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So where do you think the ideological divide between Romney, Santorum and Gingrich is? Forget about the past. Tell me how they are vastly different in what they are promising to do.
There are some differences, but I'm not seeing all that many. Seems like different flavors of Vanilla to me.
Beat me to it. I look at the difference as what they offer in terms of personal attributes, character, leadership, etc. Ideologically, I don't see a difference.
The Newt Book Tour ... I mean campaign ... is going to continue. How do you sell your memoirs and autobiography if you don't stay in all the way to the convention?
it looks nice when you present it like that, but the thing is, the turnout this year is much much lower than what it was in 2008. you've got a favourability rating of the front runner being lower than 40%. the party simply isn't coalescing around romney the way they did around mccain—
look at it this way, santorum spent jack in ohio, romney spent millions, i think i heard the figure that he outspent all the other candidates combined by an 8 to 1 margin. even with all that, he couldn't crack 40% and had a very near miss with santorum, who has a jack-leg campaign and wasn't even on the ballot in several congressional districts!
check out virginia if you want to see how romney is doing— last night romney won virginia ONLY 60-40 when the only other person on the ticket was ron paul, who hasn't won a state at all yet. when you're talking about a front runner, it looks pretty bad when you've got 3 candidates running against you, and one of the other candidates almost beats you.
the fact of the matter is that if gingrich or santorum had dropped out, the other would have won michigan and ohio, handily. the majority doesn't want romney.
So where do you think the ideological divide between Romney, Santorum and Gingrich is? Forget about the past. Tell me how they are vastly different in what they are promising to do.
There are some differences, but I'm not seeing all that many. Seems like different flavors of Vanilla to me.
If you can't see it, I can't do much about it. But I'll try.
Romney -- hey, go ahead and believe he's a conservative. Go ahead and think he's Santorum on social issues. Go ahead and think he'll still be there in January 21, 2013. If you do, that's your problem, not mine.
Gingrich -- same as above, except Gingrich isn't the one-trick pony that Santorum is. He represents all three legs of the three-legged GOP stool: social, fiscal and foreign policy.
Santorum -- fiscal policy? Foreign policy? Given that he can't seem to ponder these issues for long before being distracted by the fact that someone's having gay sex, or having protected sex, or having sex and enjoying it, or just thinking about sex, it's pretty obvious that on those two legs of the stool he's mostly a blank slate. There's no there there. He'll defer to whatever advisor he needs to defer to and that's that - back to defending marraige for Rick. He's not Ronald Reagan who spent decades writing essays and giving speeches about every issue he could imagine.
You've fallen into the trap of thinking that, because Romney (mostly) and Gingrich (to a lesser extent) are all just-now conveniently parroting what they perceive to be the party line in March 2012, that these are their positions. Seriously, it baffles me how you can think Romney is reliably pro-choice or against mandates, how Gingrich doesn't really think global warming is real or support canp-and-trade. These three candidates are all over the place with respect to each other if you look at who they are, not who they claim to be to Joe Voter in Dayton the day before a primary.
With Santorum it begins and ends with God and social issues. With Romney, it's business and finance and whatever he has to say about any other issue in order to let him play with the business and finance of the nation. With Gingrich, he's a grandiose shaper of civilizations, annexer of the moon and defender of the world from the liberal apocalypse.
Mitt Romney = Newt Gingrich = Rick Santorum?
Um, yeah, OK ...
Last edited by Green Onions; 03-07-2012 at 05:46 PM..
So in what world is 1,203,403 smaller than 1,095,917??
I get that the more liberal media has been harping on voter turnout at ever possible opportunity. This time, they obviously spoke too soon. Turnout has been a mixed bag. Low turnout in Virginia only makes sense. Everyone must have assumed that it would go to Romney so why bother? Too bad more of them didn't stay home, LOL. Would have love it if Ron Paul had won Virginia!
Quote:
you've got a favourability rating of the front runner being lower than 40%. the party simply isn't coalescing around romney the way they did around mccain—
The GOP didn't start coalescing around McCain until it was mathematically impossible for him to lose -- which happened to be right after Super Tuesday, February 5th, 2008. At that point, Romney dropped out and McCain cruised virtually unopposed. But in 2008, Super Tuesday was absolutely huge!! McCain had 740 delegates and was well over the halfway mark. There weren't enough delegates in states that hadn't voted yet to change the outcome.
The GOP gambled this year. They built this thing to drag out over a longer period of time figuring they could duplicate the success of Obama vs Hillary and their long battle in '08. The biggest week this year won't happen until May 29th - June 5th and 455 delegates will be decided that late in the game. That is why nobody is dropping out. Those 455 delegates are enough to put any of them in the lead.
Quote:
look at it this way, santorum spent jack in ohio, romney spent millions, i think i heard the figure that he outspent all the other candidates combined by an 8 to 1 margin. even with all that, he couldn't crack 40% and had a very near miss with santorum, who has a jack-leg campaign and wasn't even on the ballot in several congressional districts!
check out virginia if you want to see how romney is doing— last night romney won virginia ONLY 60-40 when the only other person on the ticket was ron paul, who hasn't won a state at all yet. when you're talking about a front runner, it looks pretty bad when you've got 3 candidates running against you, and one of the other candidates almost beats you.
the fact of the matter is that if gingrich or santorum had dropped out, the other would have won michigan and ohio, handily. the majority doesn't want romney.
