I’m not ready for the Republican primary to be over. I’m not ready to hear about how Romney got his mojo and Hayekian modesty back. I’m not ready to stop hearing about how the moon can apply for statehood (no, really).
Tell me we’ve got a few more weeks of this, even if you don’t believe it.
Rhoda
Doug, Doug, Doug, the south will rise again!
West of the Cascades
We’ve got a few more weeks of this … how can Newt NOT compete in the Mississippi & Alabama primaries on March 13th?? And have the chance to “get back” at Romney in a few more debates? He has to do that at least for his own bloated ego, if for no other reason.
General Stuck
I do believe it, yes, yes, they will never conquer the Newtster. He is indomitable, even if mean and crazy, and who knows what’s what with the wingnut party these days. They may wake one morning, look at Romney, and say WTF? is it with this RINO Cinderella standing on my podium.?
Cacti
DougJ, look at it this way. Florida was the equivalent of a nuclear strike on Gnewt by GOP Inc. and the Romney campaign…
And “Not-Romney” was still the choice of more than 50%.
Gnewt’s not going anywhere.
jrg
Newt didn’t quit when his entire organization walked out the door. There’s no way he will quit now. The only way he’ll quit is if his financing dries up. Even then, I’m not so sure.
What does he have to lose? Is he forgoing some sort of valuable contribution to society by spending the next few months flinging linguistic turds?
Vodkamuppet
Oh don’t worry, this freak show’s gonna go on for at least a few more months. I swear though, didn’t I read a few weeks back that Newt won’t be on the Virginia ballot because his staff screwed up the petition and didn’t submit it on time? Santorum too?
The Dangerman
Dude, Florida’s so yesterday; it’s on to Nevada, where the most important thing EVAR will be Yucca Mountain.
Xenos
Just got up, put the coffee on, checked drudge to see what the GOP edgy-cool-but-establishment take on the results would be:
Romney wins a ‘LANDSLIDE’ over Newt, 46% to 32%!
Can you win in a ‘landslide’ with less than 50% of the votes?
Mike E
It’ll be like Groundhog’s Day.
Martin
Moon-Firster!
Tonal Crow
What’s the problem?
If Newt’s the nominee, the general public will rebel at his crazy and elect Obama.
If Romney’s the nominee, the teatards will rebel at his RINOness and stay home, thus electing Obama.
Either way, look for the teatards to yank the GOP even farther into crazyland.
Mike in NC
We heart the Newtster forevah!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think the best possible Newt Scenario for Willard is that he (Willard) manages to find the right combination of bribery and flattery to ease the lizard out of the race, which would be hard for anybody to do, never mind an entitled princeling who thinks a backwoods country squire has been insolent enough to question his birthright. And even if that best case scenario played out, you would have a resentful, volatile “ally” who could potentially blow up the fort from within.
Or Newt goes full-on neo-Dixiecrat with… Perry? Zell Miller? Bipartisan crazy-ass racists on parade?
The Dangerman
@Tonal Crow:
The Republicans could nominate Hillary Clinton and the Plain WHITE T-shits will crawl across shards of broken glass to vote against That One.
Tonal Crow
@Vodkamuppet: Yes indeed. And then this tremendous foe of “judicial activism” sued Virginia to be added to the ballot, arguing that the ballot-access requirements violate the 14th Amendment. I kid you not.
Spaghetti Lee
I want it to be as long and bloody as possible for tactical reasons, and yet…I am so sick and tired of these assholes dominating the news cycle, every fuckin’ day.
Tonal Crow
@The Dangerman: If that were so, turnout in the Republican contests should be far above 2008. It hasn’t been so far. That said, I’d like to see teatards crawling in broken glass. Maybe we could tell them that it builds character?
lamh35
Michelle Obama on Jay Leno looking lovely!!!!
Vodkamuppet
I figured it would play out like that somehow. So this means republicans love the 14th amendment now, right?
ETA: HTML is not working on my phone. That was intended for Dangerman.
stickler
Newt can “stay in” as long as he likes, but without that sweet, sweet cash money he’s toast. How many more checks is the Family Adelson going to write? Can he find another sugar daddy in time? He clearly has no ground game beyond “I don’t like Mitt” anyhow.
