Is Mitt Romney finally beginning to understand that conservative voters want someone who can flatten Barack Obama in a debate and not just a repeat of McCain ’08?!?
Is Mitt Romney finally beginning to understand that conservative voters want someone who can flatten Barack Obama in a debate and not just a repeat of McCain ’08?!?
Writing from the American half of my dual citizenship, we don’t just want ‘a victory’ over Obama, we want a CRUSHING ass-kicking victory of epic proportions against the entire Democrat machine up and down the ballot at all levels. We want the Democrat defeat to be so total that an entire generation of socialists retires from public “service” to write their memoires.
ONLY Newt can ignite THAT level of intensity against everything Oblamebush and his minions stand for. Romney is too ‘old school establishment’ to ever think or speak this way.
Yes, the GOP doesn’t need a Mr. Nicey-Nice again like McCain. Someone with some snarl would be helpful. One thing that Romney has constantly said is “Barack Obama is a very nice man, BUT”.
No he’s not. Enough with the wishy-washy platitudes. Newt definitely has his drawbacks bigtime, but I LOVE that he challenges the press.
Davers6, I wholeheartedly agree.
Newt ain’t perfect, but in a contest between him and Romney there is no contest in my mind. Don’t know what the rest of Michigan will do.
I echo the sentiments of Davers6 by 100%. I couldn’t have said it better. I’d like to see the same thing happen to the Obama regime that happened to the Lieberal regime in Canada.
Newt won this primarily on his media bashing comment Thursday.
I dislike the baggage that he carries… he’s in the same league as Clinton and Layton in my books.
But it was about time a ‘conservative’/Republican stood up the media!
Sigh…I miss Sarah.
Way to go Davers6…you will cancel out the vote by my family member (Toronto lefty) that has dual citizenship vote!
They all carry baggage, some succeed in hiding it well, and some are open and honest about it. I’d much rather see someone who admits his mistakes and soldiers on for a greater good, than someone who tries to come across as Mr. Perfect.
The fact that all Republican supporters have to admit is that every one of their candidates is imperfect. Not one of them is the ideal candidate.
For the longest time now the Republican establishment and several pundits I respect (Steyn, Krauthammer, etc.) have been telling us that Mitt Romney is the least worst of them. But his lukewarm performance in the last debate must have hit a chord with many South Carolina primary voters, scaring them about what he might very well be like when debating the worst candidate of all, Barack Obama, but the one who will fight dirtier than anyone else to win.
I do not think it’s a bad thing that the Republican race is now going to carry on at least a while longer.
Is Mitt Romney finally beginning to understand that conservative voters want someone who can flatten Barack Obama in a debate and not just a repeat of McCain ’08?!?
No.
*All* of these candidates should understand that NOW is the time to balance the budget and cut spending.
Unfortunately only one candidate vows to do this: Ron Paul.
Others, including many on SDA, preach the importance of balancing the budget and paying down debt, but few actually practice this.
I used to think Mittens was the best vet at getting Obama out.
Now I think Newt is the best candidate. If the GOP is going to go down, go down kicking and screaming and biting.
If Newt continues to gain momentum, hopefully Ron Paul can influence him to take on more libertarian values. If not, don’t’ endorse anyone. Assuming you don’t get the nomination??
The fact that all Republican supporters have to admit is that every one of their candidates is imperfect. Not one of them is the ideal candidate.
I’d extend that to say it’s true of ALL POTUS candidates, regardless of political stripe.
I’d like to see a Gingrich & Paul ticket, but that’s just me.
In this electoral cycle there are two night terrors. One worse than the other. The biggest night terror would be an Obambam re-election. The slightly smaller terror would be Ron Paul becoming president.
The Eagle “Eye of Newt” soars over South Carolina.
No bawdy blows for this GOP contender, who brings a fresh wind of ideological pushback.
Watch for the talons, when Eagle “Eye of Newt” goes fishing. Truly a sight to behold.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Ron Paul yea thers’s the ticket the Obama machine would just give up.
Joe, you’re a moron. You probably want more medicare, more medicaid and more social security, and you want *me* to pay for it. Pee on that noise, I say. Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate who will cut spending and balance the budget. Now.
I am for anyone but Obama, but Newt has some ‘splain’ to. WHat the heck was he thinking on the couch with pelosi and sharpton? I also want to know why he was fined 300K for ethics violations? Lastly stop busting on Romney for being a capitalist!
Since SC is Newt’s home state, I expect him to win there, but for it to have no bearing on the other races.
It’s just a tiny speed bump on Romney’s road to the nomination.
Newton is not the guy for a general election.
