To points 2 & 3, Santorum is the only current candidate the anti-Romney folks can rally around. They know Newt & Perry are both dead. It would be incredibly stupid (even for them) to try and resuscitate either guy. On point 4, a college friend of mine is a pastor in Iowa. In 2008, Romney waged one of the nastiest campaigns ever against Huckabee (both over the airwaves and on the ground). It was viscous character assassination. I guess he did the same thing to Newt this time and it appears Newt is out for blood.
This whole primary is turning into a calamitous circle jerk. Just think of the benefits if just half of all the money wasted on freaking political hogwash was spent on feeding and educating people in this country.
The polling actually shows Newt to be in decent shape. He "crashed" but not in the same way as all the previous anti-Romney's. His crash basically put him on equal footing around 17-20% with Santorum after his surge. I think Newt is still in 2nd in SC and FL and is basically tied for 2nd in the national polls. So if this is Santorum's peak and Newt's floor, Newt is still in the strongest position of the 3 (Santorum, Perry). That said, his scorched earth campaign this last week doesn't sound like someone who intends to win - it seems like someone trying to go down in a blaze of glory.
Sorry - to clarify, by scorched earth, I meant that he's destroying everyone - but that includes himself. Bush did everything quietly and through surrogates, and never ruined his own public image. Newt is making himself look psycho in all the things he's saying - so he may be pulling down Romney, but he's hurting himself as well.
someone mentioned the Hillary/Obama feud. Those who would never vote for Romney/Newt will be outraged!!...but for the voter who hasn't really tuned in yet, whatever muck that's tossed about now, will be old news by September -- when it matters. At this point it's fodder for the press....and may influence the primaries -- but I don't see it. Newt's got too much baggage. Santorum's looniness will sink him now that he's being paid attention to. Possibly Perry could rise from the ashes, but I seriously doubt it.
You know, there was a lot talk about what would Obama do with that 3 AM call with a world crisis 4 years ago. Can you imagine Newtie going off half-cocked or Mitt trying to issue a pink slip to Ahmadinejad during a foreign policy crisis?
See, that's Communism, right there, bud. Spend that money on invading Iran. Or Syria. Or...uh, Ragheadia. Git'im all. Feed and educate people. Ha! You liberals are all hopeless. (pause) This being the GOP presidential primary. Motto: "Food and education, that's your problem. Getting elected is mine."
OK, I'll stand down until the NH results and reassess. After falling to 3rd in Iowa, I believe Newt's SC & FL support will collapse if he's 4th or 5th in NH. IMO, Santorum is the guy who can bounce back using SC, not Newt. It's about momentum and Santorum has few expectations for NH.
Yeah - I don't expect Newt to rebound, realistically. I think these anti-Romney's are waiting too long, especially if they wait until after SC. I'm with you in that Romney is still the prohibitive favorite. I'm not sure what the Newt/Santorum dynamic is - I feel like Newt is the stronger contender given that he has more fiscal credibility, but he seems to be acting like a VP candidate attack dog for Santorum right now. At this point, the most likely scenario to result in a non-Romney winning is a Jon Huntsman 2nd place finish tomorrow, pulling votes from Romney. If Romney wins in the low-to-mid 30's and Huntmsan gets up to 20%ish, it might be enough for Romney supporters to start looking at Huntsman. That opens a door for everyone and creates chaos. Very unlikely, even if those are the NH results, but it's the most plausible route I see. But I've changed my mind so many times in this primary, I'll probably have a totally different opinion tomorrow night.
Yes, me too. Love your takes on this stuff and A3PO's too. In response to one from A3PO above though, Gingrich and Perry and Santorum might well be "dead" but so were McCain and Kerry before they weren't. They had hit their highs and they had hit their lows and there were calls from everywhere for each of them to drop out in their respective cycles. The premature obits were written for each and they were more emphatic than anything anyone has yet said about Newt or Santorum (and equal to what's been said about Perry). Of course, they both lost. But they did get their parties' nominations. I predicted Perry would get in and that he would sweep to victory so I can't be trusted as a pundit. I also predicted that, due to Romney's 25-30% ceiling and the weakness of his opponents, everyone would get a chance. I remember making this prediction emphatically about Newt, to an incredulous friend, the day before he began to make a noise in the polls. When my friend wrote me to say he couldn't believe it, I said just watch, Santorum or Huntsman will be next and probably everybody will get his turn. Voters will wait as long as they possibly can to nominate Romney. They don't like him and many know he is their Kerry. But again, I said it would be Perry and in retrospect no prediction seems so stupid as that.
Good points, but McCain and Kerry were both viable, presumptive nominees (original frontrunners) that had huge national networks to fall back on. After stumbling, they reverted to their "natural state" of being on top. Newt the Nut and Santorum are longshot, fringe candidates running on a shoestring. After falling, they ain't gettin' back up. Calling Romney the GOP version of Kerry is dead on IMO. Dems blew the 2004 election against a more than vulnerable incumbent just like the GOP is doing this year.
They were in major debt, bleeding staff and were basically only getting one question in interviews and press conferences which was "when are you dropping out" but otherwise I agree. I would argue however that Newt also has a network to fall back on. Nut or not, he was a major party leader and has a stack of accomplishments that puts to shame the rest of the field combined (sans Huntsman). But yeah, I mostly think you're exactly right.
Was McCain really a frontrunner when the last election cycle began? I don't recall it that way. I thought it was open and Romney was the guy most people talked about as having the goods.
I won't defend this argument too vehemently, but individual national security and foreign policy incidents involve so many experienced and talented advisors, and thoroughly researched contingency plans, that it's difficult for a President from either party to thoroughly screw up an individual operational command. Iraqi Freedom was such a goof because W. and Cheney initiated and corrupted the process from the start.
McCain was the de facto front-runner in between elections. But he made the mistake of kissing up to his former enemies: The Religious Right and the Bush-ites who threw acid on him in 2000. He lost his freshness and gave up what people liked him for. He became a pander bear, stopped being a "maverick" and parked the "Straight Talk Express". Romney had the money and organization to become (IMO) the new front-runner going into Iowa and NH.
Excuse my ignorance, as I have barely been following these primaries, but what are Huntsman's warts? He sounds very reasonable and very electable from the little I've heard from him.
