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smoothoperator wrote:Now that Santorum is out of the race, what's the chance he'll give his delegates to Gingrich?
http://www.gop.com/index.php/comms/comm ... ate_count1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He can try, but I'm not certain that a candidate can "give his delegates" to another candidate. He can certainly endorse another candidate. Gingrich bounced a $500 check to Utah state's elections commission for the Utah primary filing. It happened in March. They've tried to collect payment, and as of today, still no response from the Gingrich campaign. If he can't come up with $500 to file for the Utah primary, then his candidacy is over. So even if Santorum could give his delegates to Gingrich, he still has no campaign operating funds, let alone primary filing funds. SOURCE. In the end Romney is still going to take the nomination. I predict that over the next few days, Gingrich is going to go public with a campaign withdrawal statement, and he'll urge the party to unite behind Romney so that we can start taking it to Obama.

Ameer wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Bullwhip wrote:

sjfcontrol wrote:There is no way I'll ever believe that a Romney presidency, or ANY Republican presidency would be as damaging as another Obama term.

The house is GOP, senate very close split. Obama has to fight the house GOP to get what he wants, Romney wouldnt'.

Romney might be worse because the house would pass his bills.

Well first of all, if Romney were elected, he might still have to face a democrat majority in the Senate, which would essentially put him in the same position as Obama is with the House. Remember, it takes passage in both the Senate and the House to send a bill to a president's desk for his/her signature.

Good point. If we vote for the Republican candidate for President but have reservations, we should counter that with votes for Democrats in Congress, so there are some checks and balances and not a rubber stamp to expand government interference in health care, gun rights, dog safety, etc.

If that's what you want. It's your vote to use as you wish. It wouldn't be my choice.

Bullwhip wrote:

sjfcontrol wrote:There is no way I'll ever believe that a Romney presidency, or ANY Republican presidency would be as damaging as another Obama term.

The house is GOP, senate very close split. Obama has to fight the house GOP to get what he wants, Romney wouldnt'.

Romney might be worse because the house would pass his bills.

Well first of all, if Romney were elected, he might still have to face a democrat majority in the Senate, which would essentially put him in the same position as Obama is with the House. Remember, it takes passage in both the Senate and the House to send a bill to a president's desk for his/her signature.

Secondly, republican presidential candidates have been giving the media lots of negative quotes about one another to use against whomever the nominee turns out to be, so there is a very strong possibility that Obama will be reelected. If the republican nominee is actually elected, it will be a miracle.

Third, and I don't have the cite for this at hand but I saw it a couple of years ago on RealClearPolitics.com, but a couple of years go, 75% (or thereabouts) of independents who had voted for Obama would NOT vote for his reelection if he were running then. I saw an article just a couple of days ago that said that Obama had been making significant gains among independents recently. In case you had forgotten, it isn't republicans or democrats who decide presidential elections anymore. It's the independents. Why would Obama be making headway recently among independents, you ask, when just two years ago they wouldn't have elected him dog-catcher? It is because over the last 6 months or so, not two, not three, but as many as seven or eight republican primary candidates were telling the nation why they should not support any of the other candidates. And now that it has gotten down to four and the REALLY negative campaign ads have been brewing for a bit, independents are starting to shy away from the apparent intemperance and florid language of the republicans. This campaign, contrary to what some might believe, has been the greatest debacle in conservative history in recent memory.

It has gotten so that I don't believe what any of them say about the others, and the only thing I can look at is what I can know or glean from their individual characters outside of their political lives. And that, for better or for worse, eliminates Gingrich for me. I think that Ron Paul is intellectually dishonest. I don't think he cares about getting elected as much as he cares about the destruction of the republican party—his mission in life—and his ignorance about world affairs is positively frightening. And honestly? I don't think that Santorum has the intellectual horsepower to be a good chief executive. I mean, we're talking about a guy who, as an attorney in private life, argued in court that the use of anabolic steroids in professional wrestling should be permitted on the grounds that it is entertainment, and not really a sport. REALLY??? Anabolic steroids? That's the kind of judgement you want in a president? And that, by the way, does not harmonize with "family values," which Santorum lays claims to.

OK, here is where I'm going to make my pitch for Romney........

