Santorum at CPAC 2012: Leads Romney by 15 Points Nationally in Latest Poll
Rick Santorum’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference convention this week. According to The Hill, the impact of the speech on the conservative audience was electric. Go here to read the story. Coming off his trifecta wins on Tuesday, Santorum is now neck and neck with Romney in national polls, and is beginning to see poll results where he outpolls Romney against Obama. We may be witnessing one of the greatest comebacks in American political history.
Political parties need to stand for something. Santorum clearly reflects most of the views of the Republican base, while Romney, who talked at CPAC this week about his alleged “severely conservative” political record, speaks “conservative” as if it were a foreign language, as, indeed, I suspect it is for him. In a nutshell that is why Romney, with vastly more money than Santorum, and with GOP establishment endorsements that go on forever, may, just may, end up losing to a man every political commentator, including the author of this post, considered to be wasting his time running for president.
Update: And right on cue, a new Public Policy Polling poll was released this morning showing Santorum in the lead nationally for the nomination by fifteen points, 38-23.
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Speaking only for myself….I need to do more fasting and prayer so that Santorum wins this year. Oh, the schadenfrude I would enjoy from the likes of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and the Lame Stream Media would be icing on the cake, but that cannot be the primary reason.
A life preserver has been thrown our way. Will enough Americans recognize it?
What a blessing for America — Rick Santorum will be president and he will be one of the greatest US presidents ever.
He is the only candidate worth taking the presidency and bringing America back to what she was founded on. Rick Santorum’s vision and policies are the best I have heard from any western leaders in 30 years! God bless and protect Rick Santorum – presidential candidate. We all know the truth — he is the only one who can and will do the job.. He is a brilliant, good and wise man — with a great love for God, for the Declaration of Independence – ‘all men are created equal’… — and he is a man of greath faith who loves his family and his own people.— What more could you ask for.
I wish we had him in Canada..— !!
Santorum still has to answer for his throwing Pat Toomey, a very electable conservative, under the bus when he endorsed Arlen Specter in the 2004 GOP senate primary. It, for one, shows he can be bought off by the GOP establishment. And no, this “We have to support our incumbents’ BS won’t fly. Santorum did a very bad thing then and that’s that!
The base needs to hold him accountable for it and he has to do a mea culpla. Period!
Santorum already has expressed regret over his endorsement, and conservatives have certainly have held his feet to the fire on it. What more exactly needs be done?
“Santorum already has expressed regret over his endorsement, and conservatives have certainly have held his feet to the fire on it. What more exactly needs be done?”
Paul can you provide examples of both? I have followed this pretty closely and haven’t heard conservatives say much about this or Santorum express regret. If you can provide suffcient examples I wouild galdly stand corrected.
See here with a link to an interview, and his rationale for why he endorsed Specter. Note my name in the comments suggesting that this was a wrong-headed reason, though I can understand that at the time the composition of the Senate was in doubt, and he thought that we were going to need Specter’s vote to get Bush SCOTUS nominees confirmed. In retrospect he was wrong, but hindsight is admittedly 20/20.
As for conservative angst about the Specter endorsement, you can’t read one thread about Santorum on a conservative blog without it being brought up. It was the reason that many conservatives were originally reticent about fully supporting him.
I saw it as wrongheaded at the time. What help was Arlen Specter in getting SCOTUS nominees confirmed that warranted his being endorsed over Toomey? After all, Specter’s relibiality in that area was doubtful at best. Just ask Robert Bork. And by 2004, this was clearly 20/20 hindsight. No, Santorum did this for purely selfish reasons, hoping his endorsement of Specter would help him in an uphill fight with Casey, which of course, he lost by an 18 point drubbing.
But think about it. If you’re Romney, this would be his best trump card. He can play this to hilt in painting Santorum as an establishment sellout. And those of us who don’t want Romeny can’t say a damned thing about it because it is true.
What more can be done?, you ask Paul. Well, for starters, Santorum can actually man up and admit he was selling out to curry favor with Bush and the rest of the GOP establishment and stop insulting our intelligence with that lame excuse he gave. I say this as someone who wants him to get the nomination.
As far as conservatives holding his feet to the fire, so what if a bunch rather obscure conservative blogs talk about it. Nowhere in any real national venue, like talk radio for example has this been dealt with in any substative way. Mark Levin, who is probably Satorum’s most vocal supporer in national talk radio, hasn’t said boo about it as far as I know and I have listened to him rather regularly. Hugh Hewitt talked about it in passing on his show with Byron York, I think it was.
So, I stand by my original assertion.
