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

No surprise:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/01/romney_opens_up_big_lead.php?ref=fpblg.

What I find maddening is the way that the lagging national polls follow every twist and turn of the state polls faithfully. Gingrich's lead has widened to 10 points nationally, but you know that'll swing majorly back the other way as soon Romney wins Florida (much as Gingrich benefited nationally at other times). Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't recall these wild national swings for the Democrats in 2008; it was Hillary maintaining a national lead (or a virtual tie) for a long time, and her support falling away only after Obama became inevitable. I mean, if you're living in a state that doesn't have its primary till March, and you're for Gingrich or Romney on Tuesday, and then you immediately change your mind three days later because of results out of South Carolina or Florida, that's weird.

people are reeeeeally dumb

that a deep hard won insight for sure but on the other hand a big part of why we see this phenomenon is because a lot of the primary process is abt electability, so voters are receiving info abt electability and changing their preference based on that, its sort of tautological but sort of makes sense too

@BorowitzReport Gingrich's campaign in Florida seems to be dying, so I expect him to leave it soon

Ouch...

a lot of the primary process is abt electability

This is a recent phenonmenon. Believe it or not, there was a time when a candidate's positions on the issues of the day mattered more to voters than this strange notion of 'electability'. I think it's a side effect of the current polarization, where voters have been led to view the election of a president of the 'opposite' party as an apocalyptic catastrophe.

Of course, George W. Bush's administration did lend some color of legitimacy to this pov.

w/e grandpa *plays fruit ninja*

Barely two years later, after having been chosen Time magazine's Man of the Year, Gingrich had plummeted in public esteem to where, in a CBS-New York Times poll, just 14 percent of voters had favorable personal feelings toward the speaker.

This prompted an apocryphal Washington exchange between a perplexed Gingrich and Dole. "Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?" asked a perplexed Gingrich, to whom Dole bluntly explained: "Because it saves them time."

http://www.creators.com/opinion/mark-shields/newt-rewrites-his-reagan-connection.html

Wow, that might be the greatest of all Dole zings.

Dole for Zingmaster General

Dole-blooooded

damn

key word is apocryphal -- but major props to dole if he did say that

Remember Dole's famous remark on spotting Carter, Ford, and Nixon at the Reagan White House for Anwar Sadat's funeral? "See no evil, hear no evil, and evil."

haha

Unfortunately, found this in the comments:

Call me suspicious but this purported quote is a verbatim quote from a line in M*A*S*H* wherein Frank Burns plays Gingrich and Trapper John plays Dole. Since that season of MASH predated this supposed exchange by more than 20 years, I smell a rat.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Francis Strazzeri
Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:11 PM

And sure enough: http://sharetv.org/shows/mash/episodes/287300.

if the legend becomes fact, post the legend to ILX

i think newt wouldn't be self-aware enough to ask that question

All comedy is theft. Still a good line for the recall and presence of mind. Liking Dole more and more. (Wouldn't vote for him.)

everything that happens already happened in M*A*S*H, no big whoop

mash is the ur-document of reality iirc

Oh dear.

But this commentary might be worse:

I will freely admit right up front that I don’t have a big background in the appreciation and enjoyment of rap music. I found the early work of Sugar Hill Gang interesting, and I recall enjoying the fusion experiment of Run DMC teaming up with Aerosmith for a remake of Walk This Way. During football season – as a perpetually disappointed Jets fan – I occasionally play their fan rap tune, Putcher Arms Out! But beyond that, like too many of my generation I’m sure, I mostly find rap music an exercise in self control reminding me not to throw anything at the car parked near my house with the doors rattling off from the base line.

But even with this admittedly limited knowledge, this particular tune strikes me as perhaps carrying a bit less of the old “street cred” than some of the more mainstream urban classics. Even if I weren’t looking at a picture of the “rap artists” involved, I’m guessing that it might bring some questions to mind. This doesn’t – at least to my untrained ear – sound like rap music as much as it invokes what a couple of alligator Polo shirt wearing kids from a gated community in Florida might think rap music would sound like.

But, as I said, I’m hardly the needed subject matter expert to judge.

"base line"

'BY JAZZ SHAW' hes a jazz guy, clearly

http://i.imgur.com/zw4ew.png

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_01/the_value_of_the_aca035066.php

Santorum's daughter who has a pre-existing genetic condition benefits from the Obama health care law rule change re genetic conditions and not being cut off from insurance, but of course Santorum will not acknowledge that

Is this still going on?

Newt's new thing is that he's being "carpet-bombed" by Romney. Heard him say that three or four times yesterday morning.

http://cinemafanatic.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/apocalypse_now_robert_duvall.jpg

u guys are getting better, greeting Cain's trolldorsement w/ stony silence

x-post
While Newt sat out the Viet Nam war he remembers that term. But yep, Romney is clearly outspending Newt's sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson in Florida

maybe romney literally carpetbombed newt, i wouldnt put it past him tbh

should prob hide out on the moon for a while until things blow over

Romney's Mormon tithing versus Obama on charitable donations...Surprise surprise--conservative W. Post columnist Kathleen Parker uses data in an innacuarate way...Commenters to below posting discuss backstory--Obama income over the years, etc.

Parker is clearly suggesting that Romney gave 42 percent of his income to charity. But that 42 percent figure comes from her Washington Post colleague Jennifer Rubin, and represents the amount the Romneys estimate they will pay in 2011 in charity and federal, state, and local taxes. Obviously, Mitt Romney did have to "give away" the money he paid in taxes, unless he wanted to violate the law. In 2011, the Romneys estimate they gave 19.2 percent of adjusted gross income to charity.

In comparing the 42 percent figure to "Obama, who gave away 1 percent to charity," Parker is linking the percentage of their income the Romneys paid in taxes and charitable contributions in 2011 to the percentage the Obamas gave to charity from 2000-2004 - a true apples-to-oranges evaluation. (In 2010 -- the most recent year for which the Obamas have released their tax returns -- the Obamas donated 14.2 percent of their income before tax deductions and exemptions to charity.)

In fact, the Obamas spent a larger percentage of their income on taxes and charity in 2010 than the Romneys did in either 2010 or in 2011.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201201290004

wonder how much of Romney's tithing went to supporting prop 8?

I wonder how many thousands of Florida republicans will change their minds again today.

I do kinda love how all this non-stop polling is demonstrating how fickle voters can be. "eh, I guess I'll vote for this guy today!"

Especially Florida voters. I will never not be bitter about their flightiness and inability to read a ballot.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, no friend of the establishment, took the opposite view over the weekend on Fox News. She accused the establishment of trying to “crucify” Gingrich and said it is far too soon to call a halt to the debate and the vetting of the candidates. “If for no other reason, rage against the machine, vote for Newt,” Palin said.

Especially Florida voters. I will never not be bitter about their flightiness and inability to read a ballot.

George W. Bush's people agree!

rage against the machine, vote for Newt

http://i.imgur.com/Taonv.jpg

lmao

rage, rage, against the dying of the machine.

Now that Newt is cratering in FL, all the life has ebbed from this thread.

:(

i feel betrayed

where r the lolz

if u make a leap in the polls via being a dick in debates KEEP BEING A DICK IN DEBATES

god newt

I can promise you guys I'll still be a dick

I guess some people just don't have what it takes when it really comes down to it, coach

newt is such a dicktease

Appropos of nothing, in ancient Rome, the punishment for someone who killed their father was to be sewn into a leather bag with a dog, a snake, a rooster, and a monkey, and the bag was thrown into the river Tiber. Makes me think of this year's republican primary voters for some reason.