Rick On A Roll

[Mike]

(Reuters) - Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum claimed a surge of momentum and fundraising on Wednesday, a day after his shocking sweep of nominating contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri that dealt a blow to front-runner Mitt Romney.

Even though Romney holds strong advantages in financing and organization, his campaign will have to refocus to fight the challenge from Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania known for his socially conservative views.

"We definitely are the campaign with the momentum, the enthusiasm on the ground," Santorum said on CNN.

For Romney, Tuesday's results included losses in two states - Colorado and Minnesota - that he won in his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign. Minnesota also became the first state where Romney did not end up in first or second place.

The startling results raised fresh doubts about whether Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive and former Massachusetts governor, can extend his support from the party establishment to win over a broad swath of Republican voters.

 

[Steve]

Santorum needs to fine tune his message on manufacturing and get it out now..

I've proposed is to cut the corporate tax for all manufacturers from 35 percent to zero," said Santorum. "You cut the tax rate to zero, you create a real launching pad for exports here in America."

Santorum stressed the need to "revitalize" the nation's manufacturing base. "We went from about 21 percent of jobs in this country when I was a kid being in manufacturing down to 9. That's -- we lost those jobs overseas. We need to bring them back," he said.

Santorum also called for lawmakers to ramp up spending cuts in Washington. "We are headed toward almost 40 to 50 percent of the overall economy being government if we don't do something about these entitlement programs. That's the big problem," he said.

 

[Tam]

What surprised me last night was when Governor Pawlenty dropped out of the race he endorsed Romney's campaign. He campaigned for Romney in Minnesota yet Romney took third behind Ron Paul. What does that say for Pawlenty's support in his home state? Maybe there was a very good reason he dropped out early.

 

[ranch hand]

I would like to see Santorum win, but heard he never made it on the ballot in a few state. Is this true?

 

[Anonymous]

McCain blames turnout (not Romney) for Tuesday results

Posted by
CNN Producer Gabriella Schwarz

(CNN) – Republican Sen. John McCain downplayed Tuesday's election results and placed the blame for Mitt Romney's losses on low voter turnout.
"I think this really was very small numbers of people that turned out and I respect their views, but I don't believe they are representative of the broad majority of Republican voters," McCain said Wednesday in an interview set to run on CNN's "John King USA." "I really believe that when you have 1% of the registered voters turning out that that's not a very good indicator."

Romney lost Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, all which experienced lower voter turnout than in 2008, to rival candidate Rick Santorum.

McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and Romney supporter, said voters in the three states did not feel they would have a "significant direct impact" on the race of the White House.

Although the Arizona senator said endorsements probably matter "zip," he is still hopeful Romney will do well on Super Tuesday, when Arizona, along with nine other states, holds early contests.

"It's never easy nor should it be easy, and I think he'll be a much better candidate against President Obama once he emerges victorious," McCain told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.

I think this is again indicative of the lack of direction and the great division that has been within the Repub party for the last several years..

This poster to Cafferty's question of how it changes the race probably sums it up best as to what it means:

It doesn't. Just because a majority of Republicans in MO, CO, and MN want to party like its 1799 doesn't mean the rest of Republicanville does. The Republican Establishment will not allow the Christian Taliban to destroy their chances of defeating a relavitely weak President. That's what happened last time with Palin. They won't let it happen again.

And I agree with that poster- I don't believe Santorum stands any chance of beating Obama- where Romney does...

 

[Mike]

No one I know of really cares who you think can beat Obama. :roll:

 

[hypocritexposer]

OT is just hoping if anybody beats obama, it will be a Liberal, so he can continue to receive his freebies, which his great granchild are on the hook for.

 

[Anonymous]

Why has GOP turnout taken a dive?

By John Avlon, CNN Contributor
updated 2:29 PM EST, Wed February 8, 2012



Editor's note: John Avlon is a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is co-editor of the book "Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns."

(CNN) -- Beneath Rick Santorum's stunning three-state sweep on Tuesday stands another stubborn sign of dissatisfaction with the status quo: Republican turnout is down.

I'm talking embarrassingly, disturbingly, hey-don't-you-know-it's-an-election-year bad. It is a sign of a serious enthusiasm gap among the rank and file, and a particularly bad omen for Mitt Romney and the GOP in the general election.

Here's the tale of the tape, state by state, beginning with Tuesday night: Minnesota had just more than 47,000 people turn out for its caucuses this year -- four years ago it was nearly 63,000 -- and Romney came in first, not a distant third as he did Tuesday night. In Colorado, more than 70,000 people turned out for its caucus in 2008 -- but in 2012 it was 65,000. And Missouri -- even making a generous discount for the fact that this was an entirely symbolic contest -- had 232,000 people turn out, less than half the number who did four years ago.

