Monday, February 13, 2012 2:20:47 AM
Santorum opens wide lead over Romney in latest poll
A supporter of Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum advertises for campaign job applicants at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Powered by a new national poll, plus an infusion of campaign cash thanks to victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, Rick Santorum says he'll go after Mitt Romney in his home state of Michigan.
By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer / February 12, 2012
Sunday’s headlines were all about Mitt Romney winning the Maine caucuses and the CPAC straw poll of conservative activists, both on Saturday. But the sounds coming out of the Romney camp more likely were sighs of relief than victory cheers. And the real political energy seemed to have shifted to his chief Republican rival Rick Santorum.
Powered by a big bump in national polling, plus an infusion of new campaign cash thanks to his victories Tuesday in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, Santorum says he intends to go after Romney in the former Massachusetts governor's home state of Michigan. And Sarah Palin’s comments about Romney Sunday are sure to help him, even though she continues to be a tease about her eventual endorsement.
"I trust that [Romney’s] idea of conservatism is evolving and I base this on a pretty moderate past he has had, even in some cases a liberal past," Palin told Fox News Sunday. "I am not convinced, and I don’t think that the majority of GOP and independent voters are convinced.”
Speaking on TV talk shows Sunday, Santorum called Romney “desperate” in his recent attacks on the former Pennsylvania senator, and Santorum predicted that he would do “exceptionally well” in the next major primary election in Michigan.
"We're going to spend a lot of time in Michigan and Arizona, and those are up next. And that's where we've really been focusing on," Santorum told ABC's "This Week." As reported by the Associated Press, Santorum suggested that a strong showing in those contests would make the presidential contest "a two-man race," dismissing current rivals Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.
Santorum may be competitive among the four remaining GOP presidential rivals – perhaps even the man to beat now. But he’s not necessarily the leader in most recent polls.
The Real Clear Politics polling average ranks them this way: Romney 30.6 percent, Santorum 24.8 percent, Gingrich 20.2 percent, and Paul 13.6 percent. In the same poll averaging, Obama is 10.3 points ahead of Santorum but just 4.3 percentage points ahead of Romney. (Paul does better than Santorum by this measure.) The Intrade prediction market gives Romney a 79 percent chance of winning the GOP nomination; Santorum has just a 13 percent chance, according to Intrade.
But in a new Public Policy Polling (PPP) national poll of usual Republican primary voters, released Saturday, Santorum is at 38 percent to 23 percent for Romney, 17 percent for Gingrich, and 13 percent for Paul.
As he has elsewhere, Santorum ranks high in favorability here – 64 percent positive to 22 percent negative. That’s much better than Romney (44-43) or Gingrich (42-44). “Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich,” PPP reports.
In addition, according to this survey (taken Feb. 9 and 10), Santorum is now “completely dominating with several key segments of the electorate” – those describing themselves as “very conservative,” tea party voters, and evangelicals.
“It’s been an amazingly fast ascent to first place for Rick Santorum,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling, who adds a cautionary note for Santorum. “When he comes under attack in the coming days his lead could evaporate just as quickly as it was created.”
© The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2012/0212/Santorum-opens-wide-lead-over-Romney-in-latest-poll [with comments]
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Why I chose Newt over Santorum
Exclusive: Chuck Norris asks, 'How can alternative to Romney be Romney supporter?'
by Chuck Norris
Published: February 12, 2012
In 2008 when my wife, Gena, and I were on the campaign trail backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was fighting to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected. (Listen in this video
Just three years ago in his interview with radio host and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, Santorum also emphatically told millions of listening Americans: “If you’re a conservative, if you’re a Republican, there is only one place to go, and that’s Mitt Romney.”
Why an alleged conservative like Santorum would fight for the flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate on the presidential campaign trail, especially in light of the fact that Huckabee and even McCain were running then with a much clearer conservative record, I will never know.
Yet Santorum now admits that Romney “bragged he’s even more liberal than Ted Kennedy on social issues.”
And the question that keeps coming to my mind now is this: How can the “alternative to Romney” also be a Romney supporter?
Newt and Santorum are good Christian men, both of whom are passionate to fight the war on religion (specifically Christianity) being unleashed by the Obama administration. They are also avid supporters of Israel.
However, in light of the potential global clash outside our country with regimes like Iran and Syria, and the ongoing domestic assault within our country from the Obama administration, we believe America needs the best of the best veterans of political war to lead us forward.
We truly believe Newt’s experience, leadership, knowledge, wisdom, faith and even humility to learn from his failures (personal and public) can return America to her glory days. And he is the best man on the battlefield who is able to outwit, outplay and outlast Obama and his billion-dollar campaign machine.
While I commend Santorum for some of his stands since leaving Congress, like opposing TARP, the stimulus, the Fannie-Freddie bailout and the auto bailout, I have a slew of problems with what he did while serving in the U.S. Senate from 1995-2007.