Some of you may have gotten a version of the following mass-circulated email in your inbox at some point or other:

Sometimes, this facet of Romney's personality isn't so subtle. In July 1996, the 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner at Bain Capital, had disappeared. She had attended a rave party in New York City and gotten high on ecstasy.

Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was. Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to help find Gay's daughter. Romney set up a command center at the LaGuardia Marriott and hired a private detective firm to assist with the search. He established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the NYPD, and went through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York, and asked them to help find his friend's missing daughter. Romney's accountants at Price Waterhouse Cooper put up posters on street poles, while cashiers at a pharmacy owned by Bain put fliers in the bag of every shopper. Romney and the other Bain employees scoured every part of New York and talked with everyone they could — prostitutes, drug addicts — anyone.

That day, their hunt made the evening news, which featured photos of the girl and the Bain employees searching for her. As a result, a teenage boy phoned in, asked if there was a reward, and then hung up abruptly. The NYPD traced the call to a home in New Jersey, where they found the girl in the basement, shivering and experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a massive ecstasy dose. Doctors later said the girl might not have survived another day. Romney’s former partner credits Mitt Romney with saving his daughter's life, saying, "It was the most amazing thing, and I’ll never forget this to the day I die."

So, here's my epiphany: Mitt Romney simply can't help himself. He sees a problem, and his mind immediately sets to work solving it, sometimes consciously, and sometimes not-so-consciously. He doesn't do it for self-aggrandizement, or for personal gain. He does it because that's just how he's wired.

OK, so I NEVER take these kinds of emails seriously unless they can be verified. So I went to SNOPES.com:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/search.asp
Claim:   Mitt Romney assisted in the search for his business partner's missing daughter.
TRUE

At the end of that page, the following YouTube video is embedded:
[youtube][/youtube]

Now, I really wanted to quote the whole story, but I urge all of you to actually read the SNOPES page. When his partner's daughter went missing, Romney dropped everything and enlisted his firm's employees and resources in trying to find her. He didn't have to do that. Most business owners wouldn't.

Next, let's look at the kinds of public conservative voices who support Romney....

Is ANN COULTER conservative enough for some of you?
Ann Coulter's Archives are just chock full of Romney support. Check them out.

Is Jonah Goldberg conservative enough?
The Case for Romney

Let me try to offer some solace. Even if Romney is a Potemkin conservative (a claim I think has merit but is also exaggerated), there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you.

A President Romney would be on a very short leash. A President Gingrich would probably chew through his leash in the first 10 minutes of his presidency and wander off into trouble. If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal ObamaCare, implement Rep. Paul Ryan's agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments.

Moreover, Romney is not a man of vision. He is a man of duty and purpose. He was told to "fix" health care in ways Massachusetts would like. He was told to fix the 2002 Olympics. He was told to create Bain Capital. He did it all. The man does his assignments. [emphasis mine—TAM]

In this light, voting for Romney isn't a betrayal, it's a transaction. No, that's not very exciting or reassuring for those who'd sooner see monkeys fly out their nethers than compromise again. But such a bargain may just be necessary before judgment day comes.

How about Suzanne Fields? She reminds us that half or more of all voters (liberal or conservative) are women.
Family Values without the Wink

There are others. I just picked these three at random.

Romney, love him or hate him, is a man of character, as evidence by what he did to help find his partner's daughter. That also means that when it comes to family values, HE WALKS THE WALK. He is 100% a capitalist. He signed legislation, which is unpopular with conservatives, into law as Governor of a state with an overwhelmingly liberal voter base, and an overwhelmingly liberal legislature. He could have refused to sign the bills, and they would have passed anyway. By staying in the game instead of taking his toys and going home (the Ronulan formula), he remained in a position to be able to exert some modifying or moderating influences over the inevitable. That is called "Leadership," and it is something of which the more strident members of the conservative base are either simply ignorant, or wilfully ignore through intellectual dishonesty. And by the way, don't make the mistake of thinking that more stridency = more conservative. That simply isn't true. There are plenty of hard core conservatives who don't think that SHOUTING is a good way to make their case.

Yes, I am concerned about Romney's views on the 2nd Amendment. Yes, he has some 'splainin' to do about Romneycare.

