Republican caucus vote counting is proceeding at its usual incompetent pace in Nevada, so while it’s clear that Romney won the first Mormon primary, second, third and fourth are not completely settled. If my math is right, unless Clark County (Las Vegas) is a real Libertarian stronghold, Newt will edge out Dr. Paul for second place, with Santorum being relegated to where he’s usually found, in the rear. Based on the strength of his showing, Newt says that he’s not going anywhere:
What happens is, every primary day or caucus day, the Romney Headquarters in Boston sends out the rumor that they believe I will withdraw, which is of course their greatest fantasy. I’m not going to withdraw. And I think the contrast between Governor Romney and me is going to get wider and wider and clearer and clearer.
That first sentence is pure Newtonian dog-whistle. Romney’s HQ is elitist Boston, it’s Romney’s campaign, not Romney, that do the thinking for him, and all they’re doing is worrying about me. This grandiose fucker has a real hate-on for Mitt, and a faith-based plan to pull even with him by Texas, in April. Romney’s going to have to grind this one out.
aimai
Ugh. Why use Romney and Grinding in the same sentence? Unless it was a reference to Soylent Green?
aimai
Gin & Tonic
Good. Adds a nice scoop of schadenfreude to the maple syrup on my Freedom toast this morning.
iriedc
“…Santorum where he’s usually found in the rear..”
We see what you did there!
Waldo
Cool. Here’s hoping Newt keeps pooping on Mittens right through to the convention — and beyond.
max
This grandiose fucker has a real hate-on for Mitt
I believe that ‘Mitt’ in that sentence should be replaced with ‘that other grandiose motherfucker’.
Romney’s going to have to grind this one out.
Yes! Isn’t it great? I’m really hoping for a Youtubable violent scrum between Mitt’s Mormons and Newt Nasties. Actual Confederate flags would be gravy.
max
[‘I’m also still keeping my fingers crossed for one of the R candidates to kill and eat one of the other R candidates, even if Bachman is out of the race.’]
J.W. Hamner
I already feel like the coverage has dropped off substantially… it doesn’t matter whether Newt stays in or not… it’s over and the media is realizing that.
Amir Khalid
The longer Noot stays in, the more chances he’ll have to fuck Mitt up good for the main event against Obama. After Mitt loses, Noot can keep shooting at Mitt with the “I toldja so”‘s. And Noot can stay in until he runs out of Sheldon Adelson’s money, so why not?
It’s a win for Noot, for the Democratic party and Obama, for America and the world. Go Noot! elebenty!
iriedc
Sigh… edit function hates my Droid today…
Bo Alawine
ROFLMAO!
Clever! A tip of the coffee mug to you!
EconWatcher
Why is Adelson doing this? Isn’t John Bolton Mitt’s foreign policy advisor? Is that not neocon enough for Adelson?
harlana
this is just delicious!
so when do we get down to Mormonism? hmm?
amk
pretty nasty of you. lovin’ it.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
How much longer before Newt goes full scorched earth and brings up the dead baptisms in a debate? That will be a popcorn moment.
amk
@Amir Khalid:
yup. perfect trifecta.
MattF
The 27%-ers all claim that Noot is the candidate that Libruls really fear, being that he’s brilliant and brave and… and so forth. But– how can anyone actually believe that? It’s not even a magic-of-the-marketplace-fairy-dust type belief that sort of sounds like something that might be debatable if you didn’t know better.
amk
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink: well, mitt’s father-in-law would be an ideal starting point.
“Tell me, mitt how did it feel to baptize your friggin’ dead FIL?”
Larry R
I’m hearing rumors that Gingrich’s big money supporters have had it and are cutting him off. Adelson isn’t going to throw good money after bad. So Newt might stick around, but with no money in the kitty, he can’t run the ads needed to combat what Romney can throw out there. It’s over.
amk
yet another proof of mitt’s tone-deafness ?
Maude
@harlana:
This could get to be a flame war. Wouldn’t that be great?
BO_Bill
Politics is very complicated!
RossInDetroit
@J.W. Hamner:
I would expect the MSM to want Newt to stay in. If there’s no conflict then they have no story. It’s all about the horse race.
Mino
Mittens must have promised to move the embassy to Jeruslalem, too. No biggie for him. But one has to wonder if even Republicans think they can trust his word.
Mino
@RossInDetroit: They are already ramping up the “who will the Dems nominate for 2016?” Saw it in two places.
RossInDetroit
@Mino:
Four years out and they’re already looking at candidates? They must think that story has legs like Lance Armstrong.
harlana
@Maude: Newt really is a nastier little mofo than I remember and that’s saying a lot! It’s gonna be great! pass popcorn, beer, etc. I have earned this!
Amir Khalid
Somewhat off-topic:
There’s been a personnel matter within Camp Mitt that has yet to be widely noticed or commented upon: the firing of Brett O’Donnell, the debate coach credited by the media for Mitt’s success over Noot in the most recent debate. Apparently, O’Donnell was fired because the media had given him the credit for Mitt’s success over Noot in the most recent debate, although O’Donnell himself never sought the attention.
It would seem that to the Romney campaign insiders, doing one’s job well enough to get noticed by outsiders is a firing offense. And aren’t those the very people you want running your country?
harlana
@amk: you have got to be kidding! i would normally say, hey that has to be a photo-shop! but then i remember, it’s Mitt, after all. priceless
harlana
@Amir Khalid: because Mitt likes to fire people who provide services to him!
Amir Khalid
@BO_Bill:
You don’t say.
amk
@Amir Khalid: Heh, mitt went with his ‘gut instinct’, ok ? Get off his case.
gbear
@amk: Haha that photo is great! The first lady is wearing an ‘R’ but the second and third kids are in the wrong order. Don’t the Romney people think anything through beforehand? Hope it turns into a new meme.
amk
@harlana: Fuck freudian slip. This is mitt being true to himself. Why can’t you libruls understand ?
