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The Spectacle Blog
What if Rick Santorum — or any Republican running to Mitt Romney’s right — had cut this ad much, much earlier in the primary process and had the money to air it frequently?
View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/04/02/question
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Cassandra| 4.2.12 @ 3:00PM
Is Santorum really to the right of Romney? Santorum regularly rails against liberal assaults on freedom. Unhappily, Santorum is just as committed to a powerful, centralized state as any liberal; he just wants it to do different things. And so he even more strongly opposes conservative advocates of liberty.
Are the best candidates we can come up with really Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich? We Republicans (no, we Americans) are in deep doo-doo!
aware| 4.2.12 @ 8:32PM
The Sword of Damocles dangles by a hair.
Ross Kaminsky | 4.2.12 @ 3:38PM
That's an incredible anti-Romney ad, and would/should be damaging to Romney to the extent that Romney can't counteract its claims. However, it also says nothing positive about Santorum, which will at some point be a problem for Santorum. "I'm not him" isn't going to cut it, even if "him" has serious faults.
Nick| 4.2.12 @ 4:55PM
Mr. Kaminsky,
"However, it also says nothing positive about Santorum, which will at some point be a problem for Santorum."
Why? It has hurt O'Romney so far.
Windy City Commentary| 4.2.12 @ 5:26PM
Just like most of Romney's ads saying nothing positive about Romney.
Anommynous| 4.2.12 @ 5:28PM
Bingo!
Tom| 4.2.12 @ 5:56PM
Ditto!!
Nick| 4.2.12 @ 5:53PM
Oops! That should be: "It HASN'T hurt O'Romney so far."
Anommynous| 4.2.12 @ 5:36PM
Rick Santorum (and Newt, to his credit) wanted to make Obama the target, not Romney. Remember that Obamaville ad that got so much attention? Alas, Romney (and Ron Paul) have always made the top not-Romney the target of their negative ads instead of Obama. They dragged the campaign into the gutter and it has really pissed a whole bunch of people off.
Mark in LA| 4.2.12 @ 9:34PM
Yes it was that wacky, looney, unelectable, want Iran to get a nuke, isolationist, nut job Paul who started the negative campaign ads and all the lies.
Doug| 4.2.12 @ 7:27PM
Main problem with the entire primary season - not one of the many candidates (except maybe Paul) has stuck to a script of telling Americans what they would do if elected. Romney started the negative war in Iowa and everyone escalated it afterwards. Basically it comes down to (paraphrazing Geithner): "We know who the President is but we just don't like him" is a terrible election strategy.
Mike 3/505| 4.2.12 @ 11:21PM
Horse Doo Doo....Like the plans/ideas or not, Gingrich was very forthcoming on what he would do. He is the only one of any of the candidates that has actually, personally, and in detail, studied all the issues affecting the US and put together cogent ideas on how to address them.
Clint| 4.2.12 @ 11:03PM
Romney's McCain Redux.
The Tea Party Rebellion Heads To An Open Convention.
Tarr| 4.2.12 @ 4:35PM
Fits on all fours with the message that Willard is uniquely disabled from challenging BHO.
SpiralArchitect| 4.2.12 @ 4:49PM
Presidents are elected of people who seek the position. A week field is not an indication of no good conservatives but a pool of who is willing to take the pros & cons of running for the office of POTUS.
Persoanlly I would ahve liked Chuck Norris to have run. So many benefits and who would really want to tangle with a nation led by Chuck Norris?
Occam's Tool| 4.2.12 @ 5:25PM
Chuckster would have been the best! At 70, he could kick Putin's ass.
Tom| 4.2.12 @ 5:57PM
Great campaign ad; and every single word of it is TRUE.
Simon Templar| 4.3.12 @ 1:22AM
Wow. I think a reality check just might be in order here. We can drop the what ifs and look at the what happens.
Let us a review shall we? Follow the bouncing ball.
They start the nomination election campaign nearly a year before the actual election and spread out the state elections with blue states first.
They try to wrap it up with the first state, Iowa as the litmus test, unless the conservative wins.
They stack the delegate counts up front in these first states to go so the first out of the gate and the squishy establishment candidate has the momentum. The idea is to allow as much conservative splitting of votes that can be mustered with a broad number of candidates.
They hold a series of debates whereby the moderators are the MSM elitist liberals. These debates continue ad-nausea with emphasis put on the gaffes of those most conservative and with questions designed to make the Republican candidates tear into each other and appear like buffoons. The so-called conservative media along with the MSM play up these mishaps and mistakes further damaging their public images.
As the MSM media each week witness the rise of popularity of one candidate over the others, that candidate becomes the target of a smear campaign which the conservative media echo and throw their hands up over. This serves to damage the fund raising ability of this candidate to essentially zero. Candidate shortly after announces end of campaign. Of course, it is always a hoot and a giggle to have at least one candidate in the mix that is running against the party itself, conservatives in general, and continues to kick it in the shins all the way through to the convention. He is, of course, NEVER asked to drop out as he serves the self destructive tendencies of conservatives and republicans in general.
The field is essentially whittled down by the MSM foremost but with the cooperation of the conservative media sycophants with their particular political biases, fears, and agendas.
Talk begins shortly after this point about the need to pick a moderate candidate that will appeal to the moderates, and behold there just happens to be one left standing that essentially has been quiet and under the radar up till now.
The candidates are encouraged to inflict as much public image damage on each other that is possible. Particular interest is directed at the conservative candidates. The conservative media comes in to assist stoking the furnace.
Now, if all goes as planned, the squish is doing very well and beating what is left by a small margin but winning nevertheless. This where the panic now sets in and is encouraged by the conservative media and pundits. Polls by now are showing the results of 9 months of negative campaigning, chaos, off message politics, and circular firing squads producing poll results showing the incumbent now ahead by a significant margin. Exhaustion now sets in, and republican voters want to go back to sleep and forget any of this ever happened. But they can not. So, resignation and falling in line begins.
Mr. Inevitable for this year is nominated and now its on to the general election two months before it is to actually happen. The mad rush, prayers, teeth grinding, hope and prayers, resurgent activism, depression, in-activism, and a mixture of insanity starts.
Of course, all this leads up to the BIG DEBATE where all of our futures are placed on the black jack table. Everything we got is now riding on Mr. Inevitable. Of course, this debate once again will be televised and moderated by the same state run media the incumbent controls.
I think you know or should know how this sad story ends, so I will not belabor it.
Great system we got here, eh?
Oh, I forgot the best part after it is all over; we scratch our heads and wonder what went wrong, how can this be? We then pony up for the next round and do it all over again.
fiscal| 4.3.12 @ 9:36AM
Romney has the nomination, the money, and the support (although tepid), from the party. It won't be overturned at the convention because Santorum isn't strong enough and can't win against Obama.
Since Romney has it locked up, this ad will actually help him with independents in the general election as they won't believe he is a real conservative no matter what comes out of his orifice. If Republicans want to throw Obama out, this is actually a good start ironically....
Dai Alanye | 4.3.12 @ 10:03AM
Keep whistling past that graveyard, brother. Any observer of Romney should know how weak (and generally unsuccessful) a campaigner he is.
fiscal| 4.3.12 @ 10:18AM
You're probably right, but he doesn't need much from independents to be competitive. If the economy turns down, this may be enough to get elected. He can't win without an economic downturn.