In the archives of electoral history, the Washington state caucus will be recognized as the event that sealed the deal for Mitt Romney’s nomination. SuperTuesday is only going to confirm what Washington settled. Romney’s double digit win was devastating to Santorum, who was up with a double-digit lead in a mid-February WA primary poll.
The confirmation will come in Ohio, where Santorum had led Romney in every one of the numerous February primary polls. That changed in March. Romney leads in two of the three polls released over the weekend. The inertia suggest to me that Romney will beat Santorum by 5 or 6 percent in Ohio on Tuesday.
The abundant polling in Ohio tells the same story that we saw in only a few Washington polls: Rick Santorum received his brief turn as the Not Mitt. You know, like Gingrich before him (who actually got two rises and falls), and Herman Cain before that, and Rick Perry before that.
Perry went “oops!”, Cain was too touching for a presidential candidate, and Newt Gingrich got enough media attention to remind Republicans why they hated Speaker Gingrich so damn much. So what happened to Rick Santorum?
He opened up his big fat yapper, that’s what.
Actually…it’s more like people started paying attention to the things he’s always been saying. As a consequence, he was recognized for the puritanical freak show that he is. And for what a lousy politician he is.
On the freak side, we learned that Rick REALLY does believe that sometimes rape has a sort-of up-side: the gift of a baby. We learned that he opposes contraception because it is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” Yikes!
Rick Santorum explaining how things are supposed to be in the sexual realmThese two statements alone make Mr. Santorum a freak or, as Esquire’s Charles Pierce puts it, “a dedicated theocratic loon”, in the eyes of most Americans. Even in the eyes of some Republicans.
And that brings us to the lousy politician side. I suspect that about half of Republicans (largely the males) don’t overly object to Santorum’s freakish obsession with controlling people’s sexual and reproductive organs. What they won’t tolerate, however, is a politician who actually talks about it. Doing so is a sign of political tone-deafness, if not stupidity. The message: Santorum hasn’t mastered the political fine arts of obfuscation and lying.
I learned, first hand, about these flaws in Santorum as one of his constituents during President Clinton’s Senate impeachment trial. I wrote a letter to Santorum as well as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) expressing my disapproval of the House’s witch hunt, and my strong opinion that Clinton should be acquitted. I received (canned) letters back from both. Santorum’s letter attempted to justify his vote for conviction in the strongest way. He dug in.
What I realized about him is that, unlike some of his other colleagues in the Senate, Santorum actually believed in impeaching a President over a blow job. It wasn’t about political power and victory. No…it was a moral imperative to remove the sodomite for his impenitent transgressions against God. I realized he was too stupid to realize that his letter angered me to the point of triggering activism.
No, nominating a person with Santorum’s political handicaps would be an act of electoral malpractice way beyond what John McCain committed when he selected an unvetted Sarah Palin to be his 2008 running mate. Republicans aren’t going to make that mistake anytime soon.
Rick Santorum, his wife, and their totally normal home-schooled childrenSo…say goodbye to Rick Santorum. The freak show is over.
The (thankfully scarce these days) asshat troll is of that “half”..
Not Republican? Hah! Pleeeeeezzzz
Heh, that first picture, Santorum looks very comfortable in that position.
Remember Sharon Angle?
Make lemonade…
Yeah, it was fun for a while, but now I’m supporting romney for the repub nomination. There is no way in HEAVEN i want sanatorium anywhere near the presidency. Bill Marr was warning people about supporting sanatorium too much, he might get in. Nobody though Reagan had a chance either.
Ohio: Romney and Santorum are still neck & neck in Ohio, it’s too close to call.
Tennesee: Santorum will win big, with Romney several points behind.
Oklahoma: Same result as Tennessee, Santorum is polling several points ahead of Romney.
Georgia: Gingrich will win big in his home state of Georgia.
Virginia: Only Romney and Paul qualified for the Virginia Ballot, and Romney will win big there with little competition from Paul.
Romney should win big among the Republicans in the state where he served as governor.
Other States: Vermont, Idaho, Alaska, N. Dakota – insufficient polling to justify any conclusions.
Source: Super Tuesday Polls
Of course, the news media will be trying to simplify the results and TV news will be trying to simplify it even further. I’ll be expecting color-coded maps showing who “wins” the primaries/caucuses, which overshadow how close some contests were, or which states provide for proportional allocation of delegates, or which ones were caucuses and which ones were primaries.
But if Gingrich can’t take any state other than Georgia, and is competing with Ron Paul for third place, wouldn’t you expect there to be calls for him to drop his campaign “for the good of the party”? If so, do you think he would listen?
Clearly Santorum is the frothy Republican choice for VP!
In the meantime, Santorum’s ideology seems to have taken over large portions of the Republican machine.
Laurens County, So. Carolina, has said that no one can run for office as a Republican unless they pledge that they never engaged in pre-marital sex, and they will abstain from any pornography from the moment they sign the pledge onward.