Some red meat talk radio style grandstanding might work for the insane right of the United States, but in a general election?
Blacks and women won’t vote for him. The Obamabots from 08 won’t vote for him.
Pelosi and global warming, adultery, arrogance…..
McCain almost won last time. Don’t get crazy and McCain 2.0 can win next time. Save crazy for a strength play.
Short answer to Robert’s question is no. Romney is a die hard McCain type Republican and too steeped in the philosophy that the radical left is not so bad.
Davers6 and Soccermom say it well.
I think the big voter swing toward Newt came after his hammering of John King and CNN. The decades of perfidy of the MSM’s biases found a rebuttal in Newt’s comments to John King and this struck a hidden need of many people.
Ron Paul has some great ideas that need to followed up on, but I do not think he would be able to be elected as POTUS. He has a big weakness in foreign policy.
Mitt Romney will not be able to beat Obumbles. If he is the nominee, watch Boss Soros unleash an attack on the Mormon religion the likes of which have never been seen before
Good on Gingrich, hopey we can get some changey soon. And no, I don’t give a hoot about his private life. Funny how I know all about Newts goings on and troubles drudged up over how many years now, but Obama I know squat about.nothing. All anyone knows about him is he was a community organizer. Well WTF is that? Three years at the helm of the most powerful country on earth and Americans know nothing about the guy. Well except that he truly and deeply cares about climate change. So much so that he fly’s off to Hawaii every three months. Mark my words, maybe Obama will run into O.J. Simpson on the golf course and they can search for the cause of climate change together. The people are starting to catch on, Obama, Holder, Hillary, the hole lot of ya are goin down.
People who like what Gingrich says and how he says it might recall that the other half of that package is a person whose tenure as speaker was pure chaos, and ended in fiasco as he repeatedly forced through Bill Clinton’s spending priorities.
What exactly is at Newt’s core of belief? How can it be conservatism, when he was only recently cutting commercials with Nancy Pelosi about the dangers of global warming, an agenda purely the opposite of conservatism?
As the Republican debates have shown, Gingrich is very willing to score on his own, the Republican goal, as he pursues personal glory, and he will be slaughtered by Obama in debate as he tries to argue the same essential point as Obama that capitalism is bad, but that Newt’s idiosyncratic solution is better than Obama’s.
Romney is the only candidate other than Paul who is defending capitalism, corporate profit, and the need to increase investments ( not of the green kind ).
I know that Mike thinks I’m a moron but being the nice guy I am I choose to response to him with a quote from my all time favourite candidate for POTUS Pat Paulson who famously said, “I’ve upped my standards. Now, up yours.”
Some people here seem to think the US electorate follows a “U-shaped” distribution, with a bunch of hard core conservatives at one end, a bunch of liberals at the other, and hardly anyone in between. This is, of course, ludicrous. Only 3% of Americans consider themselves “strongly conservative”, and only 2% consider themselves “strongly liberal”. US political affiliation by type
The US electorate, like most other human distributions, follows a “normal” distribution – thinner ends, fatter middle. The candidate who will win the election will be the one who can win the most votes within one or two standard deviations of the centre, where almost 40% of voters lie. That’s why so many so-called conservatives back Romney – he can win a chunk of that vote.
Ironically, the only other GOP candidate whose numbers are about the same with independent voters is Ron Paul, and that’s despite the media’s attempt to act as if he doesn’t exist. I’m quite confident that as the primaries go on, and Paul’s message gets out to more independents, his numbers will continue to climb.
Gingrich might be able to best Bambam in a debate, but he’ll lose at the ballot box. Outside of the hardcore GOP base, he won’t attract independents, he won’t attract women, and he’ll get lukewarm support from the Tea Party because he won’t change any of the rotten financial system that’s crippling the US.
So, let’s recap, shall we? Nobody can truly claim victory in Iowa, Romney won in his backyard of NH, and Gingrich won in his backyard of SC. Doesn’t sound like anyone’s running away with it. Ron Paul still comes across as the best hope for really fixing what’s wrong the US.
And I’m not going to bother to respond to any arguments that “he’s a flake”, “his defence policy is unrealistic”, etc. If you’re going to fling unsupported accusations and insults, find someone else to play with. Make a rational argument, and I might engage you.
Newt is a old war horse who will be the first to tell you he has made mistakes in the past, but who hasn’t ?. He is smart and feisty and in my (humble) opinion will kick the stuffing out of Obama. Go Newt , warts and all, still the best bet. Ron Paul has great ideas. Vice president. Still hope and change possibilities in the USA. Anyone but Obama or any Democrat for that matter.
