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

I have to assume that there is absolutely no fucking way Rick Santorum could win the presidency.

lol George W. Bush served two terms in case you missed it & that guy was a total idiot

i believe that obama's got it locked enough that i feel no need to campaign FOR romney, definitely. but, chance of Obama screwing up royally aside, I'd rather hear Romney's quimby-isms from the podium than Santorum's idiotic evangelism.

George W. Bush never said he wanted to outlaw contraception IIRC

GWB had money.

bizarre to me how much some of you guys are eager to overlook the basic financial math of this election

meaning

GWB you wanted to have a beer with. Name any soldier that would enjoy a visit from Rick Santorum while recuperating at Walter Reed.

Oderus Urungus, Lord of Earth and lead singer of GWAR, sends a strong endorsement of murdering every presidential candidate on a gigantic wheel of over-sized knives. Though Urungus, a several-century old extraterrestrial, is not technically an American citizen, we felt it wise to publish his endorsement and add him to the list nonetheless. His statement follows:

For some time people have been harping on me to sound off on my opinions regarding the upcoming Presidential elections, and to state my endorsement of a paticular candidate. Never one to shy away from cheap publicity, for some reason I did. The reason? Simply put, all the offered choices are so nauseatingly banal that there is no flavor I favor. I hate all of them, and their institutions make me sick. They all suck so bad that I cannot begin to do anything other than reject everything they stand for, and can endorse no party or candidate so much as I heartily cry for their destruction, lust for them to be tasked and scourged with fire and whips, and yearn to see great clouds of insects set upon their genitals, and feast upon their diseased and dripping dick slits and big rotten pussies. Do not vote for them, gather in mobs and attack them in their homes — drag them into the streets and impale them upon a gigantic wheel of over-sized knives, and this goes for Obama too!

Name any soldier that would enjoy a visit from Rick Santorum while recuperating at Walter Reed.

Fred!

comparing Santorum to Bush, for example, is just ridiculous. Bush came from a very well-connected, well-known political family that had an extensive financial network and the backing of the elites of various party cadres (evangelicals, big oil, southerners, foreign policy hawks, etc.) All those people raised a SHIT TON of money for GWB, they fought for every vote. Santorum does not have this. It doesn't matter that he's as stupid as Dubya, he occupies a fundamentally different place in the GOP than Dubya did.

xp

Santorum is like the Buster Bluth of this field. GWB was GOB (obv.)

money doesn't not matter but it's only one form of political support. obama didn't come from a well-connected, well-known political family, neither did clinton.

he occupies a fundamentally different place because nobody likes him and he was a failed one-term senator and he has no charisma.

obama didn't come from a well-connected, well-known political family, neither did clinton.

Obama raised more money than McCain. Santorum is not raising more money than anybody, except maybe Ron Paul.

right, because nobody likes him

obama didn't win because he had more money, however

The financial landscape's so much different now than just a few years ago, you might not need such a broad base to compete. Adelson probably won't switch to Santorum but it's not inconceivable especially if Romney stumbles.

santorum was a two-term senator

he had more money because he was gonna win xp

the most well-financed candidate always wins the presidential election. there is no scenario where Santorum becomes the most well-financed candidate, he simply doesn't have the donor base, and he never will as long as he keeps railing on about contraception and homos and women and whatever else he hates

xp

people donate to people who are gonna win, after a certain point you can only buy so many yard signs. until it becomes legal to actually buy votes again, there is a limit to what you can do with money.

not sure what you're basing that on

there is no limit to what you can do with money.

actual studies that have been done on the subject by people who get paid by universities to study it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqyLi8UFxw

it's plenty possible for Rick Santorum to become president imo I don't think he really has a chance but it's Obama's campaigning strength that rules him out, not any inherent qualities

lol waht

http://www.acrreform.org/research/does-money-buy-elections/

what are these "inherent qualities" that would make a majority of Americans want to vote for him. no one wants to have a beer with the class nerd from the Xtian Club

money doesn't buy all elections. it does buy presidential elections though.

no, it buys presidential elections least of all

given enough money and the right campaign team Santorum could get elected president easy imo. he won't get enough money & the right's too disorganized to get it together for him but the thing stopping Santorum from becoming prez isn't "people are too smart to elect Rick Santorum"

iatee when was the last presidential election that was won by the candidate with less money

"people are too smart to elect Rick Santorum"

I don't think they're too smart, it's that Santorum is THAT unpleasant

the results of an election are almost always predictable and people aren't gonna donate as much to the candidate who is likely to lose. obama had a huge warchest left over, why, because you just run out of shit you can buy.

