Omnibus GOP Primary ThreadFollow

Just watched Game Change. Had to make myself a stiff drink halfway through (an Old Fashioned.) Slurring my words now, but all I can do is hope and pray that RMoney or Ayatollah Santorum come up with someone even halfway as entertaining is Silly Sarah.

I keep seeing it appear on the guide, but the few times I want to actually watch TV there's always something more interesting than Palin on.

If this is the criterion you're working on, it's going to be a very long time before you ever watch Palin.

News is that Santorum failed to file for full slates of delegates in... Pennsylvania. His home state. So despite leading by double digits, he's still going to cede delegates without a fight.

Showing once again that Santorum was not serious when he entered the race and his spot as the favored "Non-Romney" candidate took him by surprise.

What I can't decide is whether he's the spoiler for Gingrich, or the other way 'round.

You mean the somewhat moderate GOP presidential candidate will get a crazy super conservative running mate and hurt his chances with the moderates?

Didn't that happen before? Or did they think they needed to go MORE super conservative, and that was the problem?

Edited, Mar 16th 2012 8:58pm by TirithRR

He wasn't popular though until Iowa after Cain dropped out and Perry made a fool of himself at the debates and Gingrich was on his popularity roller coaster. Santorum, by all appearances, got into the race just to raise his national profile and try to restore his political image after losing his senatorial re-election campaign by 20 points in 2008. He didn't work to build a national campaign and by the time it looked as though he'd need one, he didn't have the manpower or money for it. Ballot petitions take people in those areas to canvass for signatures, those people require coordination which means a central state office ($) with paid staffers ($$). Compared to Romney who has done nothing but run for president since 2007 with the backing of party establishment types to build a strong infrastructure. It's the difference between someone who decides to go to college and meets with the adviser each semester, has a list of all the required classes and what would transfer, etc and someone who just ***** around and picks random classes each year until it's nine months to "graduation", he still hasn't taken his science requirements and he's begging professors to let him enter their full classes.

Part of it is still his own direct doing, though. Even after his rise, he thought he could be "different" from those "Washington types" with a decentralized campaign. I know GOPers just hate conventional wisdom and what the experts say and stuff but there's a reason why analysts look at this stuff when guessing who has the best chances. As for why he still gets support, I suppose it's a healthy mix of (A) has no idea this stuff is going on, (B) buys into "He's just running a different campaign from those career politicians", (C) he isn't Willard 'Mitt' Romney and (D) is really against butt sex.

Romney's adaptive. His views are what ever it takes to get him elected.

Other than the pandering to the far right during this primary season, I think he's more moderate than Newt and Santorum.

Edit:
I read that as a question, yet... there was no question mark.
I guess I don't know what you are getting at. I thought you were saying someone was going to be Romney's VP...

Edited, Mar 17th 2012 7:29am by TirithRR

No, I'm saying that Romney already had the moderate factions locked up in sensibility and meh factor. The other two would need to make some sort of super pact and combine their more extremist factions to one cohesive unit to actually contest this primary. The only question is who takes top slot, the adulterer who was kicked out of the legislature, or the guy who's the opposite of a policy wonk who really hates non-traditional marriage.

Now, this is still a hugely remote chance, but it's the only scenario I can see which is running at greater than a 0% chance to win a ticket slot, and I included one where Romney reveals that "He admires Hitler's methods for creating an efficient government."

I think violating a few gun laws would make him a more attractive candidate.

Santorum is way behind now in Illinois when he should be close to even. God only knows why he wasted the weekend campaigning in Puerto Rico. What a tard.

On the plus side, this solves my "which ballot to grab" problem nicely.

You can all blame Santorum's Illinois loss on me since I grabbed a Democratic ballot yesterday afternoon. And, as it turns out, only two races on the ballot were even contested and one was for Precinct Committeeman or some such. Maybe the 2016 GOP contest will drag out until Illinois again!

Unrelated to Illinois...