So, Newt's win in South Carolina proves that not everyone considers him a non-player after his inability to distance himself from the Super PAC supporting him. We'll see how long that lasts in other states. Perry's last minute withdrawal and backing of Gingrich definitely threw a good number of people his way, people that had not been backing Newt for one reason or another, and are just as likely to look at the other candidates now that they have more time to do so.
The completed recount of the Iowa caucus votes have Santorum actually winning the state over Romney by about 30 votes, hooray for that (not holding my breath that the electoral votes will be shifted to show it since they aren't legally bound to vote as the citizens do though; proof the system is broken). Now Romney doesn't get to claim he is the only candidate since 1976 to win both Iowa and NH. Paired with Newt's win in SC, Romney's so-called inevitability is looking not so inevitable.
Still waiting for the Paul camp to denounce the evil Chuck Norris for backing Gingrich over Ron Paul, whom he had appeared with on stage at several events but not officially endorsed. Also waiting for their outrage at me pointing out that Ron Paul has two houses, one slightly over 5,500 sq ft and the other not much smaller. They got really angry over the idea that Romney and his wife have 3 houses (they've been spouting the rhetoric that he owns 15 though) the largest of which was 3,000 sq ft, now being torn down to build an 11,000 sq ft home. My opinion on that? Good for them, it's their dang money. Unless someone can prove it was unethically or illegally acquired, why the heck do people care what someone does with their own cash? Just more envy and class warfare bull from the Newt Super PAC and the left-wing.
Florida has started getting in their absentee ballots (180,000 of 475,000 at this time) plus around 50,000 early voters. Should be interesting to see who wins this one. Given the couple of days for Perry's supporters to take a closer look at Newt I expect a decent chunk to switch over to the Santorum camp, but I've been wrong before (see first paragraph).
I raise my coffee mug to the hope that things continue to be split all the way to the convention. It'll be a lot harder for the Romney camp and establishment Republicans to claim he is the most electable if he is unable to get the 50% of the electoral votes needed to be named the nominee beforehand.
I suspect Newt was helped by the ex-wife hit piece, too. "He said that she lets him do what he wants, and that means he wanted an open marriage" is pretty dang weak.
ReplyDeleteThat he's willing to challenge the assumptions of the attacks around him doesn't hurt, either.