A Santorum Surge?

[Sue U]

HULL Iowa? OMG.

Bilocation, apparently. You are in the Twilight Zone. Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo! (Or is it "deedle deedle deedle deedle"?)

[BoSoxGal]

Santorum's giving Mitt a real run for his money.

The more I listen to Mitt, the less I like him. What a snake oil salesman! At least Santorum is unabashedly right wing nuts.

How did MA ever elect Mitt?

[Sue U]

As Donna Brazile said, "Mitt Romney is willing to say anything to get elected. I'm sure he would tell you that himself ... If he thought it would get him elected."

[Guinevere]

The Massachusetts puritans may be liberal, but not liberal enough to elect one of the gurlz - Mittens beat two of them, including a strong green party candidate showing, to win with less than 50% of the vote. He likely would not have won reelection. And don't blame me, I haven't ever bought his act, and would have sent him home (MI/Utah/Cali/NH/wherever is expedient/you choose) in obscurity in 2001 if I had had my way. Sigh.

[BoSoxGal]

Oy! - I just researched that race. Too bad those 'gurlz' didn't all throw in together - they might have beat him!

If that Mitt gets the R nod, I might have to vote - against him. I couldn't stand listening to four years of his slipperiness - I think I would have preferred that village idiot who is on his way back to Texas.

[Guinevere]

HULL Iowa? OMG.

Bilocation, apparently. You are in the Twilight Zone. Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo! (Or is it "deedle deedle deedle deedle"?)

If I have to live under Mittens imperial rule again I'm going to be living on valium and red wine....

Interesting results analysis - Paul took the under 40 set and the first time voters, much like Obama 4 years ago. Look for him to continue to do well in NH, where the college kids all be back and out there avoiding the start of classes.

[rubato]

They really can't do better than these?

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

a little graphic overview:

[dgs49]

The Iowa caucuses will have been "effective" if they convince at least 3 of these people to quit. I'll be sending a few bucks to Rick Santorum's campaign in a little while.

I think it is actually a little bit funny when I read Libs evaluating the current crop of R candidates and finding them weak.

One would be hard pressed to find anyone as short on qualifications as the current occupant of the White House. Several years of doing essentially nothing in the Illinois legislature, a couple years doing nothing the the U.S. Senate, never had a real/responsible job in his life, and the Democrats nominated him as the best of their candidates. He had basically two qualifications: Dark skin and the lovely speech he gave at the Democrat convention four years earlier. That's it. In a sane world, his candidacy would have gone exactly nowhere. And even at that, had the Dem Conventioneers been free to vote their real preferences on the first ballot in 2008, HRC would have won a majority easily. Barry wasn't even the first choice of the Democrat caucus - he just played the primary game better than Hillary.


None of the competing Republicans in Iowa is as short on qualifications as Barry was in 2008. And now he has four years of relative failure to add to his resume.

The Republicans don't have to nominate a Great Candidate. All they need is someone better than Barry. And that's not setting the bar very high at all.

[Lord Jim]

Landslide Mitt takes it by eight votes...of course, up until a couple of weeks ago, he wasn't given any chance at all to win in Iowa....

The big winner of the night of course was Santorum...Say what you want about him, he gave a really strong speech last night; he's got a working class, blue collar spin to his economic message that will play well with some..

However the latest poll in New Hampshire has him with only 5%, so he's got a big mountain to climb in just one week... (Romney is currently up by his largest margin ever in New Hampshire 43-16 over Paul...)

I was really glad to see Paul finish measurably behind Romney and Santorum....he's not getting much of a media bounce out of Iowa, which will make him less of an irritation down the road....

Perry is apparently out; and Bachmann may be too; she's cancelled her trip to South Carolina and is expected to hold a press conference later today....

Gingrich is definitely not out; he made very clear last night that he's headed to New Hampshire , and bringing hell with him, for Mitt Romney...

Perry and Bachmann folding, and Gingrich going Kamikaze against Romney, are all huge pluses for Santorum and if there were two or three weeks before New Hampshire, he might be able to make it a race. However, since it's all about expectations, if he just finishes ahead of Paul and breaks into the low 20's that could give him significant momentum into South Carolina....

On the negative side for Santorum of course, is the fact that the multimillion dollar pro-Romney Super PAC machine that took down Gingrich will now be aimed at him....

Also, no matter how much money he raises, (reportedly he raised more in the past week than he had in his entire campaign) getting that money out so it can be spent effectively on media and organization in the time he has before New Hampshire, is another huge challenge for Santorum....

It's going to be an interesting few weeks....

[Guinevere]

Dave, please send Santorum as large a check as you can manage. Thx.

P.S. Pls send $$ to Newt, too.

[Scooter]

Gingrich certainly provided the clearest illustration of why people hate him so much.

Nothing like attempting to win hearts and minds by coming across like an angry, petulant child and telling the 87% of people who didn't vote for you that they are stupid for not doing so.

[Sue U]

I, for one, will be sorry to see One-L and Texas Toast leave the race. In these difficult times, they have given the world so much laughter; we owe them a deep debt of gratitude.

[dgs49]

I think if Romney takes NH too handily, it will be seen by the rest of the country as simply a matter of a quasi-favorite son (NH is a suburb of Boston) getting an expected victory. Any margin greater than 20% will be discounted as meaningless. I read yesterday that Santorum has spent a ton of time (if not money) in SC, where his social conservatism will carry a lot of weight. He should not waste too many resources seeking votes in NH. Who cares whether he gets 12% or 15?

Gingrich can be valuable to the Party by simply participating in future debates. His deft responses to difficult questions will provide a tutorial for the eventual candidate.

My debit-card donation to Rick's campaign will be done with the realization that I will be bombarded with future emails asking for more, so...

[Liberty1]

I heard Santorum has ben planning on skipping NH and going straight to SC.

[Crackpot]

Sue, can I take this to mean that you have no interest in tossing the Santorum Salad?

Wow, I really didn't think this story could get any grosser, but you, sir, have exceeded all expectations.

keep that thought while you re-read the thread title.

[Scooter]

It will certainly be a handy excuse if he is as successful in NH as polling suggests.

Then again, not giving people the opportunity to be reminded of what they think of him can only help...

[Lord Jim]

I heard Santorum has ben planning on skipping NH and going straight to SC.

That's not what he said last night...

I think it would be a mistake, he would squander some of his momentum and expectations for him aren't that high; he doesn't have to do all that well in New Hampshire to benefit from participating; high teens low 20s would work fine for him...

Michele has bowed out, but the word is Perry has decided to stay in in South Carolina....

Well, I guess that makes sense...

There are two more debates between now and then, so I'm sure Rick figures he'll rescue his campaign with his usual stellar performances...

[Sue U]

Poor Marcus Bachmann will never get to be First Lady!

[Sue U]

Sue, can I take this to mean that you have no interest in tossing the Santorum Salad?

Wow, I really didn't think this story could get any grosser, but you, sir, have exceeded all expectations.

keep that thought while you re-read the thread title.

I see your point. BTW, when you look at the election results, you can see that Iowa was pretty well covered by Santorum. The campaign was organized so that Santorum was running wildly all over the state. With that kind of action, Romney was never going to get a chance to mop up on election night.