On the other hand … the man is crazy and mean, and good at throwing bombs to boot. So who knows.
pete
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Now you come to mention it, bribery and flattery are exactly how Mitt made his fortune. And money is certainly on Newt’s agenda. So maybe … but overall I think Newt’s ego will drive him as long as his sugar daddy will buy the gas. To the moon!
The Dangerman
@Tonal Crow:
Not sure that’s so; Obama isn’t on the ballot and Romney isn’t setting them on fire.
Their base will turn out in November; the Indy’s, however, will swing to Obama.
Scott P.
Only Romney and Paul managed to submit the correct 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot. Gingrich and Perry were just over, but when invalid signatures were taken into account, they fell short. Yes, that’s the mark of a stupid campaign.
Hill Dweller
Charlie Pierce eviscerated Romney’s acceptance speech.
Calouste
@Scott P.:
IIRC, the differnce with previous elections was that previously the Democratic and Republican parties “checked” their candidates signatures. Other candidates signatures were checked by the state. That didn’t sit well with a third party candidate, who successfully sued to have all signatured checked by the state. Gingrich and Perry didn’t get that memo and thought the old boys rules still applied. Shades of the Clinton 2008 campaign there…
slag
Wait. Newt hasn’t gone out on us, has he? Is this another one of your chicken little impersonations, DougJ?
Tonal Crow
@Vodkamuppet: Oh yeah, here’s a legal discussion of the district court decision dismissing the ballot-access suit by Gingrich et al.
Jewish Steel
Dude, Newt’s got a few more extended solos in this set. They’re gonna play Casey Jones and Ripple for sure.
The nice thing about pentatonic scales is there really are no wrong notes. The nice thing about appealing to R voter’s basest instincts is that there really are no wrong notes.
suzanne
Oh, he’ll stay in. That spiteful little tool hates Dog on Car so much that he wants to watch him lose. Petty, table of one….
Martin
@Tonal Crow: No, you have it right. The number of voters who are anyone-but-Obama isn’t as large as it might seem.
This election should be a mirror of 1980, to listen to the GOP. But the turnout in 1980 GOP primary wasn’t exceeded until 1996 and even then the turnout was barely higher. The enthusiasm to get Carter out of office was measurable in the GOP primary turnout.
We saw the same thing in 2008 on the Dem side. Dem primary turnout was HUGE. Double in some cases over 2004. The result of the general election wasn’t exactly a shock as a result. If the GOP manage a win here in 2012, it’ll be a complete shock based on primary turnout so far. Maybe that’ll change, but I doubt it. There’s a LOUD anyone but Obama group out there, but not a large one, or else they’d be voting – and they aren’t.
Tonal Crow
Somewhat OT, but suzanne’s message above reminded me that I haven’t seen any mention of Dogs Against Romney here.
The Dangerman
@Martin:
True, but Reagan was in the primary; I vaguely recall those days (I was a Republican straight out of High School; I got over it). Reagan was a hero from the start.
Mitt just isn’t exciting the “masses” like Ron did.
Calouste
@Martin:
84, 88 and 92 all saw an incumbent President or VP running in the GOP primaries. People are unlikely to be enthousiastic to vote if the outcome is more or less a foregone conclusion.
Tonal Crow
@The Dangerman:
Exactly. He’s not exciting them now, and I don’t see any reason he’ll excite them more should he become the nominee, particularly because he’ll have to tack significantly left to make up ground among “swing voters”.
Hill Dweller
@lamh35: FLOTUS showed some good comic timing when describing Willard’s singing.
The Dangerman
@Tonal Crow:
I’m a little young to recall the Carter years well (I was too busy sneaking into my Dad’s Playboy collection), but I don’t recall the hate for Carter was the same as the hate for Obama. Maybe it’s because of the Fairness Doctrine of the time (not to mention the news was only the Big 3).
