Regarding Rick Santorum

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I think that nominating Santorum (or someone else from the far social-conservative / tea-party right) could actually end up being good for the party. After the resulting Democratic landslide in the Electoral College, the GOP would finally have the reason and hopefully the willpower to marginalize the right-wingnuts for once and for all.

[pbrower2a]

Rick Santorum vs. competent white Democrat, 2016.  No guesses on MS, SC, or SD.

It could look like LBJ in 1964.

[Keystone Phil]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia. South Carolina and Mississippi are too close to call! Man, you're precious.

[Brittain33]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia. South Carolina and Mississippi are too close to call! Man, you're precious.

Seems realistic to me when Obama isn't the candidate and Santorum has a full campaign of speeches and statements to give people a reason to stay home or hold their noses and vote for the competent candidate.

[Keystone Phil]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia. South Carolina and Mississippi are too close to call! Man, you're precious.

Seems realistic to me when Obama isn't the candidate and Santorum has a full campaign of speeches and statements to give people a reason to stay home or hold their noses and vote for the competent candidate.

Ok.

[BluegrassBlueVote]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia. South Carolina and Mississippi are too close to call! Man, you're precious.

Seems realistic to me when Obama isn't the candidate and Santorum has a full campaign of speeches and statements to give people a reason to stay home or hold their noses and vote for the competent candidate.

Santorum fans are really underestimating the pornography vote.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I doubt he'll run, anyway.  He hasn't really stayed in the news.

You doubt he'll run?  How many more trips to Iowa does he have to make to convince you?

I was unaware that he was really doing much still.  I guess if he's taking trips to Iowa, I take back my statement.

[pbrower2a]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia.

As late as 1996 they had gone twice for Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton has been shown leading such luminaries as Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio in two of those states (KY, LA -- I have nothing else on the others) even though Barack Obama is wildly unpopular in those states.

Barack Obama won nationwide despite losing those states by margins similar to those of George McGovern and Walter Mondale in blowout losses. Need I tell you why? Take out that reason and Barack Obama wins with a percentage of popular votes characteristic of Eisenhower in the 1950s or Reagan in the 1980s.

Rick Santorum was a Senate enforcer for an unpopular President. Pennsylvania voters rejected him 59-41 in 2006. If he should win the Republican nomination he has plenty of stuff -- like his voting record -- to be used against him.  

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Pennsylvania looks like the tipping-point state of 2016. He could win Pennsylvania -- in its Republican primary. In the general election he loses 59-41, which suggests what the national election could be like. Hillary Clinton will still get a lock on the black vote, but Southern white people will not be voting against a black man as a nominee.

Does she get the Clinton-but-not-Obama vote of the 1990s or the Carter-but-not-Obama vote of the 1970s? The latter wins the whole of the former Confederacy except Virginia (the only former-Confederate state that Carter did not win)... and we all know how Virginia is drifting. Santorum has little to offer the South.

[Keystone Phil]

As late as 1996 they had gone twice for Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton has been shown leading such luminaries as Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio in two of those states

Correct. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been leading them. Wait until reality kicks in in about a year or two.

No point in arguing the rest. I've probably been over it literally five hundred times around here.

[SteveRogers]

I think that nominating Santorum (or someone else from the far social-conservative / tea-party right) could actually end up being good for the party. After the resulting Democratic landslide in the Electoral College, the GOP would finally have the reason and hopefully the willpower to marginalize the right-wingnuts for once and for all.

This. The GOP needs to just go ahead and nominate a far-right social conservative once so they can get all the crazy out of their system. Then the tea partiers will never be able to say again, "If only we'd nominated a real conservative..." and the party can move on.

[Brittain33]

No point in arguing the rest. I've probably been over it literally five hundred times around here.

It's honestly hard to understand your faith in his electability against so much disagreement, and to keep writing it off as people being personal or emotional or whatnot.

[Keystone Phil]

No point in arguing the rest. I've probably been over it literally five hundred times around here.

It's honestly hard to understand your faith in his electability against so much disagreement, and to keep writing it off as people being personal or emotional or whatnot.

Yes because that's all I've ever done. I've never admitted that Santorum isn't the most electable candidate. I've never conceded that he'd have problems. I've always chalked it up to people being personal or emotional. Yep.

You done with your trolling in this thread, brittain? Almost? Half way?

[Mr. Morden]

I doubt he'll run, anyway.  He hasn't really stayed in the news.

You doubt he'll run?  How many more trips to Iowa does he have to make to convince you?

I was unaware that he was really doing much still.  I guess if he's taking trips to Iowa, I take back my statement.

He was just in South Carolina to campaign for Bostic:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=164982.msg3670059#msg3670059

and he's in Iowa again next month to speak at the "Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Spring Kickoff":

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=164982.msg3641533#msg3641533

This comes after a recent visit to Michigan, and an interview with a New Hampshire radio station (as well as his speech at CPAC).  So yeah, Santorum is more overtly targeting the early primary states than anyone else on the GOP side at the moment.

[pbrower2a]

As late as 1996 they had gone twice for Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton has been shown leading such luminaries as Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio in two of those states

Correct. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been leading them. Wait until reality kicks in in about a year or two.