Jay C
@MattF:
Sadly, it’s all too easy to see how people might look to Yesterday’s Man Newt Gingrich as some sort of Great White Knight figure: reality notwithstanding. You just have to realize that the 27%-er folks live (politically speaking) in a media bubble: an epistemically-closed echo chamber devoted to reinforcing their prejudices and feeding their paranoia about Sinister Others out to “steal” “their” country from them. Newt talks “tough”; therefore they assume he would “romp” over Obama in debates/election, since prejudiced tough-talk is the main component of politics in their blinkered political world.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Here’s the Daily Beast story on the Brett O’Donnell firing.
Jay C
@gbear:
R-MONEY? Certainly fits….
LOL
Jamie
You never know, Adelson might actually sober up before the convention
gbear
@Jay C: It’s even better than that. The R is an unreadable graphic, so it looks like ||MONEY
suzanne
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
As much fun as it would be to watch that, it would probably be counter-productive. My LDS friends are all convinced that “the Church is under attack” whenever anyone so much as criticizes it, so it would just serve to further enable the victim complex.
I personally just want the damn “I’m a Mormon” ads to go away. WWJD? Buy airtime, apparently.
dmsilev
@amk: That’s hilarious, though you have to admit that R-Money is just truth-in-advertising for the Romney campaign.
Cacti
Mitt is a unique character in that I’ve never seen a guy who inspired such contempt from his rivals…within the Republican Party.
Even back in 2008, Mitt’s GOP opponents universally loathed him. I guess that “I can buy my way to the front of the line” attitude even rubs the Goopers the wrong way.
SBJules
Keep Going, Newtie, I love it. There are’nt enough Mormons to win a national election.
Woodrowfan
no wonder Republicans keep trying to suppress voting rights. They are lousy at actually trying to count the damn things.
amk
@dmsilev: he was just channeling his inner mitt. fucking cretin.
Cacti
@amk:
Bill Maher recently “un-baptized” Mitt’s father in law, affirmed athiest Edward R. Davies.
Link to hilarity
amk
@Woodrowfan: Heh, it’s hard work trying to get mitt over the 50% line, ok ? Vote rigging ain’t for amateurs.
Cacti
@Cacti:
Oops, didn’t even see that Betty had front paged it.
Faux News
So when and where will the be Mormon bashing? I was hoping South Carolina would be the first to do so.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
Santorum prefers being in the rear.
dmsilev
@Woodrowfan: And it’s not like there were that many voters either. So far, with 71% reporting, there are roughly 26,000 votes. That means maybe 35K or so votes total. In 2008, turnout for the GOP was roughly 44K.
So, in a year where supposedly the Republicans are all fired up to oust the Kenyan Soshalist Usurper, the best they can do is a 20% drop in turnout. Feel the Mittmentum!
Palli
@harlana:
The information that Mitt post-baptised his ardently atheist father-in-law permits me, at least, the right to address his character and his interpretation of the Mormon religion. I see his disrespect for a Life after death no different than the disrespect shown by individual American soldiers urinating on dead Iraqi citizens. Both were personal crimes against humanity. His version of Mormonism does not jive with my ideas of Humanity.
Scott Supak
Santorum is sometimes found on the front-end parts as well…
The big news today?
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_COMO_205.pdf
“Tuesday has the potential to be a big day for Rick Santorum. In addition to these two
polls, a Missouri survey we conducted last weekend found him with 45% to 34% for
Romney and 13% for Paul. Given how quickly things have moved in this race I wouldn’t
assume Santorum still has that lead, especially given the momentum Romney has after
big wins in Florida and Nevada. But nevertheless it looks like Santorum has a decent
chance at wins in Minnesota and Missouri, and a second place finish in Colorado. 72
hours from now he may have supplanted Gingrich as the top alternative to Romney.
Santorum’s personal likability- perhaps driven by the fact that no one has felt the need to
attack him- has a lot to do with why he’s doing so well in these states. In Colorado 68%
of voters see him favorably to 21% with a negative opinion. That +47 spread is far better
than that of the second most popular candidate, Romney, who’s at +29 (60/31). It’s a
similar story in Minnesota. Santorum’s favorability is even better there at +54 (72/18),
with Romney next best at +11 (50/39).”
amk
@Palli: Bingo. Talk about disrespecting the dead.
mormons are not only weird but are also pathetic trying to ‘baptize’ a dead guy.
patrick II
I find it amusing that Newt has taken obvious umbrage at Romney for Romney’s actually going negative against Newt. Newt reminds me of maniac Albert Ganz who was astonished when Nick Nolte shot him:
“I don’t believe it… I got shot!”
In adddition (I refuse to write “Also, too), It should be noted that Newt is only allowed to attack Romney from the right. When Newt attacked Romney with something that might really hurt him in the general — the Romney/Bain Vulture Capitalism attack — the republican establishment cried foul — and “Mr. Anti-establishment” Newt backed off. So, while I am happy to see Newt attack Mitt, it won’t hurt Mitt as much as it might in the general if he is only painted as more moderate than Newt.
DanielX
This just makes my day. Newt has more in common with Mittens than he likes to admit, with one of the major points of similarity being that they’re both serial liars. But I have to admit that in the assholedom sweepstakes, Newt is ahead by a full length….
AA+ Bonds
In related primary news, Kornacki at Salon.com on Romney, Gingrich, Nevada, and C.R.E.A.M.:
The perseveration (and I do NOT mean ‘perseverance’) of an impoverished Gingrich campaign up through the summer would be an interesting beast