What help was Arlen Specter in getting SCOTUS nominees confirmed that warranted his being endorsed over Toomey? After all, Specter’s relibiality in that area was doubtful at best. Just ask Robert Bork.
Santorum’s endorsement was contingent on getting this promise from Specter. Specter was slated to become Chair of the Judiciary Cmte, and for what it’s worth, he did forcefully back both Alito and Roberts. Santorum thought Specter was more of a sure thing in the general than Toomey, and this was at a time when it looked like the Senate could be up for grabs. Even at the time I thought Santorum was being overly pessimistic both as regards to Toomey and the Senate in general, but it was a reasonable gambit. But he was wrong, and I fully concede that.
He can play this to hilt in painting Santorum as an establishment sellout. And those of us who don’t want Romeny can’t say a damned thing about it because it is true.
Sure Romney is going to play this to the hilt, and it’s an admitted weakness. But somehow it pales into comparison to lavishing praise on ted Kennedy after signing into law the legislation that would become the model for Obamacare.
Well, for starters, Santorum can actually man up and admit he was selling out to curry favor with Bush and the rest of the GOP establishment and stop insulting our intelligence with that lame excuse he gave.
So in other words, he should proffer an apology that may or may not actually have any basis in fact. That you deem the excuse lacking does not mean it was not precisely why Santorum gave the endorsement.
so what if a bunch rather obscure conservative blogs talk about it.
Obscure blogs like National Review, Hot Air, Ace of Spades? Seriously? This has been brought up every single time Santorum is even under dicussion.
Nowhere in any real national venue, like talk radio for example has this been dealt with in any substative way.
I suspect I listen to as much talk radio as anyone. It has been brought up – by Levin as well. He didn’t excuse Santorum’s endorsement, but he did mention it at some point. Rush has discussed it as well. In fact, I believe both have discussed the Santorum endorsement of Specter as a talking point likely to be brought up by Romney’s camp.
Now, Paul, Specter’s being slated to become judiciary chair was actually all the more reason to primary him, given his suspect reliability. You mean to tell me that there weren’t already more suitable and reliable republicans availible to fill that post? And that Santorum didn’t know it? Sorry, I’m not buying it. At the very least Santorum should have stayed out of that. He didn’t have to endorse anyone. Based upon the facts we do know, the reason I cite is far more plausable than the excuse he gave.
As the tight Presidential polls that year indicated, there was every prospect that 2004 was going to be a bad year for the Republicans. The Democrats had slightly more seats up than the Republicans, 19-15 in the Senate that year, but the playing ground was fairly even. On election night Kentucky, Florida and Alaska were fairly close, and South Dakota was won by a hair. Control of the Senate would have shifted if those elections had gone the other way, and they might well have.
I think what Santorum did was reasonable at the time, assuming that one’s goal is to have Supreme Court justices on the Court that will overturn Roe. Bush lost Pennsylvania to Kerry, and I think it likely that Toomey might well have been defeated that year, considering that he only got 51% of the vote in 2010, the best election year for Republicans since Calvin Coolidge was in office, and running against a rather weak Democrat opponent.
Oh goodie. Conservatives are all ga-ga over another neo-con puppet who can’t wait to start another war. By all means, let’s ignore that pesky little idea known as a Just War. No thanks. Warmongering and the lies that form the basis of such criminal activity is why God will not bless this nation until a leader can be found who possesses discernment. One more reason among many the US is headed for Divine chastisement.
Bye, bye Dawg em. I am sure that there is a paleocon site waiting breathlessly for your contributions.
Mr. McClarey, thank you for dismissing the gentleman with the rather old Cleveland Browns related name.
Greg, you have to get over the endorsement of Specter by Santorum. We are not electing Christ to the presidency. Santorum has expressed his regret in helping Specter. Do you live in Pennsylvania, Greg? Did you know how much help Specter gave Santorum in getting elected to the Senate – twice? Specter helped Santorum compete in the Philly suburbs.
Specter switched parties when it was apparent to Specter that Toomey would wipe up the floor with Specter in 2010 – this was not the case in 2004.
I do not, did not and will not like Arlen Specter. I wish he would have quit years before losing in 2010. So Romney wants to attack Santorum for Specter?
There’s plenty to go after Romney for. I remembere the Massachusetts Senate debate in 1994 on CSPAN. Romney was slightly leading Kennedy. Romney was asked about the Contract with America – the means by which Newt Gingrich and Company wiped out the most corrupt Democrat leadership in the House of Representatives. Romney turned tail and verbally hid from the moderator. Kennedy moved in for the kill.
Romney will attack Santorum, but Romney is still a well tailored, well-spoken ninny. Santorum can roast him about Romneycare, and Mittens knows it.