Monday, February 20, 2012

As the popularity of Mr. Gingrich melts down, Mr. Santorum now leads in national popularity

Mr. Santorum rises over 9 points this week to sit at 37% and take the national lead. Mr. Romney loses about 2 and a half point to sit at 31.2%. While all non Santorum candidates lose something this week, the biggest decliner is Mr. Gingrich, who now sits at 15.1% dropping almost 7 points. Dr. Paul slips less than a full point to sit at 12.9%. Not only did we get a lot of national and state data, one polling company gave us regional data for the South which suggests that Mr. Gingrich is bleeding to Mr. Santorum at a greater rate than the nation as a whole. So now Mr. Santorum leads in the South as well as in the Midwest. So he is on course to land at 892 elected delegates; an increase of almost 400. Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich lose over 150 projected elected delegates. Mr. Romney sits now at 783 and Mr. Gingrich sits at 298. Dr. Paul slips just a bit to sit at 148. On the one hand, Mr. Santorum currently has momentum; on the other hand, Mr. Romney only needs a slight increase in popular opinion to tie Mr. Santorum in projected delegates mostly because he has a head start in elected delegates. So in any event, we are in for an exciting ride.

I was going to write a post about Ohio only, but for various reasons, I will hold most of my fire and just write part of the story here. On Friday morning, we were all given a heads up that somebody in Ohio was going to endorse Mr. Santorum. I had my hopes up that it would be our great Governor, Mr. Kasich, but it appears that Mr. Kasich will remain neutral. Instead, our AG, Dr. Dewine announced that he was abandoning the Romney camp in favor of Mr. Santorum. Objectively, this is not a bad thing for the Santorum camp; most Santorumites like anybody else will take support wherever they can get it. Even though, I am only an honorary Santorumite instead of a real McCoy Santorumite, I am not a happy camper to have such a clown in my quasi-camp. At least he did not bring his evil cousin with him. I suspect this was a move of political opportunity. Had he stayed in the Romney camp, he would have to justify two years from now to Ohioans why he supported the author of MAcare.

Recently, I was too busy at work the day Mr. Kasich made an historic visit to my CD, so I could not have lunch with him. One of the small perk about being an indirect member of the establishment class is that one gets invited to meet such people. When Mr. Santorum visits my district work commitment will not allow me to sneak out and see him speak. My children will might go see him either with a Gingrichite family who might jump ship to the Santorum camp or they might go with a friend of mine who converted away from Romneyism a few days after ObamaCare passed. While Mr. Santorum has no CD delegate candidates, he stands to win a good portion of our votes at the state level. The Romney camp is also mindful of this as they have begun their negative advertising assault against Mr. Santorum on the CD’s main TV station this morning. I for one was rather entertained that there biggest problem with Mr. Santorum was that he raised the debt ceiling 5 times. It is naïve to believe that Mr. Romney would have raised it any less than 5 fives. It will be interesting to see how many people they fool.

While I might give a few more bucks to a Santorum PAC, my interest in the federal scene is limited. I shall donate to Mr. Walker to stand in solidarity with the Wisconites, but my main political activities will be to promote Pro-Kasich committee-people over the next few weeks. I keep pamphelets in my coat pocket of Right-Wing Pro-Kasich candidates to give out to Republicans as I see them around town and I stand with Mr. Kasich in the Ohio Civil War. Some of my colleagues have divided loyalties and want to be loyal to both Mr. Kasich and the party hacks in our state capital. Man (Ohioans in this case) cannot have divide loyalties. There will come a time to chose between Mr. Kasich and the party hack. Outside the blogoshere, ironically, I am a quiet man, but when it comes to the Ohio civil war, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what side I am on.

For various reasons, I will at least take a break from the blogoshere. I wish RW and Lionhead best wishes to carry on the fight. I like to thank Mr. Bosman for the opportunity here and wish everybody a Happy Easter.

14 comments:

Unknown said...

The National polls are slow to respond compared to states where elections are taking place. Regular people don't pay much attention to politics at this stage. Do you really think Mr. Santorum will be popular among the moderates and independents--the 5 million votes in the middle that have to swing from Obama to GOP to win this thing?

Unknown said...

Oj, Seems as though you are doing a good thing in Ohio. I wish you luck there. I don't understand why you are so slow to understand the difference between a STATE health care program that had an impact on 8% of the people already be paid for by the state, compared to Obama care that seeks to take over the whole ball game. You gave me that "what about the other 49" before, which makes no sense. We probably don't disagree on all that much, but you remain so think headed on MAcare. Besides Mitt said he would get rid of it right way, so end of issue; but you just kept on that same drum beat.

Machtyn said...

"Had he stayed in the Romney camp, he would have to justify two years from now to Ohioans why he supported the author of MAcare."

Of course, now he has to justify supporting the candidate that wants to regulate our personal lives and votes for more indebtedness. Raising the debt ceiling is not as bad as some make it out to be, but it isn't good. You add that on to his earmarks and cronyism... Santorum is not that great of a candidate. Also, he has to justify supporting the candidate that is so disorganized he can't even get on the CD ballot. (Not to mention other state's ballots - IN, VA, etc.)

Slick-Willy said...

dgenetaylor -

Forget OJ. He's a nice guy, but there's little rational to his hate for Mitt. He's willing to forgive all sins of any other candidate, but holds on to anything negative (true or false) stated about Mitt. OJ's not a bigot as far as I can tell (see RWN/Lionhead), but his anti-Mitt motivation is deep and beyond reasonable.

Anonymous said...

Dewine made 3 endorsements in 6 months! Tpaw, Mitt and now Santy.

Ohio JOE said...