Here is the explanation about RKBA: the bill he signed into law which offends some gun rights activists did not happen in a vacuum. It happened in the context of an 80% liberal democrat legislature and an overwhelmingly democrat vote. Before putting his signature to the bill—which would have been overwhelmingly passed by veto override if he had vetoed it—he ensured that the bill wasn't a complete disaster for Massachusetts gun owners. Without his moderating influence in the process, it most surely would have been, as Massachusetts has some of the most repressive gun laws in the nation. What he did is called "Leadership." If you want to know where Romney really stands on the 2nd Amendment, go to http://aboutmittromney.com/gun_rights.htm, where he has the endorsments of people like Craig Sandler, former executive director of the NRA for 10 years.

Here's that healthcare explanation: "Romneycare" was going to pass whether or not he liked it. By staying in the game, even when the chips were down, he remained in a position to exert some influence over it. The bad side of that is that his name is linked with it. The good part of that is that had he refused to engage with his 80% liberal democrat legislature, it would have been far worse. That is called leadership.

All in all, Romney has character in spades. He is the steadiest of the candidates we have to choose from. He will be, as the above Jonah Goldberg article points out, owned by conservatives and will do what they tell him to do—unlike Obama, who owns his base, and is not particularly responsive to them. Romney will be predictable in a way that Gingrich could never emulate. Romney will be A) more acceptable to independents than Santorum could ever hope for, and B) not be morally conflicted about things like trying to argue for the use of anabolic steriods for entertainment purposes. Romney has a better grasp of how economies work than does Paul, has employed more people than Paul, and has had more exective experience than Paul, and he sees a bigger picture than Paul does.

I've pretty much decided that I'm going to vote for Romney in both the primary and the general, for the above reasons.

Interesting poll results: http://www.gallup.com/poll/152372/Obama ... 20Approval.........

........with analysis: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer. ... oss/352881

Well, Newt's candidacy has just been sunk......

Sources: Trump to endorse Newt
Politico.com

Word started leaking out in Las Vegas earlier that Donald Trump's "major announcement" is to back Newt Gingrich, and sources are confirming it to POLITICO.

The announcement is expected to come at an 11:30 a.m. press conference tomorrow that The Donald is holding.

That's all I can do is laugh. The Republican primary has become a joke.

74novaman wrote:

74novaman wrote:

bayouhazard wrote:Ron might care because word is the GOP is playing the mafia card and threating his family for what he does.

If you can find a source for that other than world net daily, I'd be interested.

Because it frankly sounds like a total fabrication.

Still interested in a source for this or if its just made up Paulistinian delusion.

Word.

bayouhazard wrote:Ron might care because word is the GOP is playing the mafia card and threating his family for what he does.

Even if they keep Ron Paul in line, the GOP still has the problem of coming up with someone worth votng FOR. If the do that, they will have no problem beatng Obama if they don't then they're going to have a hard time.

They need a candidate who shows they think Obama is taking America inthe wrong direction. With Romney they're saying they like Obama's direction, but want to go down that road at 55 mph instead of 75 mph.

My point is that Ron Paul is as much of a RINO as Mitt Romney. He is a Libertarian at heart, using Republican party resources to further his agenda. He doesn't really belong in the Republican party. He has no personal philosophical attachment to the party. He is an agent provocateur. That's all he is.

Now, if he wants to take off the sheep's clothing and run as a Libertarian, I will then have no beef with him because that will be an honest representation of who he is. I may not agree with him then, but I can at least respect him. But until he does that, he is simply trying to bring the Republican party down from the inside, and I despise him for that. Further, it is a complete mystery to me why the party leadership even continues to condone his membership in the party. His continued membership is destructive. If he's going to contribute to Obama's election, let him at least do it out in the open, as an honest Libertarian. Until then, I see him as a profoundly dishonest man.

stroguy wrote:That basically makes Paulie an agent of Obama if he doesn't throw his support for the Republican.

The problem is that Ron Paul won't do that. He never has in the past, and if he's true to form, he won't this time either. He's not a party stalwart. He uses the party to leverage his campaign resources, but he doesn't give a cup of warm spit about it. Therefore, his disciples will do what they always do, and if Ron Paul does't endorse the nominee they will help Obama to a win. If I were the party chair, I would be sitting down with Ron Paul come late October and let him know in no uncertain terms that if he does not endorse the Republican candidate (if it isn't him), he will no longer have access to party resources going forward and his party membership will be terminated.

Oldgringo wrote:It disgustingly clear that the lamestream media ( to TAM) appears to desperately want the current POTUS to be re-elected.