As noted by the Club for Growth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the South Carolina Hotline Blog, and other watchdog and news sources, here are the reasons that my wife, Gena, and I gave our endorsement to Newt, not Santorum:
• Santorum was a serial earmarker, requesting billions of dollars during his time in the Senate, and not reversing his position on earmarks until he was out of Congress in 2010. As recently as 2009, Rick said, “I’m not saying necessarily earmarks are bad. I have had a lot of earmarks. In fact, I’m very proud of all the earmarks I’ve put in bills. I’ll defend earmarks.”
• Santorum voted for H J Res 47 Debt Limit Increase Resolution
• Santorum voted to raise the national debt ceiling five times
• Santorum voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands and thousands of wasteful earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, according to Club for Growth, “in a separate vote, Santorum had the audacity to vote to continue funding the Bridge to Nowhere rather than send the money to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.”
• Santorum voted for CAFTA, which removes duties on textile and apparel goods traded among participating nations, resulting in nearly ALL textile companies leaving the South.
• Santorum voted for Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (though he now says he will repeal it), which imposes job-killing federal regulations on businesses.
• Santorum voted against the National Right to Work Act of 1995, which would have repealed provisions of federal law that “require employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.”
• Santorum voted for taxes in the Internet Access Tax Bill
• Santorum voted for HR 3448 – Minimum Wage Increase bill, which allows punitive damages for injury or illness to be taxed, allows damages for emotional distress to be taxed and repeals the diesel fuel tax rebate to purchasers of diesel-powered automobiles and light trucks.
• Santorum voted to confirm President Bill Clinton’s nomination of Alan Greenspan to be chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System for a fourth four-year term.
• Santorum voted for Medicare prescription drug benefit known as Medicare Part D, though critical of it now. It is the largest expansion of entitlement spending since President Lyndon Johnson, which now costs taxpayers more than $60 billion a year and has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities, according to Club for Growth.
• Santorum voted in 1997 to support the Lautenberg Gun Ban, “which stripped law-abiding gun owners of their Second Amendment rights for life, simply because they spanked their children or did nothing more than grab a spouse’s wrist,” according to a press release from Dudley Brown, executive director of the National Association for Gun Rights.
• Santorum voted in 1999 for a bill “disguised as an attempt to increase penalties on drug traffickers with guns … but it also included a provision to require federal background checks at gun shows,” again according to Dudley Brown’s release.
• Santorum “came to anti-gun Arlen Specter’s defense in 2004 when he was down in the polls against pro-gun Republican Pat Toomey. Specter won and continued to push for gun control during his years in the Senate,” per Brown.
• Santorum voted with Barbara Boxer in 2005 on the Gun Lock Requirement Amendment
• Santorum voted for the Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill and then flip-flopped and voted against it in S 1805 – Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill
• Santorum voted against HR 2356 – Campaign Reform Act of 2001
• Santorum voted for an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 that requires television broadcast providers to give their lowest rates to political candidates.
• Santorum voted for HR 1 – No Child Left Behind Act
• Santorum sponsored legislation to force companies to pay laid off workers benefits.
• Santorum worked for an increase in funding big government programs like Head Start.
• Santorum voted for taxpayer money to go to Pennsylvania families for their heating bills.
• Santorum introduced and co-sponsored big government health-care bills.
• Santorum voted for HR 796 – the protection of abortion clinics
• Santorum actively supports the Global Fund, which was created by the United Nations to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, but also “channels a large portion of its funds through Planned Parenthood’s affiliates around the world and through a British group Marie Stopes International (the largest chain of abortion mills in the UK, with 66,000 abortions a year.)… to operate in Cambodia, Fiji, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Burma, Kenya, Tanzania, and other countries,” according to the pro-life Gerard Health Foundation that provides millions of dollars to pro-life groups.
• Santorum boasted of teaming up with Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton in his 2006 political ad for re-election to the U.S. Senate, which he lost to Democrat Bob Casey Jr. by the largest margin of victory ever for a Democratic Senate nominee in Pennsylvania and the largest margin of victory for a Senate challenger in the 2006 elections.
• Santorum opposed the tea party and its reforms in the Republican Party and conservative movement just a couple years ago saying, “I have some real concerns about this movement within the Republican party … to sort of refashion conservatism. And I will vocally and publicly oppose it.”
It’s no wonder in January that Rep. Ron Paul accused Santorum of having a “very liberal” political record.
I’m also bringing this up now because, if Santorum were to win the nomination, Obama will definitely bring this up in his campaign for the presidency.
And the question that keeps coming back to my mind about Santorum is: How can the “alternative to Romney” also be a Romney supporter?
