Primary news: Rick Perry drops out, Rick Santorum wins Iowa, the latest South Carolina poll, and Newt Gingrich’s personal problems
Today was an unusually busy day in the Republican primary and I thought that I would touch on everything that happened in one post. We have four stories which I consider to be big news items and it is hard to chose which to go into first but I have decided to start with the fact that when the candidates debate tonight there will be one less participant because earlier today Rick Perry dropped out of the race.
Stating that he saw no viable path to the nomination, Rick Perry suspended his campaign and endorsed Newt Gingrich for president. It is true that Rick Perry was only polling at around 2% in South Carolina so what will Perry’s endorsement mean in South Carolina? I expect most Perry supporters to back Newt Gingrich in South Carolina while some may head over to the Rick Santorum campaign, and I don’t see many of Rick Perry’s supporters ending up in Ron Paul’s camp.
With Rick Perry at two percent I would say the effect in South Carolina would normally be minimal, but a recent poll (which I will get to shortly) shows that the race has tightened up substantially so every vote is important and if Newt Gingrich ends up winning the votes of a majority of Rick Perry supporters is could actually be enough to put him over the top in South Carolina and change the dynamics of this race heading into Florida.
And speaking of a change in dynamics: Iowa began a recount two weeks ago when a typo was discovered in one county which awarded Mitt Romney an extra 20 votes. Today the official results were released and it turns out that Mitt Romney did not win Iowa by 8 votes after all, and in fact Rick Santorum took the Iowa Caucus by 34 votes. While this really doesn’t affect the delegate count of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, or Ron Paul this is still an interesting turn of events because it flies in the face of Romney’s claim that he has made history by winning both Iowa and New Hampshire–no other candidate had done that before, and now no candidate has done so–and gives Rick Santorum bragging rights heading into the debate tonight. Mitt Romney is no longer the invincible Republican candidate whose nomination is all but insured.
A week ago Mitt Romney’s nomination looked inevitable as he appeared ready to sweep Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina but now he has lost Iowa and it looks as if New Gingrich stands a good chance of winning South Carolina. Instead of a Republican coronation after South Carolina we could have a real race here as there could be three different winners after the first three contests. And even if Rick Santorum does poorly in South Carolina his Iowa victory could keep him in the race through Florida, where otherwise he might have dropped out.
So why might we have three winners after three contests when Mitt Romney appeared so strong in South Carolina one week ago? The answer is found in the latest Rasmussen poll–which was conducted exclusively after Newt Gingrich’s superb debate the other night–which shows that Newt Gingrich has actually surged ahead of Mitt Romney in the final days of the South Carolina primary.
The poll shows Newt Gingrich leading Mitt Romney 33-31% with Ron Paul and Rick Santorum battling it out for third place with 15% and 11% respectively. With the race this tight it is going to be very important where Rick Perry’s supporters end up going and I don’t think that many of them will end up voting for Mitt Romney so Rick Perry’s endorsement could be just enough to put Newt Gingrich over the top.
And that leads us nicely into the last big news of the day: ABC has decided to run a personal attack on Newt Gingrich by airing an interview with one of his ex wives shortly after the debate ends. When Newt Gingrich announced that he was seeking the presidency I wrote a scathing post on Newt Gingrich for what I felt were his personal shortcomings because I think it is fair game to judge a candidate’s character by how he lives his personal life so I don’t begrudge ABC for this decision–I only wish they held all presidential candidates to the same standard as they are now holding Gingrich.
It is no coincidence that ABC decided to run this story while Newt Gingrich was soaring and threatening their golden boy, Mitt Romney, because the media has chosen Mitt Romney as the most desirable and least offensive Republican candidate and will do whatever it takes to help him win the nomination before turning on him when he squares of against Barack Obama in the general election. We saw this play out in 2008 with John McCain and now it is happening all over again in 2012–the media is trying to select our candidate.
There are no new revelations on Newt Gingrich here, this is all old news but the media is hoping that there are voters out there who haven’t heard this before–even though Gingrich has already admitted to the truth–and they are looking to bring him down. Why is it that the media is so gung ho to attack Newt Gingrich on this issue when they gave John Edwards a pass in 2008 for much the same behavior? Why is it that the media finds this old news so important when they didn’t bother to question Barack Obama’s relationships with Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Tony Rezko, or his rumored relationship with Larry Sinclair? Why is it that the media is infatuated with Newt Gingrich’s personal shortcomings when they were so willing and eager to defend Bill Clinton by attacking his accusers back in the day?
The answer is obvious, isn’t it?