Romney has a lot of things that shouldn't matter working against him. He's a Mormon and on the Republican side of the aisle, that's a very big negative. Obama knows it's going to be Romney so he's already taking shot at him with negative ads. Nobody is better at breaking the bank on negative campaigning than Obama. The GOP is currently shifted way, way, way to the right due to the Tea Party movement. The TP not only demands "a true conservative" (a psychotic extremist in other words), they also increase the relevance of religious orthodoxy actually mattering. Considering the bizarre state of today's Republican Party, it's actually surprising Mitt Romney is doing as well as he is.
All of that would be fine by me if it helped Ron Paul this year. On the contrary, all the buzz about Newtered and Frothy has drowned out the Ron Paul camp. In a year that we are clearly a force to be reckoned with, getting the headlines stolen by these two clowns has been very irritating. Either of them would get massacred in the general election anyways.
So in what world is 1,203,403 smaller than 1,095,917??
I get that the more liberal media has been harping on voter turnout at ever possible opportunity. This time, they obviously spoke too soon. Turnout has been a mixed bag. Low turnout in Virginia only makes sense. Everyone must have assumed that it would go to Romney so why bother? Too bad more of them didn't stay home, LOL. Would have love it if Ron Paul had won Virginia!
The GOP didn't start coalescing around McCain until it was mathematically impossible for him to lose -- which happened to be right after Super Tuesday, February 5th, 2008. At that point, Romney dropped out and McCain cruised virtually unopposed. But in 2008, Super Tuesday was absolutely huge!! McCain had 740 delegates and was well over the halfway mark. There weren't enough delegates in states that hadn't voted yet to change the outcome.
The GOP gambled this year. They built this thing to drag out over a longer period of time figuring they could duplicate the success of Obama vs Hillary and their long battle in '08. The biggest week this year won't happen until May 29th - June 5th and 455 delegates will be decided that late in the game. That is why nobody is dropping out. Those 455 delegates are enough to put any of them in the lead.
Romney has a lot of things that shouldn't matter working against him. He's a Mormon and on the Republican side of the aisle, that's a very big negative. Obama knows it's going to be Romney so he's already taking shot at him with negative ads. Nobody is better at breaking the bank on negative campaigning than Obama. The GOP is currently shifted way, way, way to the right due to the Tea Party movement. The TP not only demands "a true conservative" (a psychotic extremist in other words), they also increase the relevance of religious orthodoxy actually mattering. Considering the bizarre state of today's Republican Party, it's actually surprising Mitt Romney is doing as well as he is.
All of that would be fine by me if it helped Ron Paul this year. On the contrary, all the buzz about Newtered and Frothy has drowned out the Ron Paul camp. In a year that we are clearly a force to be reckoned with, getting the headlines stolen by these two clowns has been very irritating. Either of them would get massacred in the general election anyways.
You're right... If that were true. In what world does Obama appeal to rural voters? When the election comes, they will go for Romney. As for turnout, there's not much enthusiasm for Obama either. I'd say that one's a wash
Where I live in the south, many of the rural areas have large African American populations if rural whites don't come out for Romney then he will lose a lot of the rural areas. Simple as that.
Case in point South Carolina 2008. Obama did very well in the rural low country and parts of the rural midlands.
Most of what you've said highlights why Santorum and Gingrich are lousy candidates, but they do not offer any significant ideological differences between Romney, Gingrich and Santorum. Santorum is obsessed with social issues that violate his religious sense of rightness. Newt is willing to promise to annex Canada and Mexico if he thinks it'll get him elected. Nobody can out-pander Newt.
But in terms of fiscal policy, they are all preaching different flavors of the same message. Balance the budget, cut taxes, create jobs.
All of them are anti-abortion. All of them are against gay marriage. All of them have the same ideas on immigration policy. All of them want a balanced budget amendment. All of them are willing to go easy on businesses great and small. All of them want to prevent unions from making any more messes. All of them think Obama is being a wimp dealing with Iran and that he's betrayed our alliance with Israell. All of them fully intend to remedy that.
Three flavors of vanilla. Newt flavor is tainted by serial adultery and the experience of being unceremoniously run out of town by the GOP in 1999. Frothy has Google problems and a big religious extremist streak in him -- you can distract him instantly by saying words like "gay couples," or "birth control pills," etc. He also tends to whine a lot which makes him come across as weak. Mitt Romney is more moderate than he is billing himself currently. I have no problem with that. "True conservative" is an idiot idea to begin with. A conservative that is willing to work across the aisle with Democrats is the only candidate that can realistically get anything done. But I do not doubt for a second that Mitt intends to deliver on the same core ideas.
Some of it I agree with and some of it I don't. But Obama has got to go. He made the choice to double the federal debt in just one term. That alone is enough for me to want him gone ASAP.
Are Romney's wins primarily in large urban areas? Those places will go Democrat in the General Election.
intrestingly enough in Massachusettts in Boston Paul got 15%, Cambrige and Somerville he got 25%, Waltham he got 15%, but in the suburbs Romen was up in the 75-85% while in urban areas he ran in the 60-70% range.
Santurom won some really rural areas out west.
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Can't rep you yet. 