“You must oppose abortion, in any circumstances.
“You must uphold the right to have guns, all kinds of guns.
“You must endorse the idea of a balanced state and federal budget, whatever it takes, even if your primary responsibility is to be sure the county budget is balanced.
“You must be faithful to your spouse. Your spouse cannot be a person of the same gender, and you are not allowed to favor any government action that would allow for civil unions of people of the same sex.
“You must have:
“A compassionate and moral approach to Teen Pregnancy;
“A commitment to Peace Through Strength in Foreign Policy; and
“A high regard for Unites States Sovereignty.”
Republican Purity Pledge
I guess Newt Gingrich wouldn’t have won so big if he were held to that standard.
Awwwww.. You mean political oppo research guys can’t dumpster dive for the receipts at the local video rental store?
What “job creators” these Republicans!
As an Evangelical who happens to be a Democrat, I’ve watched with some amusement how over the last three decades the Republicans have courted the Evangelical churches, used their organiztions for their own benefit, and given them lip-service while doint nothing about their agenda.
If you called them on it (as I have done), all you get is a patronizing answer that it’s all the fault of “liberal judges”, and that Evangelicals just have to keep voting for Republicans so they can gradually appoint “conservative” judges onto the bench. For how long? Indefinately, it seems – they even gave this stock answer when Republicans had control of the House, Sentate, and five of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices had been appointed by Republican presidents.
Of course, between 2005-2008 Republicans were upset to hear that they had been, well, used. A member of the White House staff assigned to implement Bush’s “faith-based” programs reported that he was effectively shunned, and that those really in charge of White House Policy openly laughed behind the backs of church leaders. Other Republican members of Congress were revealed as being gay, or trolling for young male pages, or patronizing prostitutes.
Lots of Evangelicals chose to not vote in 2008 in protest, and combined with general disgust at Republicans’ handling of the economy, Republicans got stomped hard in the polls.
Republicans saught to use the anger of the dissafected by corralling them into a tea-party movement. They thought this could be controlled by them, just as they had always controlled the Evangelicals.
But it hasn’t turned that way. Like a wild dog who one day turns on it’s master, the Tea Party took on a life of it’s own, knocking out several Republicans in the primaries and going on to either lose spectacularly in the general election (O’Donnell) or to win and make compromise government impossible (Rand Paul, etc.).
Now the Evangelicals are taking their turn, trying to turn the Republicans into a religious party, instead of a political party. Santorum is leading the way in that regard.
So it looks like the Republican party is now controlled by three factions: the Romney faction which controls the “financial” wing of the Republican party, which wants things to continue as they did during the Bush years; the “tea party” wing which would rather see government collapse than settle upon a fiscal compromise; and the Evangelical wing, which wants to turn back the clock on moral and social issues back to the early 1950’s (before Rock & Roll).
I think it’s unlikely the primary is going to make very many Republicans happy with the result when this is all over.
rhp1033 @ 7
They should have adopted that Republican Purity Pledge a couple months ago. Newt Gingrich carried Laurens County with 42% of the vote in the January 21, 2012 primary, more than twice as much as his nearest competitor:
http://www.cnn.com/election/20.....table/r/sc
The right wing in the throes of a nervous breakdown:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203050003
As always they are their own worst enemies.
Awwwww. Anne is just a small town girl at heart.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....via=blog_1
Even when you can jet from one house to the next like John and Cindy McSame could..
Ricky Insane’s hubris is he wants to cram his theocratic dogma down the throats of people who don’t want it. That’s not freedom, it’s tyranny. Unfortunately, this attitude is common among Republicans, which is why nobody with a functioning brain cell can vote for them.
Santorum is funny when he isn’t in a public office.
@10 “I think it’s unlikely the primary is going to make very many Republicans happy with the result when this is all over.”
I think the primary is going to make many Democrats very happy with the result when this is all over.
I’ll bet anyone $5 that Mittster’s veep choice won’t be Sandra Fluke.
Where Wall Street Money Goes
There are lots of ways for filthy rich people to spend filthy money — here’s one of ’em:
“A petite, green-eyed madam who bragged she made millions running a brothel in New York City has been charged following a five-year investigation into her business. … A judge levied a $2 million bail because prosecutors worried that she was a flight risk given her British passport and network of wealthy clients.”
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....llion-bail
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Those tycoons better be careful or they won’t be allowed to run as Republicans in Laurens County, So., Carolina!
LOVED the picture captions.
Rush isn’t in an apologetic mood today:
“The conservative talk show host told listeners to his radio program Monday that advertisers ‘have profited handsomely from you. These advertisers who have split the scene have done very well due to their access to you, my audience, from this program. They’ve decided they don’t want you or your business anymore. So be it,’ he said.”
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.co.....-from-show
It looks like Ricky is gonna go deep.