What Does This Sentence Mean?

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“Base hostility will now be exacerbated by Mitt Romney’s backers now undoubtedly making a conscious effort to prop up Rick Santorum to shut down Newt Gingrich.”
— Erick Erickson, Red State

Last night I found myself talking to Caleb Howe, who said how much he hated the argument that a vote for Candidate X is actually a vote for Candidate Y. You see how Erickson deploys exactly that argument in claiming that supporters of Rick Santorum are closet Romneyites.

This would have been news to the Santorum supporters who gathered last night at the Citadel to hear the man they think should be the next president of the United States. There were a lot of home-schoolers and pro-lifers and national security hawks at the Santorum event, and I wonder what they would have made of arguments like this:

“People are mad as hell they are about to be stuck with another boring, moderate, uninspiring choice that has at best a 50/50 shot at losing to the worst president since Carter. They are flocking to Newt not because they think he’s a great guy, but because right now, he’s the only one fighting for conservatism . . .”
— Erick Erickson, Red State

Really? “The only one fighting for conservatism”? Somebody needs to tell this to Newt Gingrich, who praised Rick Santorum in his victory speech Saturday night. And somebody also needs to tell Rick Santorum, who released his Sunday and Monday campaign schedule for Florida a half-hour after the polls closed in South Carolina:

Sunday, January 22:

2:00pm ET:  Senator Santorum will hold a campaign rally at Wings Plus in Coral Springs, FL.
Location: Wings Plus
9880 West Sample Road
Coral Springs, FL

8:00pm ET: Senator Santorum will appear on “Huckabee” on FOX News.

Monday, January 23:

1:30pm ET: Senator Santorum will hold a “Faith, Family and Freedom” Town Hall in Lady Lake, FL.
Location: American Legion Hall
699 East Lady Lake Road
Lady Lake, FL

9:00pm ET:  Senator Santorum will participate in the NBC News/National Journal debate in Tampa, FL.
Location: University of South Florida
Tampa, FL

While nobody has appointed me the Omniscient Arbiter, authorized to write articles titled “What It Means,” I can summarize what one of Santorum’s supporters told me last night about what he expects: Newt and Mitt are going to attempt to destroy each other, and all the while Santorum will keep on campaigning, arguing that he is the “conviction conservative,” steadily accruing support from those conservatives who don’t like either Newt or Mitt.

The Santorum supporter who told me that is a fine young Christian man, and so I did not bluntly express to him what I see as the basic problem with the Gingrich campaign: Sooner or later, people will figure out that Newt is a selfish, arrogant asshole.

And people don’t like selfish, arrogant assholes.

125 comments

  1.  Sooner or later, people will figure out that Newt is a selfish, arrogant asshole. 
    Well Stace you finally got on my bandwagon but you left out “action is Character” and Newt also lacks characte.

  2. Don’t take it personally, Stacy. This is Erickson’s MO.

    ‘Member when Rick Perry announced his candidacy at Erickson’s soiree? And Erickson and his boys went Full Metal Jacket against Palin and her supporters? Even acting like an 8th grader on twitter in September regarding a countdown to Palin’s announcement?

    Now that Perry’s out, Erickson’s playing his childish games with Anyone but His New Man Newt.

    So don’t take Erickson personally.

    And don’t take him seriously.

  4. Erik Erickson-even with him switching horses to Newt just before his big victory, he is still lower than Rove and Hewitt today.  

  7. Erickson really is a piece of garbage.  I’ve ignored Redstate ever since it became a Palin bashing hotbed. 

  8. I’m sick of Erickson’s crap.  He’s done more damage to the conservative cause and now he’s disparaging Santorum. 

    He’s the one who called Palin “radioactive” and said she could never win, now he laments a lack of a conservative in the race?  He and others like Coulter created that “toxic” atomsphere that makes it virtually impossible for a conservative to be considered “electable” and all those other “code words” they throw out to describe conservative candidates, while people on our side just regurgitate.

    This guy is part of the problem and other things I’d rather not say.

  9. Sooner or later, people will figure out that Newt is a selfish, arrogant asshole.  

     I don’t know about that. This was written 27 years ago. http://motherjones.com/politics/1984/11/newt-gingrich-shining-knight-post-reagan-rightNewt’s behavior since then has only confirmed teh accuracy of this profile. I don’t know what to make of yesterday’s South Carolina results. Are there a quarter of a million voters there who don’t read?

  10. Sometimes I wonder if Erickson isn’t just a stalking horse for the Obama administration.

    Prediction…Ron Paul won’t win in Fl, but will pull surprise upsets in caucus states and will have enough delegates at the convention to steer the Conservative agenda.

    Ron Paul is the only candidate who consistently promotes restoring liberty as espoused in the Constitution.

    As far as I’m concerned, Santorum is just an Americanized Ayatollah, no offense to those who will or have voted for him. YMMV

  11. “And people don’t like selfish, arrogant assholes.”