Even with months of pre-primary hype and attention solely devoted to the Republican field, turnout in this election cycle essentially flat-lined. In Iowa, a little more than 121,000 people voted, compared with nearly 119,000 four years before, when action in the Democratic caucuses absorbed most of the attention.


In New Hampshire, the same dynamic applied -- 245,000 voters turned out in 2012, compared with 241,000 four years before, despite Republicans being the only game in town and independents making up 47% of the total turnout in 2012, according to CNN exit polls. Take out the independent voters and you've got a deep net decline.

Always proudly rebellious, South Carolina has been the great outlier in this election cycle. With Newt Gingrich making an all-out push for conservatives in a conservative state, turnout was up almost 150,000 over four years before.

But in Florida, the decline became unmistakable. Maybe it decreased because the Romney and Gingrich campaigns, plus super PACS, spent more than $18 million in the Sunshine State on TV ads, of which 93% were negative in the last week alone, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group. After all, negative ads depress turnout. But after all the mud was thrown, 1.6 million people turned out in the nation's fourth largest state, which might sound impressive until you compare it with the nearly 2 million who turned out in 2008.

Nevada was even worse, with 32,894 people turning out to vote in a state with more than 465,000 registered Republicans. Four years before, more than 44,300 participated in the caucus. Turnout was down more than 25% despite the GOP caucuses being the only game in town. Party officials were expecting a turnout of more than 70,000.



All this should be a wake-up call for the GOP. Despite an enormous amount of national media attention devoted to each of the states to date, the response has been a notable yawn among the Republican rank and file.
The turnout numbers are even worse when you compare them with the number of registered Republicans in each state that has voted to date.

The caucuses in particular bring out an unrepresentative sample of a state's Republican Party. For all the grass-roots romanticism, there has got to be a better way to pick a presidential nominee.

But the news is worst for Romney, long the presumptive front-runner in a party that tends to reward the man next in line.

"Reluctantly Romney" could be a bumper sticker, even for his supporters. The former Massachusetts governor has found it difficult to climb above 35% in national polls, meaning that a majority of Republicans still support someone else in a notably weak field. His vote margins and totals lag behind those of four years before, when he lost the nomination to John McCain in a crowded and comparatively competent field, although Minnesota is the first state he won in '08 and lost in 2012.

You reap what you sow, and part of the reason turnout is down is directly related to the problem of polarization. The Republican Party is more ideologically polarized than at any time in recent history. Therefore, it put up more purely right-wing candidates than it did four years before, when center-right leaders such as McCain and Rudy Giuliani were also in the race. A bigger tent inspired bigger turnout.

But the other reason is simple dissatisfaction with the candidates.

Republicans seem united in their anger against the president -- like the Democrats in 2004 -- but they are uninspired by their options. Draft movements for fantasy candidates ranging from Chris Christie to Mitch Daniels to Paul Ryan and even Jeb Bush have started and failed. Some party leaders show more enthusiasm for a hypothetical 2016 crop of candidates, including Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal, than they do for the flawed choices before them in this election. Divided and dispirited is an odd place for the Republican Party to be so soon after the enthusiasms of the 2010 tea party-driven election.

The bottom line is that voter turnout matters. And what should be most troubling for Republicans is that this enthusiasm gap among the conservative base is accompanied by a lack of candidates who might appeal to independents and centrist swing voters in the general election. It is a double barrel of bad news for the Republican Party. The numbers can be spun and rationalized by professional partisan operatives all day long, but the fact remains -- voters just aren't turning out to cast their votes for this crop of conservative candidates in 2012.

 

[hypocritexposer]

OT, why do you think the Dems like you have been pushing Romney on people?

If they say it often enough that he is the only one that has a chance against obama, some will believe it and their enthusiasm drops. why vote if it is already decided?

It will pick up again in the General, where the main goal is defeating obama.

 

[Steve]

The bottom line is that voter turnout matters. And what should be most troubling for Republicans is that this enthusiasm gap among the conservative base is accompanied by a lack of candidates who might appeal to independents and centrist swing voters in the general election.

where the writer and the GOP establishment get it wrong again is.. saying the conservatives didn't turn out to vote..

they did and it shows.. the lack of enthusiasm is not from the base, but from the moderate/independents..

they can't tell the difference between Romney and Obama.. so they stayed home and watched re-runs..

it was abundantly clear that the conservatives voted... only a blind establishment cultist couldn't see that..

