If we are to believe the narrative that Romney is so inevitable and such a nice guy, why did he just challenge the petitions of Rick Santorum in Illinois on Friday? Meanwhile, despite well-publicized defects in the Rick Perry and Ron Paul petitions here, he didn’t bother to challenge those. In short, he’s happy to see the conservative vote split so that it is easier for him to look like a winner with only 30% support, but didn’t want to risk actually losing delegates to Santorum.
Note that delegate petition challenges have been rare since the 1976 nomination fight between Reagan and Ford. Although the Santorum delegates were vulnerable to a challenge for lack of sufficient signatures since they were largely Herman Cain supporters and organized too late in the process after Cain suspended his campaign, there seemed to be a “gentleman’s agreement” with the Romney campaign to not challenge. Instead, by the Friday afternoon deadline for challenges, the Romney campaign was evidently worried enough about the Santorum campaign to risk adverse publicity by knocking them off the ballot.
On the other hand, they obviously didn’t perceive Ron Paul or Rick Perry to be a serious threat. Perry didn’t file slates of delegates in Illinois, nor did Huntsman. Ron Paul’s supporters had done their delegate petitions properly, so only his “top line” petition was vulnerable – but that doesn’t affect delegates. It’s a beauty contest, like a straw poll, and therefore has no impact other than publicity. If the Romney crowd was concerned about valid petitions, they would have challenged both the Perry and Paul petitions. Instead, they were just worried about losing delegates to Santorum, and wanted to weaken the image of his campaign in the other early primary states. Nice guy, eh? Is this what Illinois voters want? As you may recall, Obama rose to power in Illinois through petition challenges. The end justifies the means to maintain the myth of inevitability.

That’s a ridiculous question.

Maybe he should defend or explain them but congressional votes are not made in a vacuum, not to mention that without contemporaneous context one can’t necessarily judge the motivation for the vote at the time.  I’ll concede that a certain amount of that last sentence looks like justification but the fact remains, individual votes do not by themselves define elected officials.  It’s the macro not the micro.

I get it, Santorum may not be the “perfect” candidate for some.  Is there one?  How about we stop looking for candidates who can jump through the maze of hoops required to fulfill everyone’s wish list?  And focus on time tested qualities like,
Leadership.  Courage.  Principle.  Conviction.

All the rest is just politics as usual.

Stacy, tell your editor to slap you in the wrist for that misleadingly written title.  Santorum didn’t divide the nation; just the Gingrinches and Paulbots.

Santorum has whatever “momentum” there is in South Carolina.  Newt is facing a huge backlash from his anti-capitalist rhetoric and blatantly false advertising.  He is trying to walk it back somewhat but people are beginning to realize this is not something out of character, but rather the usual fare from Gingrich.  He’s a nasty little jerk who enjoys stabbing conservatives in the back as much as John McCain ever did, probably more.

Perry never recovered from his huge initial fizzle.  He hasn’t been able to reinflate the balloon, although he is being well received on the stump here (he dropped the anti-Bain stuff from his speech) and his advertising is all positive.  I don’t see him breaking out of single digits.

When I noted Paul’s strength among active military and recent vets, I was ridiculed on this board.  I read yesterday somewhere that of active duty military contributions, 70% have gone to Paul.  Not sure if it’s true – I forgot to note the site, and haven’t had time to look up the numbers.  But he is definitely much stronger here than the 3% he pulled in 2008.  Probably at least 12%, but his ceiling is going to be not too much higher than that.

Romney looks like he’s going to win, though.  Santorum is starting from too far back with too little time, and Newt and Perry are going in the wrong direction.