Does money buy Presidential elections or does a winning bid bring in more money in search of more favors from the victor?

I don't know if you were around for Dick Nixon or not but let me assure you that was the most disagreeable dude like ever & here's what he did in 1968

http://uspoliticsguide.com/images/Presidents-history/1968-electoral-map.gif

the results of an election are almost always predictable and people aren't gonna donate as much to the candidate who is likely to lose.

there's a timescale inherent in this estimation that doesn't make any sense - at what point is the result a foregone conclusion? and is that when the majority of the money starts flowing in? this seems counterintuitive.

and in '72, after being an embarrassment for four years

http://uspoliticsguide.com/images/Presidents-history/1972-electoral-map.gif

I don't know if you were around for Dick Nixon or not but let me assure you that was the most disagreeable dude like ever & here's what he did in 1968

Nixon was owed TONS of favors within his party. "chits" he called them. Nixon was a vociferous and ruthless collector of favors and allegiances, this is well documented. Santorum does not operate this way.

so, to say "Rick Santorum get elected" after looking at that '72 map seems incredibly shortsighted to me, ymmv

*can't

if rich people knew they could 'buy a presidential election', then republicans would have 10x as much money as obama, because there really is a lot on the line for them. $1 billion isn't very much money put in perspective of how much is on the line.

first you compared him to Dubya (lol) and now you're comparing him to Nixon (megalol)

but guess what, another billion dollars of romney posters doesn't do anything

I like the idea of posting steadily more despairing prez election result maps.

Santorum hasn't been President for four years and running CREEP, "ratfucking" the opposition etc gtfo

i had forgotten all about this:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/23/selling-washington/?pagination=false

For over ten years, but particularly since George W. Bush took office, powerful Republicans, among them Tom DeLay and Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, have been carrying out what they call the “K Street Project,” an effort to place more Republicans and get rid of Democrats in the trade associations and major national lobbying organizations that have offices on K Street in downtown Washington (although, of course, some have offices elsewhere).

The Republican purge of K Street is a more thorough, ruthless, vindictive, and effective attack on Democratic lobbyists and other Democrats who represent businesses and other organizations than anything Washington has seen before. The Republicans don’t simply want to take care of their friends and former aides by getting them high-paying jobs: they want the lobbyists they helped place in these jobs and other corporate representatives to arrange lavish trips for themselves and their wives; to invite them to watch sports events from skyboxes; and, most important, to provide a steady flow of campaign contributions. The former aides become part of their previous employers’ power networks. Republican leaders also want to have like-minded people on K Street who can further their ideological goals by helping to formulate their legislative programs, get them passed, and generally circulate their ideas. When I suggested to Grover Norquist, the influential right-wing leader and the leading enforcer of the K Street Project outside Congress, that numerous Democrats on K Street were not particularly ideological and were happy to serve corporate interests, he replied, “We don’t want nonideological people on K Street, we want conservative activist Republicans on K Street.”

...

b-b-b-b-ut John Mitchell ran CREEP!

Nixon was also a pretty moderate Republican in his own time, right? compared to like Goldwater?

if rich people knew they could 'buy a presidential election', then republicans would have 10x as much money as obama, because there really is a lot on the line for them.

the problem is they're squandering their money on a field of candidates while Obama's rich folks are falling in line. If the GOP financiers unified behind a single candidate they could convince the proles to vote for, they WOULD be buying this election. But there's too huge a disconnect between the moneybags and their actual voters this time around.

xp

I like the idea of posting steadily more despairing prez election result maps.

http://uspoliticsguide.com/images/Presidents-history/1988-electoral-map.gif

George Herbert Walker Bush & J. Danforth Quayle

yet, somehow, it's just impossible that Rick Santorum could get elected