When surveys indicate that democrats outnumber republicans 80% to 20% in the newsroom, it is surprising that even democrats believe that the press is unbiased and neutral. But it boggles the mind that 14% of republicans (in South Carolina) have a favorable opinion of the media (SOURCE). That's just stupid. The figure ought to be 0%. It just goes to show that there are some dumb republicans too.

tbrown wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:The woman he was having an affair out of wedlock with at the time, leading to his wife's asking for a divorce? The exact same adulteress who now accuses him of serial adultery and of being unfaithful to her. The hypocrisy is beyond belief. In the meantime, ABC's overtly political hack job on behalf of the democrats fails to mention that little detail.

If they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you.

I agree, and I'm not by any means defending Gingrich's infidelities. I'm only saying that the recent "scandal" is a case of the kettle calling the pot black.

RockingRook wrote:No matter what happens now an Obama re-election is certain.

The Republicans have been so busy beating each other up they forgot about
attacking Obama. Yes, they could be using their own campaigns to attack all of Obama's failed policies
and offering a solution to them. Instead of attacking each other with nonsense.

I think Obama has his 2nd term in the bag.

Chuck

I'm not convinced that Obama has it in the bag yet, but there is a very real risk of that happening. I will say this....Ronaldus Maximus would be appalled and rolling in his grave if he knew what republicans are doing to one another right now. We have a president whose policies are the biggest existential threat to this nation of any president's in history—a bigger threat than Al Qaeda, Iran, China, North Korea, or any other foreign nation or terrorist organization you care to mention—and republicans are busy hacking at one another with broadswords instead of turning them on Obama. Absolutely shameful. We don't deserve the win, but it is absolutely imperative that we get it. Things do look bad.

Another big headline.....big everywhere except the lamestream media.....is that South Carolina republican voters only have a 14% approval rating of the media after ABC's dirty tricks campaign with Gingrich's ex-wife (SOURCE). Just to put things in perspective, by the way, one of the popular leftist memes is that Gingrich divorced his ex-ex-wife on her deathbed. The TRUTH, as reported by all concerned including the allegedly dying wife (who wasn't dying at the time) is that she asked him for the divorce, and he merely returned the signed papers to her while she was in the hospital for a cancer treatment. One of her reasons for wanting a divorce is that Gingrich was unfaithful to him. The woman he was having an affair out of wedlock with at the time, leading to his wife's asking for a divorce? The exact same adulteress who now accuses him of serial adultery and of being unfaithful to her. The hypocrisy is beyond belief. In the meantime, ABC's overtly political hack job on behalf of the democrats fails to mention that little detail.

Interesting development..... Perry withdrawing, and will be endorsing Gingrich in a little while.

Ashlar wrote:Huntsman was too sane and rational. Not enough fire-breathing.

Face it, the republican primaries are about 'How far ultra-conservative can you go..' and then the nominee has to course-correct himself for the general election to appeal to the rest of the country.

I don't think that explains why Romney has maintained his steady lead over the others in the primaries. All those folks who are trying to "out-conservative" one another are losing to Romney so far.

The problem is that this contest to outdo one another has become a distraction, and the candidates are really chewing one another up. They are acting out a caricature of conservatism, not the real thing. This is the most virulent republican primary that I can recall, and democrats are loving it. Our guys are spending all their energies on character assassination of one another, and Obama is getting off scott free. Every single primary candidate ought to be refusing to engage in this crap, and instead focus all of their energies on exposing the fraud, moral bankruptcy, economic ignorance, and mendacity of this this administration.

If they don't stop it, we're going to lose the election and the future existence of this country to Obama's promise to remake it into something unrecognizable as American.

OldCannon wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:I've come to the conclusion that, unless something startling happens, Gingrich is going to fade, and the nomination is Romney's to lose. This is not a satisfying primary for me. I wish I could get 100% behind one of the primary candidates, but I just can't get there yet.

It's the first primary. It's not over for any of the candidates unless they quit.

Oh, I realize that, and I am referring to the entire primary campaign, not just the Iowa Caucuses.

I've come to the conclusion that, unless something startling happens, Gingrich is going to fade, and the nomination is Romney's to lose. This is not a satisfying primary for me. I wish I could get 100% behind one of the primary candidates, but I just can't get there yet.