as a conservative in a blue state, and won as a conservative twice.
He was totally different from Specter who is from the eastern part of the state and ran as a liberal. Santorum never did. Paul Zummo is correct in his assessment.
Tennwriter
January 14th, 2012 @ 1:49 pm

On this nested bit of chat, one thing becomes obvious….

Knappster is desperate. When you gotta deny the sky is blue in order to make any sort of arguement for your guy, you’re past the end of the rope, and plummeting toward the mountainside a thousand foot below. Right now, he’s willing to believe in UFOs if it gets him out of his stickcy situation.

Great news for President Santorum!
Tennwriter
January 14th, 2012 @ 1:54 pm

I largely agree with you. I speak in hope that the fear of Obama’s second term, which they do fear, might cause some brains to open.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 1:55 pm

Tennwriter,

What, precisely, do you think I’m “desperate” about?

I think I’ve been pretty clear that I don’t give a tinker’s damn who wins the GOP nomination, or the next four years in the White House.
Tennwriter
January 14th, 2012 @ 2:22 pm

You’re desperate to take down the socon because you’re a libertarian.

As I’ve said before….a strong man is carrying a heavy load, and he might succeed against the opposition, but there is this chihuhua yapping and biting at his ankles.

Libertarians, motivated by hate, end up serving as the lapdogs of the RINOs. Which is really stupid because its only in a Socon run party that the Libertarians would get any respect.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 2:37 pm

You’ve got it exactly backward.

As I’ve stated more than once, I admire Santorum for having the courage of his convictions, even if I disagree with those convictions.

Of all the candidates, he’s the only one whom I’m relatively sure is truthful on all questions relating to what he actually believes in (other than getting elected). I respect that.

And even if I could “take him down” (I can’t — even if I bought into the myth of the punditry’s power, I’m an exceedingly minor commentator) I don’t have to. He has about as much chance of being elected POTUS as I do, regardless of what I say or do about him.
This Vintage Pin-Up Girl Would Probably Look Better in a Santorum Sweater Vest : The Other McCain
January 14th, 2012 @ 3:12 pm

[…] South Carolina Surge: Announces More Endorsements, Campaign Schedule for WeekendJan. 13: Can Mitt Be Stopped? ‘A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Romney Inevitability’Jan. 12: Rick Santorum Adds Staff, Offices, Money and Key Endorsement in South CarolinaJan. 12: Rick […]
ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 3:41 pm

It won’t. And the reason that it won’t is because they are counting on conservatives to be so angry at Obama, and so fearful of a second Obama term, that they would vote for Bradley Manning if Obama pardoned him and the RNC decided to support him. The only way they will ever learn otherwise is if people man and woman up and let them know we won’t put up with business as usual.

These are largely careerists we’re talking about here, not patriots.
richard mcenroe
January 14th, 2012 @ 4:48 pm

EVERY Repubican got hammered in that election. This argument is about as valid as saying Santorum was the worst cavalryman at the Little Big Horn.
richard mcenroe
January 14th, 2012 @ 4:50 pm

Oh, they’re patriots. But their patriotism is to their cozy little world in the D of C and their soft bunk in it.
Edward
January 14th, 2012 @ 6:37 pm

Rick Perry is an incompetent jackass.

He showed his lack of competence when he couldn’t remember the names of three departments that he would dissolve.

He showed again his lack of competence when he attacked conservatives over the border issue. Is this 2011 or what? What is the one major issue that has come up every damn year for the past 30+? Border security, amnesty and illegal aliens. And yet here comes Perry who decides that the best way to address this is to accuse conservatives of being “heartless”.

Yeah that’ll go over well during a primary.

Frankly the list is endless. Buck up, choose someone else and next time don’t choose someone based on who someone else likes or what you think is the ideology or principles of that candidate. Because in this case you pretty much blew it.
Edward
January 14th, 2012 @ 6:42 pm

Bad news.

Gingrich has supported or opposed or supported *and* opposed pretty much every kind, type and brand of legislation imaginable.

He’s been against Cap & Trade, been for Cap & Trade and been neutral on the idea of Cap & Trade.

Pretty much if there is a position to be taken on any issue then Gingrich has taken that position and every other position as well just in case.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 6:43 pm

“EVERY Repubican got hammered in that election.”

In the 2006 US Senate election, there were 15 incumbent Republicans who faced challenges. Nine won, six lost.
Of the six who lost, one (Jim Talent of Missouri) was a partial-one-termer (he beat the hapless Jean Carnahan, a governor’s widow who was appointed to the first two years of her dead husband’s term — he was killed in a plane crash shortly before the election, then won it — and my wife, to fill out the unexpired term) who hadn’t won a competitive election since his first congressional run in 1992.

Another, Lincoln Chafee, had been beaten half to death by his own party before and during the primary.

A third, George Allen, was a one-termer who lost by repeatedly and publicly stomping on his own crank until he drew a challenge from the right by a former US Secretary of the Navy.

The remaining two save Santorum, Conrad Burns and Mike DeWine, did lose in a fairly pedestrian case of “turnover fever,” rather than being obvious losers regardless of the national trend.

Of the six, Santorum bottomed out the vote percentage at 41.3%. All of the others except for DeWine (43.8%) knocked down 46.5% of the vote or better.
ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 6:47 pm

Damn, at last somebody besides me sees this bullshit whining about Bane Crapital for what it is, establishment horse hockey.
Anonymous
January 14th, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

I’m probably not as down on Bain as you are. From what I’ve read, it’s not nearly the “vulture capitalist” outfit that Romney’s opponents are making it out to be.

And honestly, I think the current round of attacks helps Obama more in the general than they help any of Romney’s opponents in the South Carolina primary.But if it were another candidate — say, for example, Ron Paul — who had Bain in his background, I don’t think the GOP Establishment would be hammering like hell on his opponents for bringing it up, either.

The main thing about Bain that disturbs me vis a vis Romney is that it outs him as a classical managerial type who’s more into tweaking and streamlining than into sea changes … and for a Republican to beat Obama will take a definite and believable appeal to sea change sentiments.
Saturday Roundup 1/14/12 Tebow Vs. Brady Edition | Katy Pundit
January 14th, 2012 @ 8:08 pm

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ThePaganTemple
January 14th, 2012 @ 8:35 pm

If you’re down on Bain just a little bit you’re down on them more than I am. I don’t give a shit myself, I just think its silly for people to jump on these fucking bandwagons floated by the RNC, and then spend the rest of the day bitching about the RNC.