The legacy of George W. Bush - Now Discussing: the 2012 GOP candidates

Be careful what you wish for, I guess, but I would think the Obama campaign would be thrilled to run against Santorum. He did give a very good speech tonight, much better than Romney's, but someone who is known as a social conservative running in an election that is going to be about the economy.

In other words, Gingrich is supposed to be the intellectual, Romney is the businessman, Paul is the libertarian...Santorum is the social crusader, and hard, uncompromising to the right at that. In his last election he was destroyed.

I cannot see him winning a general election. Even the phrase "stranger things have happened" is difficult to apply here.

 

Sometimes, a rock is just a rock, and there's no hidden meaning. Santorum has no chance of winning the nomination. He is far too polarizing and easily discredited with anyone who is not a social conservative.

Were he to somehow win the nomination, Obama could win well over 400 electoral votes, and it would just be a matter of figuring out which states Santorum could somehow win. Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio would all go for Obama by decisive margins.

 

The only real ad that the Obama campaign has released was a direct shot at Romney. I'm pretty confident in saying that their eyes have been overwhelmingly focused on his candidacy since mid-2011, at least.

 

In other words, Gingrich is supposed to be the intellectual, Romney is the businessman, Paul is the libertarian...Santorum is the social crusader, and hard, uncompromising to the right at that. In his last election he was destroyed. I cannot see him winning a general election. Even the phrase "stranger things have happened" is difficult to apply here.

I'd think you'd realize that 2006 was a unique snapshot set in that time period though, because he held a tumultuous seat anyway. How long did he serve prior to that, at least a decade... It's not like in 2012 Santorum would campaign on an Iraq War platform like he did back in 2006. Besides, didn't the 2010 midterms counter most of that feeling?

Other than that, I don't disagree with your assessments, it's just that you already know that they aren't really limiting factors. Saying "Gingrich is the intellectual" in no way limits him from running on economic issues either, if you know what I'm getting at. More than anything, Santorum is also a knowledgeable fiscal conservative, so all I was saying was that he could tap into that strength if he were to run in this year's general election. No politician from either party would ignore the important issues of the current election they are running in.

 

Ok, I've got to hand it to Santorum. As I've said on here many times, I strongly disagree with nearly everything he stands for. But, as I've also said for many months on here, Santorum has clearly been working the hardest out of them all for the last couple years. Now he needs to shift gears from Iowa, get along fairly well in the other January states, and build up a national campaign during the break in February.



Romney has won by only 8 votes.

Not 8 thousand. Not 8 hundred. 8. And Romney's numbers have hardly changed since 2008, everyone opposed to him in Iowa remains opposed to him now. How much did Romney outspend Santorum too? Romney (and Perry, and Gingrich) spents millions. Santorum spent less than half a million, or about two middle-class houses worth.

Rick Santorum, who really won tonight, came from behind and received an astonishing 25%. Unlike Bachmann and Perry, other hardline conservatives, he doesn't make gaffes. He also gave a great speech... appealing to the general population, speaking of bringing back manufacturing, of his sick daughter, and of his grandfather who fled Mussolini's Italy, looking at his grandfather's hands at his funeral and thinking those hands worked hard to give him freedom and a better life. (While Romney was making jokes and talking about how he knows the national anthem in his speech). Like the pundits said on both MSNBC and FOX, Santorum appears 100% genuine (which is also the scary thing for a lot of us), but it's a huge contrast to Romney.

Paul had an impressive showing, they were clearly going for first, but a close 3rd isn't bad for them. He'll continue to be a thorn in the side of everyone else, until the very end.

Perry left for Texas to consider dropping out.

Bachmann vows to move on, but she really hinted in her campaign that she knows she's done.

Gingrich has vowed revenge, basically declared he'll create a living hell for Romney and Paul, and allied with Santorum.




After MSNBC's coverage, I watched FOX, and there's a few pundits over there who think Santorum might even have a strong showing in New Hampshire, and expect the race in NH to tighten. February, the month off from primaries/caucuses, will also give Santorum time to plan a national campaign, and gain support (especially if Bachmann and Perry back out, and with Gingrich already allied with him, all their support will likely go to him).

Maybe, maybe not. Didn't people once say that Ronald Reagan was unelectable? And, a month ago, who would have predicted Santorum at 25%.

Never underestimate the opponent, especially when the stakes are so high.







EDIT:

And I just realized I posted this election analysis in the wrong thread

But, to relate this to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named... Santorum is truly the only Republican in this field in the Bush-mold, or in the 1990's-mold. He's a true conservative on all 3 fronts, while also being a "compassionate conservative" like Bush was. It will be interesting if anyone else points out the comparison.

 

Except, I think you are overstating the opposition to Romney.