© Copyright 2012 WND.com Inc.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/why-i-chose-newt-over-santorum/ [with comments]
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A supporter of Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum advertises for campaign job applicants at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Powered by a new national poll, plus an infusion of campaign cash thanks to victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, Rick Santorum says he'll go after Mitt Romney in his home state of Michigan.
By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer / February 12, 2012
Sunday’s headlines were all about Mitt Romney winning the Maine caucuses and the CPAC straw poll of conservative activists, both on Saturday. But the sounds coming out of the Romney camp more likely were sighs of relief than victory cheers. And the real political energy seemed to have shifted to his chief Republican rival Rick Santorum.
Powered by a big bump in national polling, plus an infusion of new campaign cash thanks to his victories Tuesday in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, Santorum says he intends to go after Romney in the former Massachusetts governor's home state of Michigan. And Sarah Palin’s comments about Romney Sunday are sure to help him, even though she continues to be a tease about her eventual endorsement.
"I trust that [Romney’s] idea of conservatism is evolving and I base this on a pretty moderate past he has had, even in some cases a liberal past," Palin told Fox News Sunday. "I am not convinced, and I don’t think that the majority of GOP and independent voters are convinced.”
Speaking on TV talk shows Sunday, Santorum called Romney “desperate” in his recent attacks on the former Pennsylvania senator, and Santorum predicted that he would do “exceptionally well” in the next major primary election in Michigan.
"We're going to spend a lot of time in Michigan and Arizona, and those are up next. And that's where we've really been focusing on," Santorum told ABC's "This Week." As reported by the Associated Press, Santorum suggested that a strong showing in those contests would make the presidential contest "a two-man race," dismissing current rivals Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.
Santorum may be competitive among the four remaining GOP presidential rivals – perhaps even the man to beat now. But he’s not necessarily the leader in most recent polls.
The Real Clear Politics polling average ranks them this way: Romney 30.6 percent, Santorum 24.8 percent, Gingrich 20.2 percent, and Paul 13.6 percent. In the same poll averaging, Obama is 10.3 points ahead of Santorum but just 4.3 percentage points ahead of Romney. (Paul does better than Santorum by this measure.) The Intrade prediction market gives Romney a 79 percent chance of winning the GOP nomination; Santorum has just a 13 percent chance, according to Intrade.
But in a new Public Policy Polling (PPP) national poll of usual Republican primary voters, released Saturday, Santorum is at 38 percent to 23 percent for Romney, 17 percent for Gingrich, and 13 percent for Paul.
As he has elsewhere, Santorum ranks high in favorability here – 64 percent positive to 22 percent negative. That’s much better than Romney (44-43) or Gingrich (42-44). “Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich,” PPP reports.
In addition, according to this survey (taken Feb. 9 and 10), Santorum is now “completely dominating with several key segments of the electorate” – those describing themselves as “very conservative,” tea party voters, and evangelicals.
“It’s been an amazingly fast ascent to first place for Rick Santorum,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling, who adds a cautionary note for Santorum. “When he comes under attack in the coming days his lead could evaporate just as quickly as it was created.”
© The Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2012/0212/Santorum-opens-wide-lead-over-Romney-in-latest-poll [with comments]
---
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=====
Why I chose Newt over Santorum
Exclusive: Chuck Norris asks, 'How can alternative to Romney be Romney supporter?'
by Chuck Norris
Published: February 12, 2012
In 2008 when my wife, Gena, and I were on the campaign trail backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was fighting to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected. (Listen in this video
how Santorum passionately endorsed and elevated Mitt in his bid for the Oval Office [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu50Hb61jVQ ].)
Just three years ago in his interview with radio host and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, Santorum also emphatically told millions of listening Americans: “If you’re a conservative, if you’re a Republican, there is only one place to go, and that’s Mitt Romney.”
Why an alleged conservative like Santorum would fight for the flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate on the presidential campaign trail, especially in light of the fact that Huckabee and even McCain were running then with a much clearer conservative record, I will never know.
Yet Santorum now admits that Romney “bragged he’s even more liberal than Ted Kennedy on social issues.”
And the question that keeps coming to my mind now is this: How can the “alternative to Romney” also be a Romney supporter?
Newt and Santorum are good Christian men, both of whom are passionate to fight the war on religion (specifically Christianity) being unleashed by the Obama administration. They are also avid supporters of Israel.
However, in light of the potential global clash outside our country with regimes like Iran and Syria, and the ongoing domestic assault within our country from the Obama administration, we believe America needs the best of the best veterans of political war to lead us forward.
We truly believe Newt’s experience, leadership, knowledge, wisdom, faith and even humility to learn from his failures (personal and public) can return America to her glory days. And he is the best man on the battlefield who is able to outwit, outplay and outlast Obama and his billion-dollar campaign machine.
While I commend Santorum for some of his stands since leaving Congress, like opposing TARP, the stimulus, the Fannie-Freddie bailout and the auto bailout, I have a slew of problems with what he did while serving in the U.S. Senate from 1995-2007.
