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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Gingrich will SAY all I’d that all while enacting a legislation only seen in Barack Obama’s leftist wet dreams.

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.

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).

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.