I’m from Pennsylvania. I know Rick Santorum’s weaknesses. I know he’s a terrible presidential candidate. But I simply no longer believe that he’s a worse presidential candidate than Mitt Romney. Compared to Romney, Santorum is more media-savvy, he gives better speeches, he’s a better debater, and he’s a better retail politician. Santorum can motivate the Republican base. He’s not connected to vulture capitalism. He didn’t tell Detroit to drop dead. His flip-flops are strictly minor league. He has higher favorability. His religion is an asset, not a liability. And he knows how to take a punch without getting decked. The big mistake everyone has been making (including me) is to think that Romney was more electable than Michele Bachmann. I don’t think he is. I think he’s exactly as electable as Michele Bachmann. What’s going on is that Republicans are realizing that Romney isn’t just a perfectly lubricated weather-vane. He’s a loser. He can’t beat Obama, so why not nominate Santorum instead?
Yeah, R Money has the cash to make a general election run and Santorum doesn’t. But that distinction doesn’t matter once you come to the realization that Romney is unelectable.
Yeah, R Money has the cash to make a general election run and Santorum doesn’t.
Is The Frothy One really going to be hurting for cash, one way or another, if he is the GOP nominee? I don’t. Either way, though, the GOP is screwed. Mittens is a terrible candidate no matter what. Santorum is the perfect candidate of the cultural conservatives. He’s a horrible general election candidate.
Yeah, running against a Democrat in the post-Citizens United world means you get the total GDP of Central America spent to support your campaign.
I think it’s strange how the Citizens United decision has worked out. You’d have thought that it would benefit the business guy, the plutocrat who’s really close to the Wall Street money men, but that’s not what’s happened. Instead, people like Ron Paul and Rick Santorum get a billionaire supporting them, and suddenly they can compete with the Republican Party elite’s chosen candidate. Weird.
What billionaire is supporting Ron Paul? And yeah, all it takes is one billionaire. After all, after a certain point, the money doesn’t get you as much return. Meaning, in a campain, you can be competitive with $50 million or $100 million.
I heard Bill Gross is a fan. Not sure if he’s bankrolling.
“PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel gave $900,000 to Endorse Liberty, a super PAC that backs Ron Paul.”
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/10/news/economy/super_pac_billionaires/index.htm
They’re both unelectable. Santorum is just a wingnut’s idea of an electable candidate. Wingnuts are not known for their sense of perspective.
I think Romney is their idea of an electable candidate. Santorum is someone they really like.
And come on, who hasn’t decided that a flip-floppy rich guy from Massachusetts who looks like a President from central casting is electable?
I see your point. “Electable” doesn’t actually mean able to get himself elected, it just means a guy that wingnuts think lots of other people would vote for.
Predictions are hard. Especially about the future – Yogi Berra.
“Rick Santorum will not get a turn.”
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/11/14/1266/9912
I didn’t think he’d get a turn either. I think predicting this cycle has been harder for two reasons:
1.) Citizens United
2.) The GOP base
No one knew where number one would necessarily lead, and I don’t think we know its full extent yet. The one data point we have is that it’s turned the primary process upside down in giving people viability and life (on the GOP side, least ways).
Now for number two, well, it’s why I didn’t think Romney would win (although it should also be noted that my final prediction before the primaries started back in November 2011 was a Romney-McDonnell ticket). I think the 2010 elections should have been something other Serious People should have paid attention to more closely. The base isn’t meant to be toyed with, and people like Armey and Rove overplayed their hand. They created this monstrosity, and there’s no way to stop it unless it gets beat, repeatedly, for years to come.
As you can see in the link, I found BooMan’s explanation of why Santorum has no chance quite plausible, too.
I’ve been predicting Romney all along, and I’m not off that horse yet, but I agree he’s a terrible politician.
What I think we’re seeing, however, aside from the fascinating and very worrisome spectacle of rich guys single-handedly bankrolling serious presidential contenders, is that no candidate at present can both appease the Republican base and be electable in the general election. Many of Mittens’ problems are coming from his (admittedly incompetent) gyrations to try to convince Wingnuttia that he’s one of them. Nobody can now win the nomination, apparently, without making that case convincingly. And the problem with convincing Wingnuttia you’re a native under the full glare of the presidential election media spotlight is that you also convince everyone else that you’re Wingnuttian.
