Tag Archives: rick santorum

GOP Primary: Newt calls it quits…sort of

You knew it wouldn’t be that easy.  Newt Gingrich is ending his campaign for the Presidency, kind of.  He announced Wednesday that he will quit on Tuesday, with a speech.  Always with a speech.  Where have I heard that before.  Oh yeah, it was one of the great philosophers of our time, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”  Of course Newt is a southerner of sorts.  He was born in Pennsylvania, but grew up in Georgia.  You know Southerners, they’re always fixing to do something before actually doing it, so maybe Newt is just fixing to quit.  I have lived in Knoxville for 12 years now and I have even caught myself saying that.

One thing he’s not quitting is his very expensive, tax payer funded, secret service protection.  The Office of Homeland Security is expected to pull the plug on the $44,000 a day detail by the weekend.  So Newt and Calista will have to slug it out without a security detail all the way till Tuesday.  Oh the humanity.

Newt has already dropped most of his staff, and his debt continues to grow, in part because he continues to honor campaign engagements he made a month or two ago.  If you think this is normal, I offer Tim Pawlenty, former Governor of Minnesota and first candidate to drop out of the race.

When T-Paw decided to get out and endorse Governor Romney he cancelled all scheduled campaign events, went home to Minnesota and settled all outstanding debt.  He did not suspend his campaign, he ended it.  He filed the paperwork with the SEC (the commission, not the greatest sports conference in the country), and when he stepped to the podium to campaign for Romney he was completely free of debt and his campaign finance account was zeroed out.  That’s how an adult who believes in fiscal responsibility runs a campaign.

Granted Pawlenty got out a lot earlier than Newt, so his debt was not as high, but that is way too simplistic an explanation.  Neither Pawlenty, nor Santorum for that matter, flew around in private jets, hired private security details, or made an enormous amount of impromptu stops to zoos, sporting events, museums, etc… All that costs money and time and staff; which costs more money.  The jet rental company has still not been paid.  Calista even kept the private security after a Secret Service detail was assigned to her.  Even more telling, the campaign made no financial adjustments after Florida, when the funding started to dry up and it became clear Santorum and Romney were the front runners.  This campaign was running high on the hog from start to finish, debt be damned.

Newt is not the conservative he claims to be.  He may say a lot of conservative stuff, but he doesn’t do a lot of conservative things.  His campaign is more than enough evidence of that.  I wonder how much debt he can ring up between Friday night’s trip to tour the Penske Racing Plant and Tuesday’s speech?

To semi-quote a Tom Cruise movie, Newt’s ego was and still is writing checks his account just can’t cash.

GOP Primary: Santorum – Exit stage right!

Well folks it’s just about over.  Rick Santorum is preparing to speak in Gettysburg Pennsylvania as I type.  The former Senator from PA is suspending his campaign.  To all of us in the unwashed masses that means he’s quitting the race.  Technically however, that means he will no longer actively campaign, but his name will appear on the ballot in any state he is registered, and more importantly he can legally take and use campaign contributions all the way to the Republican National Convention in August.  There is also an outside chance that Romney may implode.  If that were to occur due to some scandal, Santorum could jump back in to the race with little effort.   He couldn’t do that if he ended his campaign instead of suspending it.

This is not much of a surprise really.  For all his bluster, Santorum knew there was no slide rule, no algorithm, no math that would get him to the nomination.  The final kicker may have been one of two issues, or maybe a mix of both.  Santorum was touting Pennsylvania as his chance to make up ground.  Today’s poll numbers show Santorum losing his home state to Romney.  That’s a beat down he was probably anxious to avoid.  Santorum is young and can still run for office.  The fewer beat-downs on your resume the better. This is especially true if he tries to run for Senator again, or even governor in Pennsylvania.

Romney stopped negative ads in PA out of respect to Santorum’s family as they dealt with the medical problems of their young daughter Bella.  So the other issue could be Santorum’s family.  His daughter has had medical problems since birth and she was recently taken to the hospital again.   Running for President is hard on the candidates and can be harder still on the family.  Santorum appears to be sincere when it comes to his family.  So it would not be difficult to believe that he’s ready to spend more time with them and specifically Bella.

As a lot of pundits are currently opining right now, you have to give Santorum credit.  By comparison to the other candidates, he is dirt poor.  He campaigned the old fashioned way, door to door, city to city, county to county, state to state.  In the end though, effort, grass root, and old school style can’t overcome a ridiculous message that was out of touch from the beginning.  Teleprompters of the world! I say to you: breath easy, thine enemy is delivered to your footstool, defeated.

