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

I remember looking around there last year, and there was a totally inexplicable one day bump for romney where all of a sudden he was in the 90s.

toddstarnes toddstarnes
Santorum spent about $1.65 per vote; Romney spent around $113 per vote. bit.ly/yYdPBq
2 minutes ago

Perry and his PACs spent $6,000,000 for 12,500 votes -- %480 per vote.

$480...

lead down to 18

NEWT: We can't wait. I don't care what David Gergen says about inevitability, Romney's weak, that's it. That's the key for us. Gotta get Romney.

CALLISTA: Lemme ask you something, Professor. I mean--what about Paul and Santorum, huh? What do we do with these...nuisances?

NEWT: They wanna have a debate with me, right? It will be me, Santorum, Paul, and Romney. Let's set the debate. Get our Twitter people to find out where it's gonna be held. Now, we insist it's a public place--an auditorium, a town hall, some place where there's people so I feel safe.
They're gonna shake hands with me when I first meet them, right, so I can't be frothing at the mouth then. But if Bill Kristol can figure a way to have opposition research planted there for me--then I'll kill 'em all.

debates are for sissies. newt will only settle for lincoln-douglas debates

ONE VOTE

Rick Santorum seen that shit and said: "Fuck it, imma run too, fuck it"

i see these dudes going, "You can win Rick, coz you're bigger than motherfucking Mitt Romney. Fuck Mitt Romney. Fuck him man, run for president." And Rick going: "Yeah, fuck that shit."

You know he got a chance he can win. White dudes like to do shit like that...vote for the wrong dude as a goof. They get drunk and shit and go like, "Let's vote for Rick Santorum!" *pulls lever* "haha I just voted for Rick Santorum!" And next day would be like this: "He fuckin' won?"

ricky 'the body' santorum

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/3140/30121529301225611cerebu.jpg

shame that this isn't a contest that matters

Romney wins by 8.

damn

was it good for all of you/

would looooove for 8 votes to decide the Obamney election in Nov.

For this I got up? The only good thing that may come out of this is that the salt has been rubbed into the wound a little deeper.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/04/politics/gop-iowa-gingrich/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

"Lying in wait"--sounds good to me.

you really need baseball to start soon. you know, something significant.

Go Newt! I mean, go Jays!

On the one hand this is pretty easy to spin for Romney, he can just point out that it's a marathon not a sprint. For him. For Santorum, it's a sprint.

On the other hand, nearly exactly 30,000 out of 120,000* does look like there are actual occult forces pinning him to 25%.

*Yeah, I know, 120,000 is not the exact figure, just the one being thrown around.

romney down to 40 on in trade! I know I'm the only one who cares about intrade but 97.5 to 40 in like 10 mins is pretty lol

i think this says everything you need to know about how much attention to pay to intrade

he won by 5 votes!

intrade is a pretty useful marker of public expectations, but yeah, bad at predicting elections w/ an 8 vote margin

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/01/03/us/politics/20110104_IOWA-slide-C37Z/20110104_IOWA-slide-C37Z-hpLarge-v2.jpg
guuys

the one on the far right (heh) is cute

waht abt the one in the middle HUBBA HUBBA

iatee i'd say it's worse than that - with romney at 97.5 intrade wasn't even remotely accurate as to how tight the outcome would be

both those numbers were reactions to nearly finished vote counting totals no

if you want to evaluate its predictive powers its prob better to look before the voting started

before the caucuses intrade had them romney->santorum->paul

when the votes were being counted it was just people trying to be the first ones to play on public information. it's not really a prediction market in the same sense during moments like those.

xp right

Sincere question: between now and New Hampshire, will there be people from this whispered-about Republican Establishment contacting Gingrich--either directly or through intermediaries--and asking him to back off for the sake of getting Romney elected, and also to secure whatever future he has as a party eminence?

man i'm so glad this whole thing is over!

no xp

assume thats been going on the whole time, the gop establishment has been in a frothy panic for the last month that gingrich might win, the other anti romneys they dont really take serious

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/01/republican-nomination

in this and other stories like it i'm always a little struck that the people they talk to (esp those who are explaining why they are voting for romney) seem a lot less crazy than the aggregate shitshow. maybe it's an iowa thing...

lol i can only pray http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/newt-gingrich-romney-gop-destroyer

what do they have to offer him? what does he have to lose? if he doesn't want to play the GOP spoiler it'll be because he doesn't want to play the GOP spoiler.

xp

It's definitely been going on in full public view--in editorials, on Sunday morning shows, etc.--I'm just curious as to how much (or whether) it goes on in earnest out of public view.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/01/04/rickrolled_three_lessons_from_iowa.html

dave weigel thinks that the numbers say enthusiasm is way down but idk if his interp is right

thats prob m/l true, but it doesnt mean they arent trying, and of course theyve done everything else they can to marginalize him xp iatee

im sure its been going on behind closed doors too, i mean its polotics, we only see the tip of the iceberg, and there are no doubt things they can offer him, all sorts lucrative think tank jobs tv appearances publishing deals etc, its just whether its worth it to him to give up his last few moments in the spotlight

They don't have cabinet appointments to offer him, I'm sure, but they'd be hitting him up on whatever traces of party loyalty are left, and, more important, reminding him that it's better to be inside the fold than out if you want to continue giving lucrative speeches.

lol newt you h8 everyone so bad just say fuck it go newtclear you know you want to come on you invented that shit

http://mjcdn.motherjones.com/preset_12/newt_1-4.jpg
DESTROY ROMNEY DESTROY ROMNEY BLIP BLOOP BEEP

they dont respect you theyve never respected you after all youve done for them after all these years show them show them what you can do

I was just about to post how much I loved the photo in that Mother Jones link!

ha it really captures something

U Got the Look, Newt.

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Nixon.jpg

god damn newt's got a big head

Erick Erickson vents, his commenters are somewhat vexed.

Wait just one cotton-pickin' minute!

vangoghssister Wednesday, January 4th at 10:12AM EST

I’ll be darned if I’m going to let 123,000 people, in Iowa of all places (or anywhere else for that matter) tell me who I am allowed to vote for in this Presidential election. I am a Perry supporter and pray for him to stay in the race. I watched the first debate. I heard the in-state tuition argument from whoever brought it up (don’t remember now). No one and I mean NO ONE, not moderators, not talking heads on television or radio ever mentioned what he actually said, standing right there on the stage, outlining briefly the process for being allowed to pay in-state tuition. From there, the falsehoods took hold about that and the stupid Gardisil thing, etc. And YOU, Mr. Erick Erickson (God bless you for all the good work you do), have only made me angry one time in all the months I’ve been lurking around here. When you interviewed Gov. Perry in California and brought the tuition issue up, you called it SCHOLARSHIPS. You see, the words we use do matter when trying to convey the truth, even if it is an accidental GAFFE. If that interview had been broadcast on the MSM or even on Fox, once the masses heard that word ‘scholarships’, they would have tuned out and turned off right then, never listening to Gov. Perry patiently explain how it really works. His team should have done more to get the truth out there and I can’t fathom why they did not. There must be a way to get the stellar accomplishments of this fine Governor out where the most people will see them, especially those who do not take the time to research a candidates platform and past performance in office.

Rats! Now I have to go to work. Keep the faith Perry Posse.