Romney represents the worst of both worlds – he’s a fraud to the base and he’s been saying all sorts of things that make him sound unhinged, like he’s pandering, or both to everyone else. He has a lot of corporate, hedge fund, and vulture capitalist friends, but that’s it, and it ain’t enough.
For decades the Republican establishment has sought power by selling one set of priorities (mostly cultural issues) to their base, and governing with an entirely different set (mostly, enriching their buddies). That dichotomy may be unraveling before our eyes.
My money’s still on Romney too. But perhaps I’m discounting a Santorum nomination too much because it’s just impossible for my brain to process.
I’m trying to game out what all this means for the downticket races. Obama is pretty much a lock now whether the GOP nominates Romney or Santorum (yes, yes, unless the economy goes south again blah blah blah). Does a Romney or Santorum nomination equal bigger Dem congressional victories? Romney will bring in more moderate votes for downticket races, but depress enthusiasm among the GOP base; Santorum the reverse. Which is better for Dems?
Also, re: the “dichotomy” you note that we are potentially observing: if true, how long will such a split last? Are we in for one cycle of Republican collapse, before they reform themselves back into electoral viability? Two cycles? A decade? A generation? Obviously, the longer it takes, the better. 20 years in the wilderness would only be enough to let them begin to atone for what they’ve done to this country.
My guess is that Santorum helps the GOP hang onto more House seats that went to Teaparty nutbags in ‘010 than Romney would. I’m less sure about what happens in the Senate; I could see it going either way.
Off topic, but my state is getting destroyed, Booman. All because my State Senator, Edd Houck, lost re-election by 222 votes. But remember, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PARTIES!
Englin Blasts GOP Bill for ‘Requiring Vaginal Penetration’
Virginia Senate OKs drug testing for welfare recipients
Voter ID bills clears Va. Senate
This session hasn’t even had a MONTH, not even ONE fucking MONTH and they’re steamrolling all of this.
Oh, look what I wake up to: a personhood bill:
Virginia House advances antiabortion ‘personhood’ measure
It’s just horrifying to me. Even Mississippi rejected the personhood bill. Didn’t that go down by referendum? The Republicans in VA are vile.
You can also blame the idiotic state Democratic Party of VA. What do you expect when they make a compromised, corrupt ass the head of the party?
More like Tim Kaine.
I won’t be voting for him, but he’s a lock without my vote. Provided things don’t simply seize up before then, in which case, god help us, anyway.
The truth is, Romney is the same candidate he was last time — he just looks a lot worse because this time he’s (a) the true hope of the GOP establishment, and (b) completely out of step with the post-2008 reality of American politics and life.
I don’t know. I think Santorum will do more to alienate non-wingnut women than Romney, but more to engage the base. But my father-in-law, a politically-uninformed, quietly racist, Republican middle-manager type, would be happy to vote Romney over Obama but won’t vote Santorum. He sees himself as a moderate businessman.
There are probably fewer voters like him than megachurch voters who’ll take the Catholic over the Mormon, though.
(Which commenter here has been saying for months than Romney can’t win? I thought he was talking nonsense, but now …)
EPIC WIN for the title of this post alone.
thank you, BooMan
Totally agree, I was just about to post that this is possibly his most simultaneously amusing and astute title of all time.
Sheldon Adelson apparently agrees with you. He’s started unloading on Santorum, moving on from Romney.
Nope. It’s time that’s going to win. Now that TX has been bumped out to June, and the money is still in play, it’s going to be a long long run to June and by then what we see as as no clothes on Mitt will look like a tutu.
By then Santorum will be restored to a Google search and even that will appear positive in context.
And then the severely shortened pair will face the free for all of what you considered many moons ago, a brokered convention. It’s impossibillity is seeming more and more probable as each SuperPac ad hits the airwaves or Mitt opens his mouth.
How does that game out in terms of Obama’s down-ticket coattails?
My gut tells me that progressives might be safer to keep the choice between Santorum and Romney than to take our chances on J. Bush or Christie storming out of the convention with the type of momentum that Palin had (for about a week)