 

[Anonymous]

The bottom line is that voter turnout matters. And what should be most troubling for Republicans is that this enthusiasm gap among the conservative base is accompanied by a lack of candidates who might appeal to independents and centrist swing voters in the general election.

where the writer and the GOP establishment get it wrong again is.. saying the conservatives didn't turn out to vote..

they did and it shows.. the lack of enthusiasm is not from the base, but from the moderate/independents..

they can't tell the difference between Romney and Obama.. so they stayed home and watched re-runs..

it was abundantly clear that the conservatives voted... only a blind establishment cultist couldn't see that..

Well if that is all the conservatives there are- they and Repubs definitely have a problem....
More people show up for football games than voted in most states ... :shock: :roll:
1% of the registered voters? A foreboding sign for Republicans..

 

[hypocritexposer]

The bottom line is that voter turnout matters. And what should be most troubling for Republicans is that this enthusiasm gap among the conservative base is accompanied by a lack of candidates who might appeal to independents and centrist swing voters in the general election.

where the writer and the GOP establishment get it wrong again is.. saying the conservatives didn't turn out to vote..

they did and it shows.. the lack of enthusiasm is not from the base, but from the moderate/independents..

they can't tell the difference between Romney and Obama.. so they stayed home and watched re-runs..

it was abundantly clear that the conservatives voted... only a blind establishment cultist couldn't see that..

What's Romeny won so far, 1 state that was open, where the Dems. were very enthused about voting for him and Florida, where there are many Liberal Repubs.?

 

[TSR]

The bottom line is that voter turnout matters. And what should be most troubling for Republicans is that this enthusiasm gap among the conservative base is accompanied by a lack of candidates who might appeal to independents and centrist swing voters in the general election.

where the writer and the GOP establishment get it wrong again is.. saying the conservatives didn't turn out to vote..

they did and it shows.. the lack of enthusiasm is not from the base, but from the moderate/independents..

they can't tell the difference between Romney and Obama.. so they stayed home and watched re-runs..

it was abundantly clear that the conservatives voted... only a blind establishment cultist couldn't see that..

Well if the Independents didn't turn out--whoever wins is not going to win without them are they??

 

[Mike]

The bottom line is that voter turnout matters. And what should be most troubling for Republicans is that this enthusiasm gap among the conservative base is accompanied by a lack of candidates who might appeal to independents and centrist swing voters in the general election.

where the writer and the GOP establishment get it wrong again is.. saying the conservatives didn't turn out to vote..

they did and it shows.. the lack of enthusiasm is not from the base, but from the moderate/independents..

they can't tell the difference between Romney and Obama.. so they stayed home and watched re-runs..

it was abundantly clear that the conservatives voted... only a blind establishment cultist couldn't see that..

Well if the Independents didn't turn out--whoever wins is not going to win without them are they??

The winner won't need the Independents if the Independents don't vote.

 

[hypocritexposer]

where the writer and the GOP establishment get it wrong again is.. saying the conservatives didn't turn out to vote..

they did and it shows.. the lack of enthusiasm is not from the base, but from the moderate/independents..

they can't tell the difference between Romney and Obama.. so they stayed home and watched re-runs..

it was abundantly clear that the conservatives voted... only a blind establishment cultist couldn't see that..

Well if the Independents didn't turn out--whoever wins is not going to win without them are they??

The winner won't need the Independents if the Independents don't vote at all.

obama is losing independent support, they will vote for anybody at this time, but they could care less who wins the Repub nomination.


If I am willing to vote for Mickey Mouse over obama, why do I care if it is Goofey or Mickey that is obama's opponent?

 

[TSR]

where the writer and the GOP establishment get it wrong again is.. saying the conservatives didn't turn out to vote..

they did and it shows.. the lack of enthusiasm is not from the base, but from the moderate/independents..

they can't tell the difference between Romney and Obama.. so they stayed home and watched re-runs..

it was abundantly clear that the conservatives voted... only a blind establishment cultist couldn't see that..

Well if the Independents didn't turn out--whoever wins is not going to win without them are they??

The winner won't need the Independents if the Independents don't vote.

I think they will turn out and vote as always-for the one they think is the lesser of 2 evils.JMHO

 

[hypocritexposer]

Well if the Independents didn't turn out--whoever wins is not going to win without them are they??

The winner won't need the Independents if the Independents don't vote.

I think they will turn out and vote as always-for the one they think is the lesser of 2 evils.JMHO

So will you cry when obama loses?