No point in arguing the rest. I've probably been over it literally five hundred times around here.

I concede that both Rubio and Ryan are weak potential nominees for President. Reality is that Marco Rubio barely won a Senate election in Florida in a three-way election in the best year for right-wing Republican pols nationwide for years. Ryan demonstrates why active members of the House of Representatives make poor candidates for President. Ryan could not swing Wisconsin, a fringe swing state, in the Presidential election.

Santorum has whatever electoral advantages come from being a Catholic. For Protestant voters he is the wrong sort of Catholic. Ryan at the least doesn't rub his Catholicism in people's faces.

[Brittain33]

Ryan is a viable candidate for President. Rubio appears to have some baggage but I'm not too familiar with him. Neither one has had the experience Santorum had of being in the spotlight and pretty much discrediting himself as a viable candidate, both at a state and federal level. Ryan can and will blame Romney for his loss, while Santorum owns his loss in Pa. in 2006 and his inability to defeat Romney in 2012.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Santorum is pretty much the premiere anti-gay marriage play the Republican Party can make. Unfortunately for him, this is not going to be an anti-gay marriage country in 2016.

[Link]

I think it all depends on the health of his daughter Bella.  There is one thing nobody can take away from Rick.  He is a family man.  So much so, that he puts family before campaigning and certainly before politics.  If she is in good health, I think he runs, but he won't put a presidential campaign before the health of his daughter, or anyone else in his family.

Yes when you are the underfunded underdog rushing to the bedside of your ailing daughter during a campaign against an ultra wealthy guy with a perfect life really hurt him politically.  Man, the sacrifice.

[David St. Hubbins II]

I'm pretty certain that Rick Santorum will carry Iowa and possibly South Carolina, but other than that, it depends on who else decides to run. If either Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush assume front-runner status early on in the race, Santorum would not really have any chance. In addition, if other socially conservative candidates such as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann or Sam Brownback decide to run, Santorum might not even win in Iowa or drop out fairly early. If it boils down to a race between Chris Christe and Santorum, I'm pretty sure that Santorum would come out on top and win the nomination, as Christe is not exactly adored by the Christian Right and the Tea Party supporters in the Republican Party.

I don't even see Santorum finishing first in Iowa. He won in 2012 simply because Ron Paul was too weird for many Republicans, Gingrich collapsed, and Romney only seriously contested Iowa at the end when it  was clear Gingrich was collapsing. In 2016 Santorum will probably be up against Rand Paul (who's doing a much better job of reaching out to establishment Republicans than his father) Scott Walker (neighboring Wisonsin), Bobby Jindal, and Marco Rubio (will both play well with social cons in Iowa). All these people can raise money far better than Santorum.

[Brittain33]

In what year with Santorum announce his acceptance of SSM? Assume for the sake of argument he runs in the 2016 primaries, doesn't get much traction, and retires to a conservative think tank and Fox News while remaining a spokesman for conservative politics.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

In what year with Santorum announce his acceptance of SSM? Assume for the sake of argument he runs in the 2016 primaries, doesn't get much traction, and retires to a conservative think tank and Fox News while remaining a spokesman for conservative politics.

Well, the correct answer probably isn't 2013.

http://news.yahoo.com/rick-santorum-dire-warning-gay-marriage-145037655.html

"The Republican party's not going to change on this issue. In my opinion it would be suicidal if it did."

[Brittain33]

It looks like the GOP is going to reap what it sowed in its elevation of candidates like Rick Santorum. He may make it hard for Republicans to avoid this issue in 2016 just like he pushed Romney to the right in 2012 (with lots of help, of course.)

[Torie]

It looks like the GOP is going to reap what it sowed in its elevation of candidates like Rick Santorum. He may make it hard for Republicans to avoid this issue in 2016 just like he pushed Romney to the right in 2012 (with lots of help, of course.)

Well to prove "conservatives" can have fantasies, one of mine is that Rick might prove to be a useful foil on that issue for one of more other candidates.

[Badger]

As late as 1996 they had gone twice for Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton has been shown leading such luminaries as Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio in two of those states

Correct. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been leading them. Wait until reality kicks in in about a year or two.

No point in arguing the rest. I've probably been over it literally five hundred times around here.

And dead wrong literally 498 times.

[bballrox4717]

Haha. Louisiana flips. Haha. Tennessee flips. Arkansas, too. Kentucky. West Virginia. South Carolina and Mississippi are too close to call! Man, you're precious.

Seems realistic to me when Obama isn't the candidate and Santorum has a full campaign of speeches and statements to give people a reason to stay home or hold their noses and vote for the competent candidate.

I actually agree with Phil here. Santorum drives the GOP vote up further in the interior and deep South if he's the nominee. They love him there. The states that are trending Dem fast, especially with college towns (NC and AZ comes to mind), are where Santorum gets clobbered as well as present swing states.

[pbrower2a]

As late as 1996 they had gone twice for Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton has been shown leading such luminaries as Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio in two of those states

Correct. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been leading them. Wait until reality kicks in in about a year or two.

No point in arguing the rest. I've probably been over it literally five hundred times around here.

And dead wrong literally 498 times.

Indeed it is usually hard to predict what sort of reality will kick in a year, two, or especially three. Even the actuarial concerns kick in.