As noted by the Club for Growth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the South Carolina Hotline Blog, and other watchdog and news sources, here are the reasons that my wife, Gena, and I gave our endorsement to Newt, not Santorum:
• Santorum was a serial earmarker, requesting billions of dollars during his time in the Senate, and not reversing his position on earmarks until he was out of Congress in 2010. As recently as 2009, Rick said, “I’m not saying necessarily earmarks are bad. I have had a lot of earmarks. In fact, I’m very proud of all the earmarks I’ve put in bills. I’ll defend earmarks.”
• Santorum voted for H J Res 47 Debt Limit Increase Resolution
• Santorum voted to raise the national debt ceiling five times
• Santorum voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands and thousands of wasteful earmarks, including the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, according to Club for Growth, “in a separate vote, Santorum had the audacity to vote to continue funding the Bridge to Nowhere rather than send the money to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.”
• Santorum voted for CAFTA, which removes duties on textile and apparel goods traded among participating nations, resulting in nearly ALL textile companies leaving the South.
• Santorum voted for Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (though he now says he will repeal it), which imposes job-killing federal regulations on businesses.
• Santorum voted against the National Right to Work Act of 1995, which would have repealed provisions of federal law that “require employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.”
• Santorum voted for taxes in the Internet Access Tax Bill
• Santorum voted for HR 3448 – Minimum Wage Increase bill, which allows punitive damages for injury or illness to be taxed, allows damages for emotional distress to be taxed and repeals the diesel fuel tax rebate to purchasers of diesel-powered automobiles and light trucks.
• Santorum voted to confirm President Bill Clinton’s nomination of Alan Greenspan to be chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System for a fourth four-year term.
• Santorum voted for Medicare prescription drug benefit known as Medicare Part D, though critical of it now. It is the largest expansion of entitlement spending since President Lyndon Johnson, which now costs taxpayers more than $60 billion a year and has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities, according to Club for Growth.
• Santorum voted in 1997 to support the Lautenberg Gun Ban, “which stripped law-abiding gun owners of their Second Amendment rights for life, simply because they spanked their children or did nothing more than grab a spouse’s wrist,” according to a press release from Dudley Brown, executive director of the National Association for Gun Rights.
• Santorum voted in 1999 for a bill “disguised as an attempt to increase penalties on drug traffickers with guns … but it also included a provision to require federal background checks at gun shows,” again according to Dudley Brown’s release.
• Santorum “came to anti-gun Arlen Specter’s defense in 2004 when he was down in the polls against pro-gun Republican Pat Toomey. Specter won and continued to push for gun control during his years in the Senate,” per Brown.
• Santorum voted with Barbara Boxer in 2005 on the Gun Lock Requirement Amendment
• Santorum voted for the Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill and then flip-flopped and voted against it in S 1805 – Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill
• Santorum voted against HR 2356 – Campaign Reform Act of 2001
• Santorum voted for an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 that requires television broadcast providers to give their lowest rates to political candidates.
• Santorum voted for HR 1 – No Child Left Behind Act
• Santorum sponsored legislation to force companies to pay laid off workers benefits.
• Santorum worked for an increase in funding big government programs like Head Start.
• Santorum voted for taxpayer money to go to Pennsylvania families for their heating bills.
• Santorum introduced and co-sponsored big government health-care bills.
• Santorum voted for HR 796 – the protection of abortion clinics
• Santorum actively supports the Global Fund, which was created by the United Nations to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, but also “channels a large portion of its funds through Planned Parenthood’s affiliates around the world and through a British group Marie Stopes International (the largest chain of abortion mills in the UK, with 66,000 abortions a year.)… to operate in Cambodia, Fiji, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Burma, Kenya, Tanzania, and other countries,” according to the pro-life Gerard Health Foundation that provides millions of dollars to pro-life groups.
• Santorum boasted of teaming up with Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton in his 2006 political ad for re-election to the U.S. Senate, which he lost to Democrat Bob Casey Jr. by the largest margin of victory ever for a Democratic Senate nominee in Pennsylvania and the largest margin of victory for a Senate challenger in the 2006 elections.
• Santorum opposed the tea party and its reforms in the Republican Party and conservative movement just a couple years ago saying, “I have some real concerns about this movement within the Republican party … to sort of refashion conservatism. And I will vocally and publicly oppose it.”
It’s no wonder in January that Rep. Ron Paul accused Santorum of having a “very liberal” political record.
I’m also bringing this up now because, if Santorum were to win the nomination, Obama will definitely bring this up in his campaign for the presidency.
And the question that keeps coming back to my mind about Santorum is: How can the “alternative to Romney” also be a Romney supporter?
© Copyright 2012 WND.com Inc.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/why-i-chose-newt-over-santorum/ [with comments]
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"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
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