Yes, he's the first choice of only about 25% of the party, but that doesn't mean that the other 75% are completely opposed to him. For example, back in November, this poll indicated that he was the second choice of 19% of the party. Of Gingrich's supporters at the time, 38% said that Romney was their second choice. 31% of Cain's supporters at that time named Romney as their second choice.

A poll in Iowa last week shows that 34% of Ron Paul's supporters have Romney as their second choice, as well as 25% of Rick Perry supporters.

Those numbers, more than anything, bode well for Romney.

And yet, how much money was Santorum able to raise? How much of a war chest is he sitting on? Romney has been able to outshine the rest of the field when it comes to fundraising, and even with his expenditures in Iowa is inceasing his war chest at a steady pace.

Remember also that Santorum gained ground in Iowa largely because he's focused all of his efforts there for months. Now that the primaries have begun in earnest, he can't afford to do that in other states. He's going to have to start splitting his attention, and won't be able to focus on other states for more than 1-2 days at a time. Without having already built an effective organization in those states, he's going to be at a severe disadvantage, and will need to spend a lot more money to catch up.

Kimball Kinnison

 

The big PAC money is focused on electability of a general election opponent and so will continue to focus on destroying Romney's opponents in the primaries. They've taken out Perry and Gingrich and will focus on Santorum and Ron Paul as necessary. Romney will continue to stay above the fray in his own campaigning, focusing directly on Obama.

Santorum's surge in Iowa occurred too late for the big PAC guns to take aim at him. His hard work paid off precisely because he was ignored by Romney's super PAC spending. Romney's super PAC spent double what the Romney campaign itself spent in Iowa. Amazing.

We're seeing the concrete effects of the Citizens United decision - in Iowa it put Santorum into a tie with Romney by beating down the other competition. But now it will be used to destroy Santorum as needed.

 

Romney walked away with this a long time ago. He was able to divide and conquer the evangelical bias against him that Huckabee was able to tap into. The media have been playing a show that long ago revealed the ending. I love Republicans complaining about campaign finance and the problems with Romney's elitism.

Some foreign media have come to Salt Lake and interviewed some of us exmormons along with visiting LDS church PR thanks to interest in Romney's religion, it will be interesting to see what role this plays. I can't really stand the evangelical pastors who do and say whatever they can, and can rightfully be described as anti-Mormons because they are pushing their own religious agenda, but Romney's position of leadership within the church and ties to it do mean it is a valid subject to evaluate him on. When I was in college in 2007 he was able to muster huge number of volunteers through his son's visit to BYU-Idaho, and was able to get all these eager Mormon kids to go out during the huge 4th of July festival put on in Idaho Falls by the MLM/direct sales/ponzi scheme baron of Melaluca to fundraise for him. I have friends that work for him, and a lot of his early support was from the LDS elite here in Utah.

It is interesting to compare him to Huntsman, who also benefited by being part of the Mormon royalty, but who sent a lot of signals to moderates and Democrats that he wasn't your traditional believer. For them they understood that any loyalty to the LDS church was mostly for political and personal expediency. Romney may be a flip flopper and go against his faith in certain ways when he needs to get ahead, but at his core I do think he is sincere in his belief.

But I think when it comes to the general election campaign, the theological weirdness that are holdovers from the 19th century like Polygamy, temple oaths, and the historical racism won't be the real issues when it comes to Romney. The problems his religion presents are much more to do with the corporatist/John Birch/Correlation swing the LDS church made in the 20th century where the religion was taken over by ultra-conservative types culminating in Glenn Beck that align percieved "Mormon" values to that of the GOP establishment. So in the end Romney has the potential effect of solidifying the general perception that one cannot be a good Mormon and a good Democrat, and vis-versa. However untrue that actually is. So while that has some interesting implications for the LDS church, Democrats were never going to support Romney, and so the real question is how this will impact independent voters and the ethusiasim of the right wing base of Evangelical Christians.

My personal experience leads me to believe that the Bible belt will continue to hate his religion, but compared with Obama I'm not sure how much it will actually matter in the end. The same people who think Mormons are the spawn of Satan are the same ones that think Obama is a secret Muslim. And because in the end they may disagree on the why, they mostly agree on the what, perhaps it will all be a non-issue.

Personally I have no problem not voting for someone based on their religion, especially ones that mingle religion and politics such as Islam.

 

As evidenced by Jeff Gannon and John Paulk, to name just two. Not to mention Larry Craig and Mark Foley. Republican politics: The slash literally writes itself.

Even Reagan wouldn't pass muster, really. As governor of California, he signed a bill saying the government couldn't discriminate against gays. He changed courses because of the recession.

For the Republican Tea Party, that's impossible.

Also, whenever a Republican mentions "job creators", I recommend this picture:

[image=http://e.static.memegenerator.net/cache/instances/500x/12/13280/13599495.jpg]