Rick Santorum is ahead in the polls right now in Michigan. It would be nice if he stayed their and actually win the state. I think Democrats should ignore Santorum’s views on birth control and women in general and support him over Romney. I think their is a fair chance Santorum could gain enough momentum with a Michigan victory to pull some more upsets on Super Tuesday. I’m posing my question more to the liberals on this board, but welcome everyone’s response. Should we support Santorum at this point?
Why would a Democrat ever support Rick Santorum? Just for the lols or because you think he can’t win a general election?
The latter, I would assume. Republican primary voters are not Republican general voters and Ricky the Froth is a little much for even some RedStaters…there was a comment over there decrying Santorum for his ultra-rightwing stances. Of course, the commenter got shouted down by the usual sea of mouthbreathers over there.
Sir, this is a family board and is visited by the young and impressionable. We will thank you not to expose innocent young minds to the concept of “santorum”.
Nor even to concept of the assjuice named for him; which is, admittedly, far less disgusting by comparison.
If the question is about how do we best ‘game’ this election, and the ones following, I think our best strategy is to support Romney, beat him in November, and let the GOP ponder if their defeat was being ‘not conservative enough’, and then they can pick Ricky for 2016!
I don’t see much point in “gaming” beyond being smart enough not to let the other guy do it to you. Our struggle is to change minds and educate the people. If we gain a temporary legislative advantage by fooling people into voting for things they don’t really support, we fail. All the civil rights legislation in the world wouldn’t help much if we couldn’t lance the boil of ignorance and hatred in our nation’s soul.
They are already warming up their act, to convince people clinging fretfully and fearfully to their middle class status that all their worries would vanish if only the gummint wasn’t giving their money to the lazy and drug-addled poor.
+1 to this. It does Democrats no good at all in the long term to “fool” people into supporting them in the short term. That’s what the GOP did, and now they are seeing it catch up to them.
The idea is that Santorum has practically no chance against Obama in the general election. On top of that, the House might be easier to retake with Santorum on the ticket instead of Romney. As far as the extreme right wingers go, the attacks against Obama will be the same whether the Republican nominee is Romney, Santorum, or anybody else. It’s just that I think those attacks will be a lot less effective with anyone other than Romney as the Republican nominee.
Democrats should spend their time and money on winning votes for the Democratic Party. It doesn’t matter which of these losers the Republicans pick. Not one of them is a credible alternative to Obama. But the Democrats can still lose this if they lose their focus and start spending their energy on something other than their candidate and their message.
Well said.
Fucking A well said, you mean.
I do not intend to support Santorum in any way in the primaries, as I feel it would be dishonest of me to do so. However, I believe that the best plausible scenario, in the long run, starts with Santorum winning the Republican nomination. If an extreme-right candidate wins the Republican nomination, but then is defeated decisively in the general election, it might shock the Republican party back into pursuing sanity, which is something that’s going to be essential in the long run. A choice of two sane parties is far preferable to a single sane party and an insane one, even if the sane party wins.
Seconded with friendly amendment: Candidates, please. In fact, we need to focus on Congress a lot more than on the WH this cycle.
I would support Santorum (eww). The goal is to get Obama the easiest possible path to reelection (so he can help with money and support in Congressional races) and to take back as many seats as possible in the House and Senate. If Romney’s the nominee, people have months to forget about his gaffes, and may excuse his right turn in the primaries as just business as usual. If its Santorum, then that will hurt the entire GOP and no independents will even sniff the right, hopefully trickling down to the Congressional elections as well.
I don’t necessarily see this as an either/or proposition, and nowhere proposed anything like 'fooling people into voting for things they don’t support". And frankly, I shudder to think where we’d be if the Rs had gained another decade of temporary legislative advantages beginning in 2008…it’s also good to win enough to keep the ship of state on a sane course.
Are their any conceivable circumstances where the Low and the Middle really do unite against the High?
Not to mention that if this gaming of the system becomes more prevalent and *both *parties end up more actively trying to nominate the worst possible candidate from the other party, I shudder to imagine the even quicker race to the bottom that could result from that.
Just when you thought our electoral system couldn’t possibly get any worse… :smack:
The parties can try to influence the opposition but if one party finds it’s opponants have more control over their nominating processes (if Ds can ‘make’ the Rs nominate Santorum, for example) then that probably indicates the Rs have ceased to be a viable party. I took this as a thought experiment, not a big real world concern.
I also think that having two sane parties is preferable to having only one. The problem is that crushing defeat6 has never really discouraged the conservatives (see Goldwater) the way it did the Democrats.