Republican Establishment will use Santorum to stop Newt

I read this yesterday at RedState, and then saw it confirmed immediately afterwards, on FOX News interviews and panels of pundits. By Erick Erickson:

I can confirm tonight from multiple sources that phone calls are in fact occurring between Republicans in Washington and among evangelical leaders to raise money for Rick Santorum rapidly.

The sources tell me that this is not for a Santorum win, though the evangelicals I spoke to continue to hope it is possible. This is to stop Newt Gingrich.

One evangelical leader I spoke to said, “If Newt wins, we won’t be able to make family values an issue in the general.” One lobbyist I spoke to said,

“They [the GOP leaders in DC] are really nervous about Gingrich and they think he’d be a disaster. The best way to shut him down is to prop up Rick.”

 

And sure enough, even though Santorum came in third in South Carolina with only 17% of the vote, I've since heard Charles Krauthammer, Karl Rove, Liz Cheney - and possibly others that I've forgotten - speak highly of both his debate performance and his prospects. "Don't count him out, Santorum may be the next to surge," etc. etc. etc. Amazing.

 

Meanwhile, according to a new Insider Advantage poll, Newt has a solid lead in Florida (and Santorum is dead last):

 

Gingrich: 34 percent 

Romney: 26 percent

Ron Paul: 13 percent

Rick Santorum: 11 percent

Other: 2 percent

No opinion: 14 percent

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

It won't work. Santorum's problem is essentially the same as Romney's: He doesn't "connect" with many voters. The knock on Romney over the weekend was that he lacks whatever it is that makes people feel "this guy is one of us." I think Santorum has the same difficulty -- but for a different reason. Romney's failure to connect has a lot to do with his awkwardnes and aloofness; Santorum's has a lot to do with the fact that he's a scold -- and a self-righteous one at that. These guys are what they are -- and they're not going to change because someone throws a pile of money at them (Romney already has all the money he needs, and it did him no good in South Carolina). If the establishment wants Newt destroyed, they'd better hope he destroys himself. It won't be done by Santorum or Romney.

[yeshiva son]

As much as I am a fan of Gingrich, I can't blame those who are terrified of his surge. He has a very, very low "favorability" rating - whatever that means, exactly. I also think that people realize that Obama will never - EVER - agree to Newt's proposed 3 hour debates. The best we will get are a couple MSM-run debates where everything is perfectly calibrated to make Obama look good, and where audience reaction is not allowed. His intense debate style might not play as well in such a setting. And a lot of people just don't like him or trust him.

[Mannie Sherberg]

Yeshiva Son: all good points -- and all true. I suspect Gingrich knows perfectly well that Obama won't agree to seven 3-hour debates. But I'm sure Newt will turn that to his own advantage. After all, Lincoln and Douglas -- who were every bit as opposed to one another as Gingrich and Obama -- agreed to seven three-hour debates (and they followed through on their agreement; several of the debates actually ran longer than three hours). When Obama refuses to go along with Newt's idea, Newt will surely taunt him as being afraid to do what Lincoln -- whom Obama professes to revere -- readily did. I can already hear Newt asking the question: "If seven debates were good enough for America's greatest president, why aren't they good enough for Barack Obama?" And, no doubt, he'll ask it not once but repeatedly, never letting the voters forget that Obama "chickened out." This is a can't-lose situation for Gingrich.

[yeshiva son]

That's a good point.

[Yael]

For what it's worth... The Husband asked a friend of his in FL how he sees the race post-SC, and received this reply: "Difficult call. NG resonates my visceral feelings, but MR appeals to my rational side." Then he wrote: "[eff] my rational side!"

[yeshiva son]

Hard to see how Romney appeals to any side of anything. Personally I think his speeches almost as difficult to listen to as Obama's - he just tosses around catch phrases like "I want to make this country into the shining city on a hill" and says things like "I love this country, I love the constitution". From his "victory" speech in Iowa: "I want to restore the principles that made America the hope of the Earth. I love our freedoms. I love our Constitution. I love our land. I love our people. And I love the fact that this is a land of opportunity. Let us restore the greatness of America and keep this land the hope of the Earth." It's terrible. If you want someone more "safe" Santorum is much better IMHO.

[Mannie Sherberg]

Wonderful story, Yael. And I'd bet the Husband's friend isn't the only one who's putting his viscera ahead of his rational side. In fact, when the chips are down, we all do. The original Lincoln-Douglas debates are a good illustration. Huge crowds turned out for every one of the debates -- at a time when just getting to the debates was difficult for most people, and when the debates themselves were anything but comfortable events (no padded chairs -- or no chairs at all, no air conditioning, no bathrooms or drinking fountains, no microphones, no amenities of any kind -- just two men talking). Yet people came and listened for hours because they cared -- not because they wanted to hear data or statistics or policy talk, but because they were concerned -- at the gut level -- about the future of the country. In particular, they were cncerned about the topic of the debates -- whether slavery should be extended to the western states -- the most gut-wrenching topic of the whole 19th century. The debates tapped into something very deep -- a matter that reached into people's souls as much as their brains. We're at a similar point today -- as more and more Americans, deeply worried about the future of our country, experience something akin to "the dark night of the soul." That, I believe, is what Gingrich has tapped into. It has of course something to do with our rational sides, but much more to do with a feeling, in the inner depths of our viscera, that something is dreadfully wrong with the course America is on. The outpouring of voters for Gingrich in South Carolina -- and, if the polls are to be believed, the surge toward Gingrich in Florida -- is far less a matter of intellect than a matter of worry, anxiety, resentment, fear, umbrage -- and perhaps most important -- a feeling of estrangement from one's own country. People look around each day and wonder, "Can this really be the America I grew up in? If it is, I barely recognize it." I think that's what Newt was getting at when he spoke about articulating "the deepest-held values of the American people." If he continues to do that, he'll be our next president.

[Yael]

Dearest Mannie, You are not so bad yourself at this "tapping into" business. I think it was somewhere between "inner depths of our viscera" and "something is dreadfully wrong" that I broke into tears.

[Yael]

YS, something does get lost in Romney's repetition of the phrase "a shining city on a hill." It was an image used by Ronald Reagan, especially remembered from his 1989 farewell speech to the nation: "...I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still..." You can see the speech on YouTube.) Also mentioned by JFK before him (thus it has bipartisan appeal)... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Address_of_President-Elect_John_F._Kennedy_Delivered_to_a_Joint_Convention_of_the_General_Court_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Massachusetts It apparently originated from the Book of Matthew in the Christian bible, according to which Yashkah told his followers: "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden." Sounds like he might have been talking about Jerusalem, but I'm just guessing...

[scp]

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/fred-thompson-endorses-gingrich/2012/01/23/id/425243?s=al&promo_code=DFDA-1

[scp]

"Faith leaders choosing up sides" http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1516182

[scp]

"South Carolina and the evangelical vote" (from 01/20/2012) http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1518564