America's Watchtower 
Newt should be gone soon… hope the door doesn’t hit him in the arse.
Santorum has had some good luck as has Mitt. Regarding Ron Paul… he’s doing his own thing but I have to agree with Beck that when he discusses foreign policy he sounds like bin Laden.
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It looks like Newt is poised to do well in SC, he isn’t going anywhere. Neither if Paul for that matter, the most likely person to drop out would be Santorum because I just don’t see him moving up in the polls any higher than he already is.
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The media is really pushing the idea that even though Santorum placed 2nd in Iowa (barely) and 1st in South Carolina it’s not enough. So he’s done well in 2 out of 3 contests. His campaign doesn’t have the structure or money which is what will hurt him but the guy’s message seems to be attracting support.
Ron Paul is getting a lot of support from Democrats and Independents… it’s not clear that actual registered Republicans are lining up behind him.
As to Newt looks like I over-estimated the impact ex-wife #2 would have on his campaign… I just read he’s favored to win S. Carolina.
I guess Mitt Romney really is the last choice.
A Gingrich/Santorum ticket would be horrible!
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The real losers may be the MSM. Perhaps more people are starting to figure out how left wing and supporters of Obama they are. Hope springs eternal.
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Well, Newt certainly put the MSM in their place last night! I do think this is going to backfire on them; they tried to Cain him, but unlike Cain, everyone knows Newt’s past so this is dragging up old dirt and people have already decided if they can’ or cannot vote for Newt based on his past.
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This is an excellent post. While I do support Newt (just a tad), I think that you are right when you say you “wish they held all presidential candidates to the same standard.” That is fair. And it always seems to be the underdog who is most viciously attacked.
There should be less emphasis on candidate’s personal lives.
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Thanks! The bial of the MSM is so obvious in cases like this and people are starting to tire of it. The media has chosen Romney and so they attack every candidate who makes a run at him and now they have turned their attacks on Gingrich. However, Gingrich is masterful at confronting these attacks as he showed us again last night.
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I agree with Bunkerville, this could backfire on the MSM, the more they do this, the more people see it.
The real question is how many Republicans or Conservatives actually take this seriously, given the source.
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I agree with both you and Bunkerville, this will backfire on them and Newt did a great job last night of turning the tables on them. Conservatives and Republicans see this for what it is but maybe, just maybe, this will make more moderates and liberals see how biased the MSM really is.
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A lot of news packed into one day. This race is shaping up much differently than what many supposed it would. Newt seems to have nine lives.
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It was a busy day and it culminated in last night’s debate. I never would have predicted the four people who would be the last four standing. I would have guessed Gomney and Paul, but I never saw Santorum or Gingrich lasting this long–especially after how bad Gingrich started.
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Again, what is the deal with conservatives endorsing Newt (Perry and Palin)? Is nobody looking at his track record? He has the same tendency to flip flop. He had been advocating for something that is very similar to the individual mandate (some cases within the last 5 years). I’m just really baffled here.
Yeah, I wish everyone would hold their candidates to the same standards as their opponent(s). Take for instance how it was bad for Clinton to dodge the draft but it was okay for Bush II to get a nice safe tour of duty with daddy’s influence. Being politics as they are today… meh… not going to happen.
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I’m not sure what it is Terrant because his record and his past statements do not jive with much of what he is saying now. He has flip flopped on as many issues as aromney has and yet conservatives seem to be falling for it. I think it is simply his debate performances and how well he articulates his message and it would seem to me that America already elected a president based on how well he spoke and I am surprised conservatives are falling for this after talking for four years that Obama only got elected because of his oratory skills.
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That might be it or it might be that he is seen as the best chance to defeat Romney. I can’t help but to think that the attacks Gingrich is doing is going to bite him in the nether regions come the general. The Democrats are will try to paint him as a 1%-er and he will not be able to say that the attacks are unfair without sounding like a hypocrite.
I have another thought about the OP. Republicans tend to paint them selves as being morally superior to the Democrats. Remember the Moral Majority? When one of them falls, the media tends to over sensationalize it. At the end of the day, it is the number of eyeballs is what counts with the advertisers.
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I agree, if the Democrats do try to paint Gingrich as a 1%-er he will not be able to claim class warfare after what he did to Romney. I also agree with you on the issue of morality; the Republicans claim they are the party of morality and the media does scrutinize the Republicans who fail on this issue because of that and Newt will not be an exception. He once claimed during the race that his personal life was a legitimate issue of debate before he attacked the media for questioning his personal life. He wants to have it both ways, but he is not going to be able to avoid the questions.
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