Thread: South Carolina Primary

Gingrich and Santorum need to go after Romney. I don't know what their deal was in N.H. but they were behaving like they were ready to concede right then and there to Romney. It doesn't make sense. Where's the fight in these "not romney" candidates? And Perry? What's his deal?

Gingrich and Santorum will split the more conservative vote, with some going to Perry. Romney doesn't even have to do divide and conquer. It is being done for him.

Gingrich is spending a fortune now attacking Romney. This is the negative side of Gingrich - the spiteful side. He certainly has many reasons for his anger, but he is losing the positive, clean image he was developing and he really isn't very good at being vicious. He doesn't seem intimidating. He comes across as a huge angry child. Romney has a cold, impersonal aspect to his image that has leaves a weird, chilly impression. Gingrich is much more human, but it doesn't work well in politics now.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

Mitt Romney takes his convincing 39% NH victory to SC, where he'll try to win the way John McCain did 4 yrs ago, by splitting up a fractious conservative base.

Iowa and NH have eliminated Michele Bachmann.

The rest of the field hobbles forward. Will SC be the last stop for one or more of the anti-Romney also-ran candidates, or will the conservative base coalesce around one of them to challenge Romney?

Newt's strategy involves a $3.7 million ad-buy designed to bloody Mitt for the next 10 days as well as to set himself up as the viable conservative alternative who can actually beat President Obama in the debates with his sharp tongue and quick wits.

Gingrich has said that SC is his last stand. He's on a kamikaze mission. Either destroy Mitt and take 1st place, or be satisfied with helping to destroy Mitt with negative ads that could give cover to Rick Santorum.

Santorum returns to friendlier confines, but can he break free and score a victory with Gingrich and Perry sharing the vote?

This is no doubt Rick Perry's last stand as well. SC is winner-takes-all provided that the winning candidate achieves at least 30.0% of the vote. So it's all-or-nothing with Perry, who will depend on social conservatives to win.

Ron Paul's campaign is looking further to Nevada and the other dozen or so caucuses, where they think they can win and halt Romney's momentum. Paul's ground game in SC and FL shouldn't be underestimated, but apparently his campaign is not wanting to allocate too many resources to the next two contests as much as they are looking forward a few weeks and to the places where they think they can win.

And what of Jon Huntsman and his 17% he brings to SC? Perhaps he can gain traction and place 3rd again with Santorum, Gingrich and Perry splitting social conservatives. There are two debates ahead of the Saturday, January 21st primary, and Huntsman needs to capitalize on his last debate performance as well as continue to ride on the fact that he appears to be the cleanest of the remaining candidates, with only China as his apparent Achilles heel.

The RCP average as of right now looks like this:

Romney 31%
Santorum 21%
Gingrich 20%
Paul 11%
Perry 5%
Huntsman 2%

My prediction?

Romney 32%
Santorum 19%
Gingrich 18%
Paul 13%
Huntsman 9%
Perry 9%

It's all up to Newt Gingrich now. And I don't think he's going to be able to do it by attacking Bain Capital. All the other non-Romney candidates are going to be extremely weak here--including Ron Paul.

Originally Posted by Oreo

It's all up to Newt Gingrich now. And I don't think he's going to be able to do it by attacking Bain Capital. All the other non-Romney candidates are going to be extremely weak here--including Ron Paul.

What I find interesting is that it seems like the Republican party is starting to do its thing and fall in line behind Romney, and in so doing, they don't want anyone to have to bring up "vulture capitalism"; the idea that he made a living putting good Americans out of work, shipping their jobs overseas and reaping huge financial benefits for it.

It's like "don't talk about that, that'll hurt our party". That's what's being thrown at Newt. Don't talk about that. Off limits. We need to be "united".

To me, a front-runner can't be the nominee until they answer the hardball stuff during "practice" time. This is "practice" time!

This is Mitt's last test state. If social conservatives down there give him a victory and he defends himself well with all this Bain Capital stuff the next 10 days, it'll show that he can take the heat.

But overall, there's a split I'm seeing. The establishment is basically trying to distance itself from Newt and Perry and their attacks of "crony capitalism" towards Romney. It's like the party is starting to say, "Please, please don't make the obvious attack that he's a 1%'er who got to where he is by selling American workers out".

Well, if he can't deal with it here, than how is he going to deal with it versus the Obama fundraising and political machine?

Personally, I think he'll only rise above it in SC because there are too many pigheaded candidates staying in the race. Republicans already don't believe in science, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that their candidates also don't believe in math.

I think we'd need some kind of huge surprise in the coming days like Perry and Gingrich dropping out and putting their weight behind Santorum, otherwise, I just don't see who can beat Romney in SC.

I'm thinking perry santorum and romney top three. Even though he's right on abortion, religious right voters don't like Paul's opposition to state sponsorship of religion. Newt can't keep it in his pants and he's the "thinking" candidate and the bible belt doesn't care for philanderers or those egghead college perfesser types.

It's not so much "don't talk like that, it'll hurt our party", so much as it hurts the ideology. It's opportunistic and it comes from three guys who are career politicians. The Republican party does not need to join ugly economic populism to its already ugly cultural populism.

