I bet I know who got screwed.
"Gingrich roars to win in S.C.; Pugnacious conservatism key to victory" by Michael Levenson and Matt Viser | Globe Staff, January 22, 2012
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Newt Gingrich, buried in an avalanche of attack ads in Iowa and deemed irrelevant after the results in New Hampshire, rebounded to victory last night in the South Carolina Republican primary, giving the two-fisted candidate a chance to consolidate conservative support and emerge as the strongest challenger to the formerly high-flying Mitt Romney.
The win capped a stunning, rapid reversal of fortune.
Which is why it stinks to high heaven.
After trailing badly here a week ago, Gingrich ended up with 40.4 percent of the vote, easily outpacing Romney’s 27.8 percent, according to results from 100 percent of the precincts. Rick Santorum placed third with 17 percent, and Ron Paul had 13 percent....
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Veteran's Choice
But somehow he came in fourth.
A surprisingly broad coalition, energized by Gingrich’s pugnacious performances in the two debates last week, carried him to victory and revived concerns about Romney’s ability to appeal to the party’s conservative base.
Romney has long been the most organized, disciplined, and well-funded candidate. But last night’s result showed how he has struggled to translate those advantages into a gut-level appeal to Republican voters. With his cutting, media-bashing debate performances, Gingrich tapped into voters’ desire for a bolder defense of conservative principles....
Romney must now find a way to court disaffected conservatives without abandoning his core message: that he is the most electable candidate, with the deepest economic experience. In South Carolina, that message was threatened by demands that he release his tax returns and by persistent attacks on his past support for abortion rights and the universal health care law he signed in Massachusetts.
With Gingrich poised to channel anti-Romney sentiment in Florida and beyond, Santorum and Paul will have to revive their campaigns on a costlier national stage.
Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, was endorsed in Texas last weekend by a group of conservative pastors who tried to rally religious conservatives to his side. He was also belatedly declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses, but those results seemed to hamper Romney more than boost Santorum.
Related: Santorum's Symbolic Victory
Yeah, it's all about the narrative!
Last night, after a disappointing finish, Santorum vowed to carry on to Florida....
Paul was unable to capitalize on his second-place finish in New Hampshire, and the Texas congressman is not planning to campaign in Florida. Instead, he will turn his focus to smaller states with caucuses, where lower voter turnout means he can use his army of followers to drive his supporters to the polls.
Paul will probably remain in the race for the duration, in part to influence the party platform at the convention. But he acknowledges that chances are slim that he will become the nominee.
“This is the beginning of a long, hard slog,’’ Paul said last night. “We will continue to do this, there is no doubt about it.’’
Gingrich’s victory capped an extraordinarily tumultuous week that began with Romney holding a double-digit lead in South Carolina. Then Santorum was declared the winner in Iowa on a recount, stripping Romney of his narrow win in that state. Rick Perry dropped out and endorsed Gingrich, calling him “a conservative visionary.’’ Gingrich’s former wife asserted that he had asked for an “open marriage’’ in 1999. But Gingrich turned questions about that episode into a denunciation of the “elite media’’ during a debate last week, a moment that seemed to crystallize conservative enthusiasm for the former speaker....
See: Bloggers Have Hand
But it is the MSM jerking you off!
After Florida, which votes Jan. 31, the next five weeks will feature contests in Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Maine, Arizona, and Michigan.
Romney has several advantages that will help him in this new phase. He has more money in his campaign war chest, which will allow him to blanket the states with ads. That will be particularly crucial in Florida, which has multiple, costly media markets. A super PAC that supports Romney has been deluging the state with direct-mail fliers and ads attacking Gingrich.
Super PACs, a new fund-raising phenomenon that can solicit unlimited donations but cannot coordinate with a candidate’s campaign, have been a contentious and influential element in the race. A super PAC supporting Romney led the negative ad barrage credited with sinking Gingrich’s standing - and hopes - in Iowa.
Gingrich will face the biggest test yet of his unconventional campaign, which relies more on YouTube-ready debate performances than on grass-roots networks. To bolster his prospects in Florida, he is hoping to capitalize on the two debates scheduled for later this week - one tomorrow night in Tampa, and a second on Thursday night in Jacksonville.
Romney, after some hesitation, agreed yesterday to participate in both of those debates, even though his aides have grumbled that there have been too many debates and that they have created a circus-like atmosphere that does not always highlight Romney’s buttoned-down bona fides....
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"Suddenly for Romney, Florida win seems a must" by Christopher Rowland | Globe Staff, January 22, 2012
Now the Romney campaign is back to what his advisers have always described as Plan A: a potentially prolonged, state-by-state battle through the spring for a majority of nominating convention delegates.
Romney has the advantage in money and organization in Florida and elsewhere to help him win a war of attrition.
New Republican Party rules distribute delegates proportionally to the vote in the early states, a move intended to extend the battleground to Super Tuesday on March 6 and beyond....
