Haw! That's pretty much what I said when Dole endorsed Romney.

Wow. What a coup. Just imagine the impact this will have on the race. This could bump Santorum up another .005 percent.

This is an endorsement of Santorum I can live with. It serves as a reminder to voters that if the incumbent can make the race about the challenger, the incumbent can win, even if he is unpopular (and Obama is not nearly as unpopular as Harry Reid). If Santorum is the candidate we will have to here about is opposition to the use of contraception and his inarticulate statements (man on dog) about homosexuality for several months, and the media will love going there. It is the same thing that happened to Angle, O'Donnell, and Buck, people will be too busy gawking at a candidate's peculiar beliefs on something to notice that the country is going to hell.

Interesting all the ire that Santorum is raising now that he's getting a little more attention after Newt's collosal collapse in his one-on-one shot at Romney. Richard worries because the media would make the election about Santorum instead of the incumbent...that's funny because there's no way the media would ever make a race between Obama and Newt about his erratic personality, ethics problems or moral failings, and they would never try to make a Romney-Obama race about his patrician disconnect, "I like being able to fire people," "I'm not concerned about the poor" statements. Bottom line: conservatives will always get unfair treatment from the MSM. Santorum's supposed peculiarities at least can be dismissed more easily. On contraception, wasn't Stephanopoulos taken to task for trying to turn contraception--a total non-issue--into something in the debates? For Romney, the class warfare that will inevitably be waged cannot be sloughed off or addressed so easily. As to the homosexuality remarks, all Santorum has to say is: "I'm not going to spend time on remarks that I made X years ago and have repeatedly clarified in the past. I believe people have the right to live their lives as they choose and homosexuals shoul not be subjected to discrimination. The real issue with homosexuality in this election regards traditional marriage, and on that, why don't you ask Pres. Obama. He and I both support defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman." Done. Don't get sucked in and he'll be okay. (I'll admit, he made a big misstep in NH trying to educate snotty college kids on the topic. Getting booed at your own campaign event right after a huge unexpected showing in Iowa IS NOT a good way to harness momentum. Let that be the last time.) BTW, there once was another candidate who said something really dumb after a huge win and turned the whole day into a discussion about said dumb remark... No candidate in this field is immune.

Wonderful. The only person in the entire State of Nevada who could have lost that election to Harry Reid. Good luck with that, Rick.

Spam. Ignore.

I supported Rubio over Crist, he was always a better candidate and more electable than Crist, and I didn't have any doubt that he would win over the very weak candidate the Democrats put up. If Crist didn't go 3rd party he lost to the Democrat, I would probably blame Rubio more than the people who voted for him in the primary because there was no way that he should have lost that election.

Reid's unfavorables in Nevada (not just nationwide) were also very high in 2009-2010 before Sharon Angle was nominated, in January of 2010 they were at 33% in Nevada, much lower than Tom Daschle's were in South Dakota and lower than Obama's are now. There is no doubt that Sharon "Ooh you like Chinese to me.", "We should think about bringing back prohibition." Angle gave Reid more of an opening than otherwise would have been the case.

As for the contraception thing, O'Donnell was not proposing that we outlaw masterbation, it did not matter, it was an issue and a major distraction. As for Santorum's past statements on gays, gay people are not the only ones who find them offensive.

So Richard, there is a large number of straight people itching to vote Obama out of office because of this economy, but they will choose to keep him another four years because of Rick's words in defending traditional marriage.

OK...

But how does that number stack up with the number of folks upset at the economy who see our nominee say he doesn't care about poor people, I like to fire people etc.

You see this argument always come back to self-contradiction. I hear over and over how nobody cares about voting for social conservative issues in this election, yet at the same time apparently people care enough to vote for Obama against the social conservative candidate.

Now, Romney and/or Newt will have to answer these questions about abortion, gays and so forth. Are you expecting them to moderate their answers to appeal to the social liberals? If so, how many votes will THAT cost us. If Romney has a 'Ted Kennedy election moment' you can count on a 40 state landslide loss.

And if they don't moderate, won't they get trashed too?

Santorum doesn't have all the OTHER baggage these two have.

The "I like to fire people" and the "I don't worry about the very poor" are taken out of context, but Romney does need to work on that. I still think Romney would fair better in a general election than the alternatives despite those gaffes (yes, people care more about contraception than poverty, hell most poor people care more about contraception than poverty), every candidate is bound to make gaffes. In 2008 it is was Obama talking about the "bitter clingers" and McCain saying that the economy was "fundamentally strong." In 2004, if my memory serves me right, it was Bush stumbling over Tim Russert's question over whether or not Iraq was a "war of choice" and Kerry saying that he voted for troop supply funding "before he voted against it."

Actually the biggest problem with his position on social issues (which I admit isn't a top priority for me at the federal level as it is for some) is not the position he holds policy, but when and how Santorum articulates his positions on things that are and are not policy related, just as it was a problem (to a greater extent, but against lesser able opponents) for Buck, O'Donnell and Angle (actually she did take some really stupid policy positions). He all too often looks like the Washington Generals, he makes a great foil for his opponents.

On the question of the social issues questions Santorum actually could take some notes from Romney on how to answer them. The way Romney answered the contraception question at the ABC News debate in New Hampshire is the best way to deal with that question, instead of saying that it is not the way it was intended to be, or whatever he says. The reality is most Americans, and even most Catholics these days, don't agree with him on this issue, he is not going to convince anyone that he is right, and as a candidate for president (not pope or bishop) he is wasting his breath trying to defend a religious position that he holds that he isn't proposing we do something with as a policy. It isn't going to gain him any votes. On gay marriage (which unlike Santorum, I think should remain a state issue), Santorum should avoid getting into debates with college students, nobody is impressed when he (JD and MBA) wins an argument with a 19 year old Freshman in college just out of high school. If college students ask him about his position on gay marriage, he should say that he agrees with Barack Obama that marriage is between a man and a woman, and not talk about polygamy and incest and human-animal sex. (He could also listen to Romney defended his position on gay marriage, it was more articulate than Santorum has ever been on that issue. )

Just listen to Romney answer questions on contraception and gay marriage in the New Hampshire debate and then listen to Santorum answer those questions. If it were me, Romney is who I would want arguing my case for me, Santorum on the other hand does a really good job convincing people he is wrong, he managed to convince 59% of Pennsylvanians that he was the wrong candidate to vote for in 2006.