Romney, The only guy in the race that can win. So if we go to the center, all the ‘moderates’ will love us and vote Republican? That worked out well when McCain ran in 2008 didn’t it. I’m going with this, let’s go with conservatism. If we explain it right we’ll win, its all about the message. Romney can’t even get his moderate message out let alone conservatism. Newt can explain it. When Ronald Reagan got his message out, he won and we was no moderate. Newt has the same ability to explain.
Music to my ears:
“Conservatives not only resent the liberal media for trying to pick the Republican nominee (n.b. the media prefer Romney) but they also resent Republican politicians who, once elected, spend their careers appeasing the media while abandoning conservative principles (n.b. the supine leadership of the Republican party in the House of Representatives). Conservatives want a president whose attitude toward the media matches the attitude Gingrich has shown in recent debates. A president with that kind of attitude, they hope, might actually govern as a conservative.”
P.S. Stephen Harper figured this out long ago!
Johnny 100 Pesos,
“Since SC is Newt’s home state”…WRONG.
“It’s just a tiny speed bump on Romney’s road to the nomination”…Wrong, IMO.
Next…?
What exactly is at Newt’s core of belief?
Newt’s core belief is that Newt is awesome. That is all. SC demonstrates that you can attack Evil Corporations, screw around, and make up for all your BS by ‘attacking the media’. Attacking the media is like meth for conservatives.
Independents will not vote for Gingrich. He won’t get women, he won’t get Tea Partiers. He won’t get businessmen after his dumb Bain ad earlier this week.
He has to offer more than being non-Mormon and being able to stand up to reporters.
In Iowa, after a recount that took far too long Sanatorium won, even though the media reported that Romney succeeded. In New Hampshire, Mitney did win but from what the media had been preping for, he should have gotten at least 60’%. SC seems to have gone against the medias story line that Mitney was supposed to have this thing sealed up by now.
Something isn’t right, the media seems to want Mitney to get the nomination more than any republican does.
And for all their plugging, he still hasn’t got the momentum.
Yes he has the money, but one has to ask if perhaps a good portion of that money isn’t from dems that want to keep the other candidates from winning……ok I’ll take the tin foil hat off now.
When I look at mitney, all I can see is some guy that can speak better than Paul Martin, but has the same tendancies.
Several things I noted…
After Newt ripped King a new one…did you notice that the others followed his lead…unconsciously conceding Newt leadership…it’s called unit cohesion and leadership….easily recognized by those trained in unit dynamics.
The general population was not the audience that night but it got televised and the enthusiasm spread….the results attest to that.
Johnny 100 Pesos,
“Since SC is Newt’s home state”…
WRONG. A prophet is not without honour except in his own country. Stephen Colbert woulda won otherwise……
The SC primary has decided the election for 30 years….
Newt has done what no Republican has done in a long, long time….inspired enthusiasm…..the petty details are irrelevant….
Remember 52% elected Maobama in a fit of stupid enthusiasm….details were irrelevant.
Watch the MSM go ballistic now….futilely….they have shot their wallet…they got nothing left….no surprises.
Most people still don’t get American politics. Let me lay it out for you:
Ultimately, the race for president will come down to about 3-5% of independent, moderate voters in a few states: Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and possibly one of Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania. Those are the people you must win. They are white, half men and women, socially conservative, but many are deeply dependent on government or unions. If you don’t win their votes, nothing else matters.
Before that, you have to win your party’s primary, but do so WITHOUT jeopardizing the aforementioned voters. For Republicans, it means you have to walk the talk of conservative values but not be a raving libertarian, Bible bearer, or idealistic potentate. Paul is the first, Santorum the second, Gingrich the third. Only Romney is striking the right balance. That doesn’t mean he’s a ideal Republican, but that he’s the best candidate in a bad field.
Romney also has the political organization necessary to run a national campaign. Gingrich lost his campaign staff and wasn’t smart enough to get on the Virginia ballot.
Romney won Iowa (over Gingrich) and will win Florida, Nevada, and Michigan. Those states are on my list above. South Carolina isn’t. Any Republican will win SC. Romney has a fair chance of winning both New Hampshire and Maine, which combined make them relevant to the electoral math. He might win Michigan, his dad’s home state. With Pawlenty as VP, he might win Minnesota. All those “mights” are more than Gingrich offers. Any one of those states could swing the election.
We should not be cheering for the second coming of Reagan. We need to focus on getting Obama out of the chair that nominates Supreme Court justices and federal judges, appoints cabinet officials, and can veto laws coming from the Republican House and Senate.
This election isn’t about making sweeping changes. It’s about stopping a generation of Obama appointees from wrecking our nation.