"He's willing to forgive all sins of any other candidate," I certainly did not forgive Mr. Gingrich, so why should I forgive Mr. Romney.

"Santorum is not that great of a candidate." Yes, there is some truth to that, we do not have any great candidates currently.

Ohio JOE said...

"I don't understand why you are so slow to understand the difference between a STATE health care program that had an impact on 8% of the people already be paid for by the state, compared to Obama care that seeks to take over the whole ball game." Well, Mr. Taylor, for the record, I do not believe that Mr. Romney purposely set out to sabotage America's health care system. However, Mr. Obama used MAcare as political cover. I am not happy this his lack of judgement led to this. I admit I have an axe to grind against free market distortions in health care. I talked to my maother yesterday and she told me about recently visiting my uncle (her little brother) and he took ill. When she took him to the hospital, he sat in a lounch chair in the emergency home for the better part of the night. It took hours for him to be seen and he eventually received pain medication. That is just one story. In short, I did not come to America for the same story. We can do better here.

Anonymous said...

ROMNEY 2012!!!

Lionhead said...

Ohio JOE, I understand your taking a break from the blogosphere. I wish you well in your absence. I think I will follow you, but maybe for different reasons.

After going through & seeing all the shenanigans, misdeeds & other questionable acts & tactics, of the predominate political parties, I'm going to do some serious research & writing on the AmericansElect.org idea. Charles Hugh Smith has laid out well the case & need for a new process in candidate selection. As we've all seen recently, the current process is becoming more dysfunctional each election cycle. When the problem of secure internet voting is resolved, I believe this idea will fundamentally change the election process for the good.

For the Charles Hugh Smith story, "Presidents Day: Why Can't We Nominate Our Own President? We Can, We Are" go here:

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogfeb12/nominate-our-own-pres2-12.html

In any event, engaging in circular debates over each candidates pros & cons is not solving the underlying problems in candidate selection. It's time to take action on a positive process that will have a far more profound & lasting effect. Since I have disassociated myself from the GOP, I no longer feel the need to be a part of the two party system.

Best to you & your family & the same to Right Wingnut. And Good bye to all.

Machtyn said...

OJ:

I agree, we can do better in the US. Currently, our ER is pretty bad, unless you are dying. We can thank the Democrats and Reagan for that.

But, to lay MACare at the feet of Romney, solely, is to deny many things that went into its creation.
1. The people demanded reform.
2. The legislature wanted to give "free" health care to the people and raise taxes
3. Romney studied the problem and determined he wanted to incentivize the citizenry to purchase private insurance - to take care of the 8% that were freeloading for whatever reason.
4. Romney knew his original intentions would not fly with the legislature (being 85% democrat).
5. He utilized The Heritage Foundation and used Republican ideas to create the mandate program.
6. He presented this approach as a free market approach to fix the problem. He got the legislature to sign off on it, he got the insurance companies to agree to it, and he got the people of MA to agree to it.
7. The liberal legislature modified some of the more atrocious parts and rammed it through. (Veto proof)
8. When it was signed, he stated that this could be a model for the country (not a model for the Federal Gov't).
9. Obama knew that Romney was still a threat for 2012. He had an axe to grind and he was grinding it on every Republican he could - McCain was twice "reminded" that "[Obama] won, get over it". That Obama claims to have used MACare as a model was a ploy... and the Republicans have fallen hook, line, and sinker on that bait.

Frankly, the Republican media, and the base, have summarily fallen into the Democrat manipulation of our Primary. Obama is first, and foremost, a campaigner. He never stopped campaigning after he won. It is what he does best. But he knows that Romney is a clear danger to his re-election. Santorum is sorely unprepared and Gingrich is sorely disorganized. Ron Paul would have a shot if he weren't so Libertarian.

Romney really is prepared to turn this nation around. No other candidate has presented themselves as a viable option to lead this country out of its dire strait. No other candidate has the unique talents Romney has at fixing economic and monetary crises. He is the right guy for this time.

Terrye said...

I don't think this will last..there are too many things about Santorum that are weird and out of the mainstream.

BOSMAN said...

OJ,

I hope all is well with you and your family and although we disagree on some issues, I always appreciate your input at Right Speak.

I hope you will return soon to help keep some balance on this site and to keep us informed with your election analysis.

Anonymous said...

Machtyn

I completely agree with your point on how Obama and the Dems have completely manipulated the GOP primaries with the Romneycare nonissue.

Since I am in Healthcare I completely see how Romneycare is nothing like Obamacare and has been strategically used by the Democratic propaganda machine and the right wing pundits to destroy Romney. Romney was not responsible for much of the garbage placed in the bill since he left office in Jan 2007. The bill was signed in April of 2006 but the bill was not implemented until 2008 under governor Duval Patrick(Obama's buddy).

I bet Obama and Duval are having a good laugh at how they are influencing the GOP primary by making Romney the scapegoat for Obamacare.

The entire GOP primary process has turned into one big joke. I find it quite sad that Republicans like OJ are falling for Obama's accusations.

I became irritated with Santorum when he knowingly made false claims that Romneycare was a top down government takeover of healthcare and when he also made false claims that Romney supported cap and trade when in reality Romney was one of the two governors that did not sign on to the northeastern cap and trade legislation. This legislation was pushed in 9 states.

Santorum only whines about Romney's negative attacks because Santorum himself has no record of being a strong leader....only a follower. He followed GWB's lead and signed off on all of GWB's trillions in spending deficits....and that is a fact!Santorum is not a leader,he is a follower.

Ohio JOE said...

Thanks you very Bosman. Best wishes to you, your family, the Bruins and the Celtics.