2012 republican presidential nominee III: can romney get santorum out of his hair?

e.g. Thurgood Marshall wheezing and smoking his remaining years away while his law clerks do all the work; William Rehnquist (a proto-Scalia in terms of wit and scabrous opinions, according to Woodward) plays basketball, laughs a lot, and hangs out with his clerks.

It had to be done:

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/funny-pictures-lolrus.jpg

Probably nothing, but I like the way these words go together: "Romney," "Swiss bank account," and "discrepancies."

I just want to reiterate:

Mad Mitt Beyond Blunderdome

Given the speculation earlier this week about a brokered Republican convention, with Indian Gov. Mitch Daniels being nominated, does anyone know how that would be possible with state filing deadlines?

haha waht where was this speculation

through what mechanism would Daniels get enough delegates to claim the nomination?

I already posted this but: http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/01/deadlocked-not-brokered-is-kind-of.html

mitch daniels will not be the nominee

yeah I saw that, but in that post dude correctly points out that there are no brokers

Daniels would have to a) get on the ballot in as many states as possible, immediately, b) win the majority of the delegates in those states, and c) get one of the other candidates (Gingrich, Santorum, Romney, Paul) to try and convince their delegates to switch their votes to him and d) pray that all of that amounts to a >50% total of the delegation. All four of those things are wildly improbably at this point.

Daniels doesn't even have the money to attempt something that audacious

waht where was this speculation
Granted its only 120 news/opinion articles in the past week

I meant specifically about Mitch Daniels - the specter of a deadlocked convention's been floating over this contest for months

if any "brokering" gets done it's most likely going to be between the existing candidates, not some guy who's said he has no interest in running and has made no moves to do so

massive xp - I'm guessing it's the same speculation as has been for months - all of the people who don't want Mitt realise that everyone else in the race is a mutant, and a White Knight rides in and takes all of the non-Mitt 75% support, wins every primary and caucus, and triumphs, hooray everyone wins except those predestined to lose.

You'd expect it to have died out by now, but I would guess that there are people who disliked everything about Mitt except that his electability, and now that's starting to fade, they're starting to peel off.

xp yeah, I think that's what sanpaku's asking, do the deadlines give any mechanism to get the delegates? There's only been like 5% of the delegates assigned at this stage anyway, right?

Shakey at this point stands a stronger chance of wooing delegates.

in what universe would Daniels be able to develop an organization - literally over night - to get him on the ballot in all the remaining states. you need money and people to collect a ton of signatures, and a national apparatus to coordinate everything. there's just no way.

Totally agree it won't happen, but I do wonder how long Daniels had been slotted to give the response the other night. If you wanted to, you could interpret the timing as a trial balloon. But if he'd been scheduled weeks or months ago, doesn't apply.

eh, there really aren't a lot of national-level figures that the gop still isn't ashamed of

Look at the rapturous response this fellow got the other night from Corner types. He's tailor made for the part of Sane Establishment Conservative.

Well, they have gone with Zombie Reagan; I find it rather convenient that they chose Daniels.

Meanwhile:

Tonight’s Republican presidential debate will be the last chance before Florida votes on Tuesday for Newt Gingrich to grab back the spotlight and for his opponents to land some blows. I spoke a short time ago by phone with Rick Santorum, who is trying to supplant Gingrich as the principle challenger to Mitt Romney.

Please note the spelling of the fifth to last word.

We got no class and we got no principals.

table here lays out the delegate allocations

xp

if Mitch changed his name to Jack, he'd stand a chance for the GOP nom

If Jeb changed his last name then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Given the speculation earlier this week about a brokered Republican convention, with Indian Gov. Mitch Daniels being nominated, does anyone know how that would be possible with state filing deadlines?

Thought you meant Bobby Jindal at first.

8th round--Gingrich, bomaye!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcGvJGmF4gQ

what network?

CNN.

Gingrich appears to have misstated the number of lunar colonists required for a space-based outpost to apply for statehood — the number is 20,000 for self-government in the original bill, not the 13,000 he mentioned yesterday. Statehood requires the population of the least populous state — or greater than Wyoming's 563,626 people in the 2010 Census.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/newt-gingrichs-laws-for-governing-a-space-colony

This is such a misreading, though. Clearly it's not that Gingrich misquoted his own bill. It is that since his bill, he has since decided that a lunar colony is so important that we should reduce the threshold to apply for statehood by 7,000 people.

omg crdit card companies need to be in charge of immigration

Whoa--where did that come from?!

he has been using that line for a while.

ooh, i love the catfight

I was hoping newt would make a dig at romney's parents being 'immigrants'

I've watched pretty much every one of these, and Romney's never pounced like he did on that first exchange. I get the feeling he really wants Gingrich out of this after Florida.

I doubt that's gonna happen even if he loses big in florida

"The ad did run, Governor, and it ended with you saying, 'I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this ad'"--ouch.

this exchange is sort of hilarious

damn romney going hard

I'm finally in front of a TV during a debate but I feel like I'm out of the loop just 'cause I've been completely focused on work for the last week-plus but anyway hey y'all politics thread debate watchers I was srsly bummed to have missed the last several debate with you

Santorum wants to stop the petty politics and focus on the issues?--get him the hell off the stage, please. (He doesn't actually want that, of course, he just saw an opening and he's trying on a new costume.)

Romney is just bodyslamming Newt with the little ripostes imo

that last one = pwned
heh

romney sounds like an evil politician from like 24

"i have nothing to hide about my finances. my trustee vizier opened an off-shore bank account under the portfolio tax code remedial capital income which is totally legal."

That last five minutes was so bizarre...but Gingrich looked real bad.

By the way, Romney on blind trusts circa '94:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz0QCdkYJwI

wonder how many middle class people w/not a lot of money, such as myself, looked at their estimated taxes for 2011 and thought "gee i wish my tax rate was the same as mitt romney pays on $40 million"