Obama might have a billion dollars to spend. He is wounded, but if the economy improves even slightly, it will make him hard to beat. We should not underestimate him.
Romney lost the last debate because he’s playing it safe, not because he isn’t a good debater. He had his weak points, but he will be strong against Obama. Gingrich will lose Florida to Obama, and the election will be over by 8pm Eastern time. At least we will all get to bed early.
Be careful of what you wish for.
Well, that settles it then, we are all over the map.
The only thing we seem to agree on is Obama needs to get turfed to some golf course.
Good analysis by Reginald. America doesn’t need the best president in history, it needs Obama out on his ass. Whoever has the best shot at that is the best choice for the GOP.
“Joe, you’re a moron… Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate who will cut spending and balance the budget”
Posted by: Mike in Calgary at January 21, 2012 10:12 PM
And you’re delusional. Paul would cut the spending by gutting the military, and taking the US into a self-imposed isolationism the likes of which have never been witnessed before, just what’s needed when the mideast is a powderkeg and iran is blue-skying blocking the Strait of Hormuz. On foreign policy issues, paul is to the left of obama, for those who wondered if that were possible.
Brilliant.
Why is whackjob paul running for the repub nominee, anyway? He deserted the repubs years ago to become a libertarian. Maybe he has some free time, as the racist newsletter business is on the wane. Paul would drive independents and non-crazy republicans away from the ballot box if he headed the republican ticket, and guarantee another 4 years of obama. He’d be manna from heaven for obama, even more so than romney.
Mike in Calgary, even YOU would fare better on the ballot than ron paul. Forget him; he’s a flake, and going nowhere. Unless, of course, he wishes to sabotage the repubs and run as an independent, ushering in obama for another term.
mhb23re at gmail d0t calm
It’s hard to say, Reginald (12:28 AM). Is it best to go with the milquetoast guy (Romney) who might do better with nominally Republicans voters and the Independents/undecideds but turn off the committed, hard-core, principled Republican base including self-identified Tea Partiers, or with the guy who most inspires and motivates the already like-minded hardcore crowd but may not do as well with the independents and undecided voters in a general election?
It’s a tough call, but being moderate and boring didn’t exactly work for McCain, so the “everybody knows” assertion that Romney is the most electable of the two is questionable.
I agree, and his no-holds-barred talk in other areas has helped, too. I think that of the two (Romney and him) Gingrich is the one who’s most correctly judging the intensity of concern among conservatives about the prospect of another Obama victory this November. Romney, comparatively speaking, acts like it’s just another election.
Re Gingrich’s media-bashing, Ricochet’s Ben Domench posts a choice quote from an email:
The Republicans are hooped. I don’t like any of them. Romney is soft, Santorum is weak, Paul has 50% good things to say and the rest of him is crazy, and as for Newt…he has the morals of a Clinton which will make him easy pickings to a liberal media that will compare him to the Clinton years…and Obama will, like the first election, look like a sinless messiah. Nutz!
I try not to focus on the aspects of Newt that completely ick me out; you know, like his sex life and his “consulting” work with Freddie Mac and his big-goverment flakiness and his giant ego and his wife who looks like Jack Nicholson as The Joker (wrewr, hiss).
So, um, Yay Newt! Go Newt go! He’s not Romney. I can’t stress that enough.
Reginald – good analysis, I think, but I have faith that Newt can wiggle his way into the swing voters’ good graces.
Mark Steyn
I’ve sat through too many third-rate nights on Broadway not to recognize the difference between cheap manipulative ersatz indignation and the real thing.
I agree with him 100% cubed.
The problem is though that to beat Obama we need a grandstander real American more than a gaggle of limp wristed Rhino’s, with no passion or even guile.
In the Series I Claudius, Caligula says to Emperor Tiberius about the would be usurper Suejenious. “Sometines we need a wolf to catch a wolf” or is often said. To catch a thief you need a thief”.
At least Gingrich is an American Wolf not a transplant.
Obama has to go, no one is willing but the Wolf to even pretend to go after him. Now in history is no time for faint hearts dealing with the American Nero. Obama.
Norman said, “Independents will not vote for Gingrich. He won’t get women, he won’t get Tea Partiers. He won’t get businessmen after his dumb Bain ad earlier this week.”
Except, umm, they all voted for Newt.
From what I’ve seen of Newt Gingrich, I’ve been impressed. He seems to be the only Republican candidate who’s prepared to attack hard when necessary and I can just see him showing Bambam to be a total idiot in a debate. The only way that Bambam could hold his own in a debate with Gingrich would be if Obozo’s handlers knew what Newt was going to say and had preloaded the responses into Obozo’s teleprompter.