    Hmmmm. Sounds like the qualifications to take down the socialist/democrat machine, which practices a scorched earth, take no prisoners offensive.

    I don’t know Santorum. Is he too nice a guy to do what needs to be done to push back against the socialist attack?

  12. And that is what it’s going to take to repel the socialist assault (by both the Democrats and the media) on America.

    Can a Nice Guy (Santorum) do that?

  16. The problem with Ron Paul is all the bad things he wants to do he can start doing on day one, and all the good things he wants to do, he can’t do….Rick Santorum.

    Libertarianism is the philosophy of the adolescent mind that seeks cheap certainties….Tennwriter.

    Ron Paul is a kook….Many, many conservatives.

  17. Its like Santorum can’t get a break.  First he’s tarred as hateful, and vindictive, and now he’s tarred as ‘nice’.

    Which is it? 

  18. That’s all the hell that matters to me. I’d rather have a selfish arrogant asshole who’ll take the fight to Obama and the Democrats with the gloves off and in a no-holds barred manner than have to put up with a pussy like Romney who throws out one or two good lines here and there and is then all Ralph Kramden when the going gets rough “My taxes? Well, homina homina homina”

  20. That first quoted sentence means that Erickson is still entirely beholden to his masters, under deadline to show the same, yet has run out of intelligible (much less intelligent)things to say.

  22. Oh, they can read all right. They can damn sure read the writing on the wall when it comes to Mittens and the Republican elite, and its the kind of asshatery they don’t care to support.

  23. Well, to the left his Christianity renders him inherently hateful, while to the conservative base he’s far too soft.

  24. I’m hoping I have a choice in the KY primary. If I do and its the current field, I’m voting for Newt. If Newts not in it, I’m voting for Santorum. If Santorum’s not in it, I’m voting for Paul. And if Paul’s not in it I’ll see you in the 2014 midterms.

  25. I have noticed that many Paul supporters attack Santorum with a rare focus with their criticisms of big government etc. but curiously leave out Romney (and/or Gingrich) from their varied attacks.  Its interesting that Paul supporters seem to only go after Santorum. I wonder why that is.

  26. Don’t forget he’s also a Bushie big gov. guy while also being a right wing extremist who would start a war with Iran and start a theocracy in the US. LOL.  

  34. You are being kind.  I interpreted it as a Class I hissy fit that Erick The Red didn’t get his way, and now he’s going to stir the pot in what promises to be a sustained temper tantrum.

  35. I’m surprised at the number of right-wing bloggers who’re shocked at the minuet of alliances that is the norm of politics. Brutus was Caesar’s friend before becoming his executioner.

  36. In that 27-year-old profile, one of Newt’s *former* best friends described him as “amoral,” explaining, “There isn’t any right or wrong, there isn’t any conservative or liberal. There’s only what will work best for Newt Gingrich.”

    Newt’s 27 ensuing years within 

    the Republican Elite

    , with his ethics violations and impeachment hypocrisy and wives saying even he doesn’t believe what he says — it all just validates that early assessment.

    A president like that would be a threat to the Constitution.

  39. Phillycon, Santorum was fighting the Bush administration on its soft Iran policy back when everyone else was going along.  Painting him as a Bushie is inaccurate and unfair.

  40. Gingrich talks tough but he doesn’t fight.  He caved in both divorces, he caved in the Government shutdown and he quit his House seat rather than stay in Congress as a back bencher.

  41. Erickson backed off his support for Jamie Radtke in Virginia’s senate race because the owners of Red States were personal friends of her opponent, George Radtke. The Red State once sent out a notice to advertisers that Erickson’s support could be purchased. The guy’s a potty mouth who relies on crude insults, which is always a sign of not having anything intelligent to say.

  45. I love how Erick Erickson now acts like he’s some kingmaker AFTER his “crowned” man lost in an embarrassing spectacle.  RedState went full Perry, banning anyone who so much as looked in the other direction.  Erick was hostile to Newt until just a few days ago, even admitting he’s completely unelectable. 

    I think Romney and Santorum should form a ticket to stop Newt.  Both wings of the Party would be happy, you’d have two men that Americans could actually respect.

  48. One of whom got 28%, the other of whom got 17%. What was it Newt got again? Oh yeah, 40%. More than three fourths of the total of those other two put together. Sounds pretty damn respectable to me.

  49. They’ll figure it out, it’s just a matter if Republicans figure it out first. 

    Newt can’t win over 51% of Americans, it’s pure fantasy.  There is an idiot wing of this Party that’s convinced all they need to do to win elections is to come off as angry as possible.

    Already Democrats are giddy at the possibility of Newt being nominated.  Last time Newt was in the spotlight, it was a train wreck and it will happen again because Newt is a bipolar piece of shit.

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