# Who is Newt trying to screw by staying in the race? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 15, 2012, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818 "2012-03-15T02:05:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/21 "2012-03-15T16:10:12Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > He needs the majority of all remaining delegates to win the nomination outright. Yes, but starting April 1, the remaining states are awarding their delegates on a winner-take-all basis. In a lot of Santorum’s wins or surprise finishes, he’s still essentially split the delegates three ways. Romney should win in Illinois next week, and starting next month he can get 40 percent of the vote and still get all the delegates from New York, California, New Jersey, and so on. Santorum will win some large states, too, but the calendar looks better for Romney to my view. Newt and Santo may be hoping they can team up and take Romney down, but the reality is that they’re competing for a lot of the same votes. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/22 "2012-03-15T16:30:03Z")
Michael Steele may have created a monster here in creating proportional representation. (I base this on his having just denied creating this monster on MSNBC.) He sought to backload the importance of later states in the primary process by having in effect a very difficult path to the nomination for the person who wins a few early primaries, but with the Citzens United decision, he also created a motivation for multiple candidates to stick it out, creating a near-impossibility that someone in a 4-candidate race will get majorities in each state’s delegation. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/23 "2012-03-15T16:32:21Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Newt and Santo may be hoping they can team up and take Romney down, but the reality is that they’re competing for a lot of the same votes. I suspect that Newt and Santorum indivually are totalling more votes, maybe not more delegates, than they would if they teamed up–they have high negatives, and I’m sure not exactly the same people are being turned off by each of them. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/24 "2012-03-15T16:58:52Z")
[Why Newt Gingrich isn’t quitting the GOP race](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-pn-why-newt-gingrich-isnt-quitting-the-gop-race-20120315,0,569027.story) > [@](#): > > At 68, the former House speaker is making what figures to be his last fling at elective politics. But it is his sense of himself as an epic figure that may well be what’s keeping him going. Pretty much says it all as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/25 "2012-03-15T18:23:50Z")
You know, it’s not _completely_ out of the realm of possibility that Romney will slip on a hotdog, crack his head on the floor and be in a coma for 9 months and for Santorum to be caught on camera sucking off a room full of male dancers. I mean, if that happens, then it’s Gingrich for the win. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/26 "2012-03-15T20:01:03Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#): > > You know, it’s not _completely_ out of the realm of possibility that Romney will slip on a hotdog, crack his head on the floor and be in a coma for 9 months and for Santorum to be caught on camera sucking off a room full of male dancers. > > I mean, if that happens, then it’s Gingrich for the win. Nah. The comatose/cocksucker ticket has a better shot in November. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/27 "2012-03-15T23:26:45Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Newt’s got enough money, he wants power. I’m sure he still misses being Speaker and he’s loving all the press, even negative press. And he’s not even paying for it out his own pocket. If Newt drops out now, he’d become as irrelevant as Cain or Perry - and he’s too much of an egomaniac to want to do that. Money is power. People like Newt never have enough of either. Newt and Thick cannot really be serious about contending for the presidency with some of the crazy things they are saying. As long as the media is paying them attention they will stay around. My guess is that the longer they are relevant in the media, regardless of their chances at the nomination, the better their odds are at landing a lucrative commentator gig later on. They saw it worked for Palin. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/28 "2012-03-16T05:46:58Z")
[Robert Wright](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/is-gingrich-literally-crazy/254555/) thinks that Gingrich has manic tendencies: otherwise he would try to stick it to Romney by dropping out of the race. I confess to some amusement at the ease at which Republican flacks bash Gingrich. I can only assume that the hired hands recognize that their political masters _really_ don’t want to have to deal with a President Gingrich. Rich Galen was Newt Gingrich’s spokesman when he was Speaker of the House. Surely he doesn’t want to get a reputation as a man who will dis his former boss, right? Wrong: “There is no reason for him to be in the race at all. He can’t get past Romney if he can’t even get past Santorum." Galen thinks that his former boss’s strategy appears to be “to wow the convention so they fall on the ground quaking and hand him the nomination”. That’s some quality snark. Mr. Galen continues: “He’s not making this stuff up – he really convinces himself that he is right,” he said. “And if you don’t agree with him he just uses that as evidence that you’re not as smart as him.” A guy who always believes he’s right. Now _that’s_ a fine temperament for the Presidency. > **[Subscribe to read | Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/a50ea15a-6dff-11e1-baa5-00144feab49a)** > > News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2012, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/29 "2012-03-16T06:10:30Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Money is power. People like Newt never have enough of either. > > Newt and Thick cannot really be serious about contending for the presidency with some of the crazy things they are saying. As long as the media is paying them attention they will stay around. My guess is that the longer they are relevant in the media, regardless of their chances at the nomination, the better their odds are at landing a lucrative commentator gig later on. They saw it worked for Palin. For some people at least power is more important than money - otherwise how can you explain why Meg Whitman spent $150 million of her own money to get crushed by Jerry Brown running on a shoestring. Unlike Palin, Newt was known before he started this, and I doubt his rate for speaking gigs is going to go up too much. As for Sanctimonious, he’s a religious fanatic and you can’t trust them to be rational at all. ---
**Author:** ![Comicenbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Comicenbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Comicenbe)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818/30 "2012-03-17T00:42:37Z")
It’s simple really… Remember his visions of grandeur? He wants to become the [President of the Moon](http://thedailyvoter.com/newt_moon_president_t_shirt~235483707986018919) lmao [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-newt-trying-to-screw-by-staying-in-the-race/615818.md?page=1)