PPP Poll has Santorum now at 38% (of GOP primary voters), to 23% for Romney (17% Newt, 13% Paul). It also says that his favorability is 64% to 22%, which again is for GOP voters only.
The general consensus I’ve gathered is that he isn’t exactly the kind of guy who is going to unreservedly rush headlong towards the center once (if) he gets the nom. I’m sure someone will chime in, within the first 5 posts, to say that it is still Romney’s to lose, and while it is true that Santorum may not be on the ballots for all upcoming states and doesn’t have the apparent infrastructure and money base, the $$$ side of the equation can be turned around pretty quickly, and these advantages netted Romney very little this week I’ll note.
Yet Romney won the CPAC straw poll today. Which is not really per your prediction, because it’s exactly the opposite of what you’d expect, i.e. conservatives supporting Romney but the average GOPer supporting the conservative. Maybe this means that Newt is toast, since he’s now apparently not the favorite with the man in the street nor the conservative leadership.
I think his social conservative (or perhaps reactionary) aspect is overrated, he strikes me as a slightly to the right of establishment pork-barrel loving, status-quo politician. But I hope this does get Gingrich out of the race though.
Gigantic surge for Rick Santorum. Santorum has a supermajority in favouribility rating with 64% (!) while Romney struggles at 44% and Gingrich and Paul are at the back with 42 and 35 percent respectively. Gingrich is struggling at third with 17% while Santorum is beating Romney 38 to 23… While other candidates have led over Romney before I’m not sure its ever been by this margin.
The man thinks contraceptives shouldn’t be allowed for married couples.
Not the 'morning after" pill but birth control pills and condoms for crying out loud! Those are things my 80 year old evangelical Christian mother favors for married people!
I think that makes the man a reactionary. He is totally outside the mainstream of American Catholics much less the general public or rank and file Republicans.
Favouribility? Are you suddenly turning into a Brit?
That PPP number is amazing. They had tweeted that Santorum was in the lead but I am surprised at its size and wonder if it’s an outlier.
I am not sure how much it will impact the race though. Romney has comfortable leads in Michigan and Arizona and that shouldn’t change. Ohio is the critical battle and the Santorum surge may actually help Romney since Newt holds a slight lead there according to 538 projections. OTOH Santorum isn’t far behind and if he surges there he could easily win.
I think the bottom line is that Romney is safe so long as Newt and Santorum are both still in the race. One of them has to knock out the other pretty quickly to make a race out of it.
[QUOTE=Santorum]
It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college.The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah. I called him out on the affectational British spelling a few weeks ago, and got a smiley in response. Makes me think less of his posts, which is a shame as he usually makes me think.
Santorum, like so many others before him, is pandering to the relgious right within the Republican base. Unlike so many before him, I think he’s serious about his statements and convictions.
Luckily, I expect him to get his ass handed to him pretty easily by Obama, so that should work out pretty well.
Man, your political compass needs a re-tuning. That’s especially funny, because you also seem to follow world politics and seem to get more frequent glimpses to the full spectrum than a lot of other Americans.
In other words, that’s a lot of willful ignorance you’re sporting.
Possible. These super PACS have no rules to speak of. Suppose you put together a big ol’ pile of cash for a new Gingrich super PAC, and tell him he gets to keep the money if he drops out? Bo-koo ching ching, Newty!
I’m not looking to argue with you but I think you are wrong here. Yeah Santorum is serious about what he says but, what part of the religious right do you think is opposed to all contraception? Can you be more specific? Not Protestants and polls seem to indicate most Catholics disagree with Santorum on this.
I was raised in Texas and my extended family is still very active in the Baptist church. They are antichoice but they all think Santorum is nuts because of his opposition to use of birth control like the pill, condoms or getting a vasectomy. In all my years being raised in the church I never once heard anyone ever express opposition to those things.
It would undoubtedly be a slaughter. In fact, over Christmas I attended the megachurch my brother and his family attend in Dallas and a big topic of discussion among people was how there was nobody running in the Republican primaries that any of them were willing to vote for. The consensus was most were planning to sit it out unless the nominee is someone other than Romney, Paul, Gingrich or Santorum. Whether they would actually do that or not I don’t know.
Romney and Santorum were the ones who seemed to turn them off the most by they way.
Oh, I agree. That particular issue will not gather him a lot of that base. But the fact that almost every sound bite I’ve heard from him in the last week has had him invoking god, or faith, or something along those lines makes me think he KNOWS that the evangelicals that are so noisy will be lining up for him.
And unless Santorum is an utter fool he is not going to do anything to actually get such a measure passed if he’s President (and I agree if he gets nominated he will lose massively) and if he does Congress and/or the Supreme Court is going to block it very easily.
The possibility there is if after Super Tuesday, one of the two anti-Romneys has a clear advantage over the other there’s going to be tremendous pressure for the latter to drop out. There might be a deal of the other as VP which would be disastrous in the general election.
I never endorsed him, indeed all my statements are to the contrary-I am just letting his voting record speak for what they are. Santorum is not a Ron Paul or Michelle Bachmann.
I meant Super Tuesday, not Gingrich getting knocked out immediately.