Rick Santorum opens up a big lead over Mitt Romney in Michigan
Mitt Romney is not a consistent conservative, if you believe he is a conservative at all, but there has been one consistent aspect to Mitt Romney’s presidential bid in this primary season; even while winning several contests he has done so while gaining less support among voters than he had when he ran for president in 2008 in those same states.
This says quite a bit about Mitt Romney; how is it that while he has basically been campaigning for president for six years that he not only hasn’t been able to increase his poll numbers from 2008, now that he has greater name recognition, but has actually lost support from 2008 when he lost to John McCain? It can be deduced that the more the voters hear from Mitt Romney, the less they like him.
How much longer can Mitt Romney hold on in light of his apparent dwindling popularity over the last six years? Surely if this trend continues it will come back to haunt him as people begin to question why it seems to be that Mitt Romney cannot connect with conservative voters. And in two weeks time he may be put to the ultimate test when voters from his home state of Michigan head to the polls.
Surely Mitt Romney cannot lose Michigan, the home of his birth and the state his father once governed, can he? He should have a big lead–and in fact he once did–in Michigan and cruise to an easy victory, but yet the latest poll shows us that this simply is not the case. A surging Rick Santorum has not only made this a closer race than should be expected, he has vaulted into the lead over Mitt Romney according to the latest poll.
According to this poll, Rick Santorum leads Mitt Romney by a margin of 39%-24%, he has not only moved ahead of Mitt Romney, but he holds a large lead over Michigan’s native son. Even if Mitt Romney holds on and defeats Rick Santorum by a slight margin it will once again raise questions about Mitt Romney’s inevitability and electability because if he cannot run away with his home state he simply cannot assume he will march unchallenged to the nomination as he had hoped. Even in a close victory it will be deemed a loss and will still provide Rick Santorum with momentum moving forward.
If Rick Santorum defeats Mitt Romney in Michigan it will be a devastating loss for the faux conservative and one he might not be able to recover from, and right now that scenario appears quite likely. However, over half of the voters polled stated they might change their mind so nothing is etched in stone just yet. This still has to be unnerving for Mitt Romney and his supporters and he will pull out all the stops to bring down Rick Santorum in Michigan.
Even if he manages to win in Michigan, the fact that this state was contested in the first place will be a blow to the Romney campaign because conservatives simply do not trust him and the fact that his home state is looking elsewhere should give pause to all the people who are supporting him and make them think twice about whether or not Mitt Romney really is the most electable Republican candidate, or whether the media is portraying him this way because they feel he is the least offensive (read most liberal) candidate in the race.
America's Watchtower 
I agree with your assessment. Right now, Santorum is the surge du jour. If he takes Michigan, it’s more than just a surge.
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Rick Santorum’s timing couldn’t be better and I expect Mitt’s attacks to be vicious before because he will try to take Santorum out before Michigan just to save face.
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To the critical mind it is easy to see that Romney is a fraud. He morphs into whatever role expected of a conservative – something he is not and never will be. The reason he is stagnant is because he is unable to convey any passion in any of his affectations, liberal, moderate – whatever.
Santorum is a breath of fresh air. While not perfect he at least doesn’t bend to whatever way the wind is blowing….WM
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That is a good point about Romney, he lacks the passion and it makes him look like he doesn’t really mean what he is saying. I for one do not believe he means what he is saying and that is why there is no passion there.
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If I had a choice between the two, it would be Santorum. I agree about Romney playing the roll that is being expected, sounds like someone else we know that is in office now. No, Santorum is not perfect, but we have yet to find one that is. It should be interesting to see how Romney attacks in Michigan and how Santorum reacts. I think that will tell us alot right there. I also see a lack of passion as you were saying Steve, as well.
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At least with Santorum you know how he really stands on the issue, even if you don’t agree with him, but with Romney you don’t know from day to day how he will feel on the issues if he is elected.
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It will be interesting to see what kind of negative ads the Romney camp starts coming up with. It’s fairly easy to attack Newt Gingrich, but Santorum? Maybe not so much.
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The attacks are going to be brutal and I expect Romney to use the tactics of the left by trying to tie Santorum to Bush. And this is something we really do not need at this point.
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How much ya wanna bet these attacks will involve a google problem? After all, if the guy can’t stop someone besmirching his name in this manner, just imagine what the Democrats will do.
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He already has one google problem, that’s for sure. If it is that easy to create a google problem I am surprised there aren’t a bunch of other ones out there already.
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I think at this point the electability question comes to the fore – Santorum is as much a social conservative as anything else, and he makes no secret of his comfort with using big government to push those ideas.
The GOP successes of 2010 were accomplished, in the opinion of many, because they stuck to issues of government and ignored the social issues, the culture wars, etc. If Santorum is the GOP candidate, the independents both sides need will avoid Santorum because they don’t want government telling them what they can do in the bedroom or whom with, they don’t want as President anyone who believes that people must surrender control of their reproductive lives to the government, and they don’t want their tax money used to promote religion, neither theirs nor anyone else’s.
Have a great day and may God bles us all!
TGY
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I agree TGY, I think that Santorum’s social values will be an issue in the election, and might possible drive away moderate an independent voters. However, I also feel that Mitt Romney is unelectable because of Bain, Romneycare, and Obama painting him as a 1%er. It goes without saying that Newt and Paul are also unelectable.
I believe there is no candidate who can or will defeat Barack Obama, I think he cruises easily to victory in November and part of it is for the reason you mentioned. Republicans should have stuck to the issues of government and Barack Obama but instead the campaign devolved into an attack driven campaign with the Republicans actively trying to bring each other down. I mentioned this in my post called “Is Mitt Romney destroying the chances of a Republican winning the White House.”
This is an election where Barack Obama should have been vulnerable, but the Republican candidates blew it and they have nobody to blame but themselves.
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“Mitt Romney is not a consistent conservative, if you believe he is a conservative at all…”
I’m not even convinced he is a Republican,
If Santorum wins Michigan or even if he is a close second, this race is going to get very interesting.
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It sure will get very interesting! Mitt Romney could be in real trouble here and we know what he does when people challenge him; he destroyes them and I expect him to do the same here.
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I constantly harp on us knowing our enemy. You need to watch them on TV. Watch their plans to oppose Santorum on “The Young Turks” — current TV. They want him to be their opposition.
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They probably do, and that could be what the regime moved on the contraception issue at this particular time. They knew it would benefit Santorum, so is it a stretch to question the timing of the announcement. I honesty don’t think the regime fears any candidate in the race and I think the Republicans have done such a great job at destroying each other that none of them are electable.
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The numbers I saw showed Romney holding steady with that mid 20’s number, but Santorum gaining support from, ex-Gingrich supporters maybe? It doesn’t look like Romney lost supporters, it looks like Santorum gained. What really gets me though are those that can’t decide between Obama or anybody else. I can’t wrap my mind around that.
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Romney’s support has remained farily constant throughout this election and it is the other candidates who either rise or fall with the voters changing their minds on the non-Romney option. If one of the non-Romney’s drop out then it will be hard for Romney to win, but until that time I still think he is in the driver’s seat.
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