Kane
From what I understand, the earliest that the eventual nominee will gather enough delegates is June.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Boy are things topsy-turvy in wingnutland. Nutpicking over at Redstate yielded this piece:
The anti-Romney forces are being pushed to watch MSNBC for “unbiased coverage”? You know that The End of Times has to be near…lol! That nuthouse is just about rioting in any thread about the primary. Banning has resumed but very selectively; old timers who say that they will sit the election out or even go so far as to vote Obama haven’t been BLAMMED! yet. They’re trying shaming for now but it isn’t working so far.
TPTB at Redstate are trying to get people in line for the inevitability of Romney in the general and it’s pissing members off. What emboldens the rioters there (IMO) is that Erickkk, Son of Erickkk, hasn’t endorsed anyone yet. That and his anti-Romney stance is emboldening the villagers to shout and wave their pitchforks and torches at the management. I sense a weakening in EE’s resistance to a Romney Presidency so that will be something to watch out for there.
It will be interesting to see what happens at Redstate at that point, it might be indicative R’s response to Romney in the general. That and it will be fun to watch the last big riot there before the election…lol!
It’s cheap entertainment, especially after having to suffer the assholes throughout Cheney-Bush.
Martin
@Calouste: True, but that wasn’t the case in 96, and turnout in 96 barely exceeded the turnout in 80, when the country was 20% larger in population.
And it wasn’t just that Reagan was in the race in 1980 (he was in previously, and the turnout wasn’t there). It was that there was energy for a change in the country and voters acted in favor of that change. That’s not happening this year.
Donut
@ Spaghetti Lee @ 16:
You said it. Ever since the last debate I’ve lost a little of the mojo. Yet, I think it is delightful that the G-Unit stuck that ridiculous placard on the podium tonight, proclaiming 46 states left to go, and asserted again that he will be back in Tampa. He’s like the Terminator, I guess? Newtminator? Gingrinator?
Help me out here, I put in a 12 hour day at work.
dogwood
It’s pointless to speculate about what Newt is going to do. Newt doesn’t know what he is going to do or say from one minute to the next. A lot of people around here are probably too young to remember, but Newt’s tenure as Speaker was one undisciplined clusterfuck.
Martin
@The Dangerman: There wasn’t hate for Carter, but there was discouragement. Iran, Afghanistan, oil, jobs, broader economic changes that we were slow to respond to, and the Soviets were playing a strong hand at the time and we were not long after Watergate and Vietnam. America felt a bit defeated.
I think the GOP has massively overplayed their hand against Obama. I don’t deny that parts of the country feel discouraged, but not defeated. Other than jobs and income stagnation (which are serious things) we’re not facing all of the other crap. By and large, things are looking up. We’re out of Iraq, we’ve had some good successes lately – OBL, Libya, hostage rescues. We’re in better shape than Europe. The auto industry is coming back. There’s a fair bit to be optimistic about, and the public is slowly coming around to that view. Demonizing Obama against that backdrop is only going to backfire.
Roger Moore
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Just remember “unbiased” means “saying what we want to hear”. At the moment, that happens to be MSNBC rather than Faux News, but don’t expect it to stay that way for long.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Roger Moore:
That’s what I’m waiting on. :) If Romney wins the primary and loses the general, Faux will be perceived to have led to the loss. Same with the other Romney supporters, the True Conservatives will hate them with a burning passion that threatens to consume them if not unleashed. We really need Romney to win the Republican primary if we want to see maximum damage done to it. If he does that and the South doesn’t follow along then all hell is going to break out on the right.
I voting for Hell to win the day. :)
Chuck Butcher
Have heart DJGE, the ABM got 54% of the vote, and that is in the face of somewhere around $21 per goddam vote in media advertising alone. Yes, based off 770K Mitt votes vs $16M media. wow.
Chuck Butcher
@Martin:
You think, maybe?
Iran hostages, oil embargo gas lines, gas price spike, inflation busting interest rates that steamrolled housing, and etc. I’m not laying all that on Carter, but try winning a damn election – obviously, a Chimp’s straightman won.
rikryah
did Newt win the part of Florida that might as well be Alabama?
ShadeTail
@Tonal Crow:
No, we’d have to tell them we wouldn’t like them to do it. Whatever pisses off the liberals, after all.