The candidates are headed to Florida for the Jan. 31 primary, followed by caucus and primary elections next month, mostly in states that are more moderate than South Carolina: Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Arizona, and Michigan.
In addition to a friendlier schedule, Romney has the GOP establishment on his side and more resources. But South Carolina demonstrated that those advantages might not be enough in the face of a conservative electorate hungering for a fight - and a fighter.
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"Florida stands as challenge to Gingrich’s resources; He will need big money to make his case" by Brian C. Mooney | Globe Staff, January 22, 2012
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Now comes the hard part for Newt Gingrich. After a ground-shaking win in South Carolina, resource-draining Florida awaits with its 10 media markets, and unless his performance here generates a gusher of new cash and bodies, he lacks the infrastructure and money of Mitt Romney, who has plenty of resources to fall back on.
Gone will be the intimate small town stops on long barnstorming tours of more compact states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It takes 4 1/2 hours to drive from Tampa to Miami and longer between other major cities. In Florida, you cannot run an effective statewide campaign without a heavy television presence, and that can eat up more than $1 million a week for a modest buy.
Romney’s campaign has already announced it started January with $19 million in cash on hand. Gingrich’s campaign, which was in debt as recently as last fall, has not yet disclosed its year-end financial status. Reports are due to be filed Jan. 31.
Of course, Gingrich will have more debate opportunities to shine before the Florida primary. His winning and sometimes scintillating performances in debates have sustained his candidacy thus far. He does not have the machinery in place that Romney does, but he keeps talking about “big ideas’’ in a voice and vocabulary that fires up voters from the party’s base. But even as the former House speaker was surging in South Carolina, the Romney campaign was rolling out almost daily announcements of new supporters and prominent individual endorsements from various states.
Gingrich’s rise in South Carolina was more or less self-propelled. It wouldn’t have happened without a pair of pre-primary debates where he stole the show and Romney stumbled badly. Despite his uncanny ability to generate news, it will be a difficult act to duplicate going forward. After Florida, there is a series of contests in organization-rewarding caucus states, where Ron Paul’s campaign is focusing much of its resources, then a period of multistate contests: Arizona and Michigan primaries on Feb. 28 and seven primaries and three caucuses on Super Tuesday, March 6. Six other multistate days will follow in a process that will not officially end until June.
Gingrich did not even qualify for the ballot in Virginia, one of the bigger Super Tuesday prizes, so he forfeits any chance at the 50 delegates at stake - a telltale sign of the campaign’s lack of focus on critical details. He also failed to qualify in Missouri (52 delegates).
In all, there will be 438 delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday, with the largest being Gingrich’s home state of Georgia. Massachusetts, Romney’s home state, also votes that day....
I will give you one guess who I am voting for (smile).
“Gingrich just isn’t prepared for the Romney juggernaut when you move to a different level of playing field, with multiple states on the same day,’’ said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He’s a one-man show.’’
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If the focus on whether Romney should be the nominee has revealed the resistance of the party rank-and-file, Sabato said, a similar focus on Gingrich is unlikely to produce a more favorable response from party establishment figures who have been highly critical of him, in some cases saying he would hurt the GOP ticket in the fall. The harsh on-the-record criticisms of Gingrich by former Republican colleagues who served with him in the House are an issue that could have some legs.
Gingrich’s rise in national polls and the new life breathed into his candidacy should help fundraising. Winning Our Future, the pro-Gingrich super PAC, has provided increased advertising cover after Gingrich’s friend, Sheldon Adelson, who controls a casino empire on two continents, kicked in $5 million shortly before the New Hampshire primary.
He must be the promoter.
See: Gingrich is Good To Go
Anyone have a problem with a Zionist Jew buying a potential president?
True to his word, Gingrich has conducted his campaign his own way. Quirky and prompting head-scratching at times, it certainly looks like a big-time operation, with the big blue bus featuring Newt’s smiling visage, a small fleet of black sport-utility vehicles, and a group of ultra-serious security men wired with earpieces and talking into their sleeves. If the campaign hasn’t been flush, it has not exhibited the type of shoestring budget appearance of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum.
But the main attraction is the candidate. He keeps crowds waiting at almost every stop, but they rarely complain, and he always makes time at the end to shake hands, pose for pictures, and sign his books. Many times the stump speech has been followed by sales and signings of books by Gingrich and his wife, Callista, who is almost always at his side.
Yeah, Newt, the devoted and faithful husb.... ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!
Sorry, readers, I thought I could get through it without cracking up but, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!
There will be a lot less time for that in Florida and beyond.
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While I was digging around South Carolina:
"Police looking for a South Carolina toddler missing since Thanksgiving have found a shovel and what appear to be bloody clothes in his mother’s Columbia home and in her car, according to search warrants....
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Also see: Judge blocks provisions of new S.C. immigration law
Church owns KKK-linked shop, judge rules
Voter ID foes cite S.C. governor's heritage
I guess that's why South Carolina voted the way it did.
Honestly, I'm sick of the endless stereotypes and prejudice the agenda-pushing paper promotes about Southerners 'round h're.