I remember being intrigued by a book written by Newt Gingrich and Alvin Toffler in 1995 Creating a new civilization: the politics of the third wave. The only problem with wetware memory systems is that they leak and I can’t remember what were Toffler’s ideas and what were Gingrich’s since I read Toffler’s The Third Wave initially and bought both books at once.
Thanks for the link to the SC exit polls lance. It was interesting seeing that the vote for Newt seemed to come from all sections of the state. The only reason that people didn’t vote for Newt was because of his morals. Assuming that Newt just has some problems with adapting his personal sexual norms with societal norms, then I don’t think people will care very much — maybe he’ll attract democratic voters as a result.
Ron Paul would be the best choice, IMO, but whether or not he is electable is a good question. His greatest support came from the 19-29 year olds and perhaps a Gingrich/Paul combination might be the winning one. I reserve the right to change my mind after I re-read the politics of the third wave which means I now have to dig through boxes of books I haven’t had the time to put on bookshelves yet.
Some of the Obama trolls still don’t get it.
I don’t give a shite who wins the Republican Nomination.
I will vote for him/him,
him/her.
Oblamer and his socialists circus clowns have pissed me off for the last time,
Yesterday.
Just a thought.
If the media and the democrats have already planned to attack Newt for his affairs etc., by comparing him to Clinton, would that not also be an attack on Clinton?
The problem is to be able to use that attack the messenger must not have a past behavior where they covered up for Clinton.
It would also require the democrats throwing Bill (and Hilary) under the bus during the campaign, the end result being a split in the democrat vote..
Put it another way.
If this is Newts big weakness, why wasn’t it Clintons?
With that in mind reflect on Newts response to King’s slanted line of questioning where he articulated what a great number are actually thinking about as far as media malpractice goes.
@ mhb: We have a $1.1 trillion deficit this year. What would you cut? Exactly *when* are you planning on having us pay down our debt?
@ Joe: your “standards” have resulted in a big-government nanny state and $15 trillion of debt. Disregard “standards”; embrace cogency.
Neither of you are serious when you preach “Guvmint shouldn’t spend any more than they bring in!”
Posted by: Mike in Calgary at January 22, 2012 9:40 AM
For starters: eliminate Depts of Energy (doesn’t generate a kilowatt), Education (doesn’t teach a single student), Commerce (doesn’t produce anything but restrictive regs on business), 50% EPA CUT (not reduction in spending increase, but rollback), elimination of all unconstitutional czars created by obama, eliminate the 100+ new agencies created in obama’s tenure, elimination of fed takeover of student loans (unconstitutional) and takeover of gm/chrysler (also unconstitutional), planned 2-3 year elimination of fanny/freddy, 50-60% rollback of obama’s latest deficit spending, and a general 10-15% across-the-board cut for all remaining depts not mentioned above.
Simultaneously, would work on implementing flat or fair taxes (reducing size of IRS), eliminate obamacare (cutting the new 16,000 tax auditor hires to implement same), and reduce corporate taxes to 20%. That should spark massive private sector growth and increase revenues.
There are more opportunities, but those would help for starters. Whoever wins POTUS, they have a massive job to fix the near-fatal damage of the last 3-4 years of this administration. Romney has almost zero hope of accomplishing even a portion of what’s needed, and it’s doubtful that Newt would do substantially better. IMO, Santorum is the only true conservative left in the race, and he’s demonized at every turn by the dems, the left-wing MSM and establishment repubs as well.
Any current repub candidate, except paul, will beat obama in november. The key question is what will they have the courage to battle after they’ve won?
mhb
Mike you’re funny. You don’t even realize that your favourite political philosophy ‘Libertarianism’ is the reason we are where we are today. Applying more Libertarianism isn’t going to rectify the solution. I know that it has some appeal to the light weight intellectuals much like post modernism but any serious thinker/observer realizes that Libertarianism as a philosophy has more holes than Swiss Cheese and is entirely contradictory in itself. As a nation the US is in deep trouble however getting lost in the rabbit warren that is Libertarianism especially the variety posited by Ron Paul would be national suicide. Yes the US needs to make drastic spending cuts and there is a myriad of places to cut however ‘turtling’ on the international front like Ron Paul advocates just aint gonna work.
Nothing to choose but career politicians.
I stopped caring when Herman Cain dropped out.
Has Ron Paul ever explained how he will run the US government on 2 or 3% income tax rates? If every penny of income is so taxed, Pres. Paul gets $300 billion to spend.
If interest on the debt of $15 trillion runs at 3%, he needs to explain who gets to eat the $150 billion default.