The Uni Bomber (Newt Gingrich) is still in.  His campaign says their plan includes a big opportunity involving Delaware.   If that strategy doesn’t disqualify Newt to be President, nothing does.  Delaware bro, really?  You think you can handle all 17 delegates?  I mean you’re only 520 delegates behind, pace yourself.  Time to phone a friend Newt, get a buddy, or even a clue.  Better yet, suspend your campaign, I hear it’s Buy One Get One at Tiffany’s this weekend.

Ron Paul is still in.  Yeah, I got nothing.  Neither does Ron Paul.

So the nomination is Romney’s to lose from this point forward.  Each state will still vote in their primary elections.  Romney still has to hit 1144 delegates.  He has 645 currently with some big states coming up.  With Santorum out now, Romney should hit 1144 quickly.  Assuming Romney will win all the delegates from here on out, he will officially clinch the nomination at the Texas primary election on May 29th.

First and foremost, the next primary is April 24th.  Five states vote on that Tuesday, including Pennsylvania.

The voting schedule and delegate count will stay up at Frank’s Place until Romney officially clinches the nomination.

Wisconsin Primary: Mitt Makes Swiss Cheese – out of Santorum

Had a Badger joke for the headline, but it just didn’t feel right.  Swiss Cheese is the best I’ve got at the moment.

After taking most, if not all, of the delegates in Maryland and the District of Columbia (DC), Romney took all of the delegates in Wisconsin.  The Badger state is winner take all, meaning a candidate only needs to win the total vote in the state to get all the delegates.  Wisconsin has 42 delegates and they all slide into Romney’s column.

Breaking:  I must at this moment, 10:01pm in the east, confess that I’m liking Piers Morgan of CNN more and more as a political analyst.  He only fills that roll on election nights, the rest of the time he does a Larry King-esque type show.  But heaven help me, the little limey (he’s british) has a good handle on our political system.  He also asks great questions to folks from both sides of the political divide.

OK, back to the action.  Santorum gave his speech earlier in the night, from Pittsburgh.  Good strategy when you’re about to get your rear end punted across two states and one District.  As usual he whined about fighting against the money and the machine.  Not sure if Romney is the money or the machine, maybe he’s both.  Who knows.  What we do know: Romney is the winner in all three primaries tonight and has taken a huge delegate haul.

Santorum went on to say it’s only half-time in the race and he’s ready to start the second half at the Pennsylvania primary on April 24th with it’s 72 delegates.  Santorum’s problem: New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island vote that night as well.  Rick went on to make up history and re-write the facts about Washington crossing the Delaware River into Trenton to surprise the Hessians.  Then he somehow mangled that into some meaningless points about the other candidates and how they campaign.

He then went on a riff using the phrase “You Know Me” time and time again.  Hey Rick, these people that know you are the same people that handed you the worst defeat of an incumbent senator in the history of our political system.  Just a god awful speech, in content and delivery.  When he loses, his speeches are delivered with a breathy, whiny, pleading tone.  He then says “this ain’t halftime, no marching bands. We’re getting on the field. Let’s go.”  Not making this up.  Rick, you crazy bastard, you just said it was half time and Pennsyl….. oh never mind.  Enough of this dolt.  Here are the stats from tonight’s butt kicking.

Maryland

Romney – 50% wins majority of awarded delegates

Santorum – 29%

Gingrich – 11%

Paul – 9%

District of Columbia

Romney – 69% wins all 16 delegates

Santorum – failed to get on ballot (dope)

Paul – 13%

Gingrich – 11%  (good lord, the dude lives there, works there, and lost to Paul)

Wisconsin – numbers will change slightly when all counting is complete, result will not

Romney – 44%  Wins all 42 delegates

Santorum – 38%

Paul – 11%

Gingrich – 6% (hahahah)

At the current time it looks like Santorum will get around 12 delegates and Romney will take the other 81 that were available tonight.  That number may move up or down by a delegate or two as the states finish all the counting.  Either way it’s a huge win for Romney.  He won all three states, won the first winner take all state, took all but a handful of delegates and will reap some serious fund raising from all of this.

I’m not sure what Santorum and Gingrich hope to achieve by staying in the race.  They are now holding up the republican nominee from totally focusing on the general election and they are making him spend money he could use for the campaign against the President.  So to break it down, they are being a couple of big poopy pants.

Check back in the morning hours if you want to see the final delegate count.  The delegate counter is to the right, on Frank’s Place home page.

Next up, the 5 northeastern states mentioned above.  Those primaries occur on Tuesday, 24 April, so that’s three weeks to relax and watch the awesomeness unfold.