Romney, Paul, and Colbert. Of course, you failed to list Colbert. If you want to know who will take the number 4 slot, it's anybody's guess since I haven't seen the media giving anyone a handjob over SC yet.

Originally Posted by adaher

It's not so much "don't talk like that, it'll hurt our party", so much as it hurts the ideology. It's opportunistic and it comes from three guys who are career politicians. The Republican party does not need to join ugly economic populism to its already ugly cultural populism.

But can the Republican Party really be hurt by this? I mean if you want the Republican Party to lose the rest of it's credibility all it has to do is continue to let the establishment Republicans endorse Romney. C'mon, Nikki Haley endorsed Mitt Romney. I'm finding it very hard to see anything credible about the Republican Party right now. If they think their "Obama is the devil" mantra is going to resonate with independants then they've got another thing coming.

Romney doesn't harm the credibility of the party, he actually enhances it. He's a moderate, he's a skilled governor, and he's a typical politician to the core. You can't get much more safe than Mitt Romney.

Originally Posted by Jason Marcel

Mitt Romney takes his convincing 39% NH victory to SC, where he'll try to win the way John McCain did 4 yrs ago, by splitting up a fractious conservative base.

Iowa and NH have eliminated Michele Bachmann.

The rest of the field hobbles forward. Will SC be the last stop for one or more of the anti-Romney also-ran candidates, or will the conservative base coalesce around one of them to challenge Romney?

Newt's strategy involves a $3.7 million ad-buy designed to bloody Mitt for the next 10 days as well as to set himself up as the viable conservative alternative who can actually beat President Obama in the debates with his sharp tongue and quick wits.

Gingrich has said that SC is his last stand. He's on a kamikaze mission. Either destroy Mitt and take 1st place, or be satisfied with helping to destroy Mitt with negative ads that could give cover to Rick Santorum.

Santorum returns to friendlier confines, but can he break free and score a victory with Gingrich and Perry sharing the vote?

This is no doubt Rick Perry's last stand as well. SC is winner-takes-all provided that the winning candidate achieves at least 30.0% of the vote. So it's all-or-nothing with Perry, who will depend on social conservatives to win.

Ron Paul's campaign is looking further to Nevada and the other dozen or so caucuses, where they think they can win and halt Romney's momentum. Paul's ground game in SC and FL shouldn't be underestimated, but apparently his campaign is not wanting to allocate too many resources to the next two contests as much as they are looking forward a few weeks and to the places where they think they can win.

And what of Jon Huntsman and his 17% he brings to SC? Perhaps he can gain traction and place 3rd again with Santorum, Gingrich and Perry splitting social conservatives. There are two debates ahead of the Saturday, January 21st primary, and Huntsman needs to capitalize on his last debate performance as well as continue to ride on the fact that he appears to be the cleanest of the remaining candidates, with only China as his apparent Achilles heel.

The RCP average as of right now looks like this:

Romney 31%
Santorum 21%
Gingrich 20%
Paul 11%
Perry 5%
Huntsman 2%

My prediction?

Romney 32%
Santorum 19%
Gingrich 18%
Paul 13%
Huntsman 9%
Perry 9%

Pretty much agreed with your prediction here, and after the results Perry should be done. We cannot forget that Perry skipped NH in an effort to make grounds in SC, which from the polls suggest did not work out all that well. Perrry should be next to fold up the tents.

Originally Posted by Tim

Gingrich and Santorum will split the more conservative vote, with some going to Perry. Romney doesn't even have to do divide and conquer. It is being done for him.

Gingrich is spending a fortune now attacking Romney. This is the negative side of Gingrich - the spiteful side. He certainly has many reasons for his anger, but he is losing the positive, clean image he was developing and he really isn't very good at being vicious. He doesn't seem intimidating. He comes across as a huge angry child. Romney has a cold, impersonal aspect to his image that has leaves a weird, chilly impression. Gingrich is much more human, but it doesn't work well in politics now.

I heard it said the other day that Santorum and Gingrich should sit down right now and decide who's going to run.

UNFORTUNATELY, I think Santorum should run (between those two) and Gingrich is too proud to ever concede to Rick Santorum.

I don't like the negative side of Gingrich either... IMO, it is working against him and not for him, as he seems to believe.

Nice poll numbers but I think they're mis-representative of what's actually happening.

1. Mitt Romney 29% (-2)
2. Newt Gingrich 25% (+1)
3. Ron Paul 20% (+11)
4. Rick Perry 9% (+7)
5. Rick Santorum 7% (-17)
6. Jon Huntsman 1% (-1)

Ron Paul .com

Shall we lay some facts straight before calling Mitt undisputed and Newt the only true viable Romney alternative?

In case anyone's interested, here's a live stream of Huckabee's forum down there right now.

Loud crowd.

RIGHT SPEAK: LIVE FEED Tonight “Huckabee Forum 2: South Carolina Undecided” GOP Presidential Forum (January 13, 8:00 PM EST