WI Rick Santorum Becomes The 2012 GOP Nominee

What's interesting is that, if Santorum became a latter day Barry Goldwater, would we be seeing the moderate wing of the Republicans returning to the fore in 2016?
"Moderate" is probably the wrong word, it would be a focus shifting to economic conservatism over social conservatism.
 
I think it particularly matters the second thing a person finds out about Romney.

FIRST THING YOU HEAR: He has acquired and run a large number of companies. He had created 110,000 jobs.

SECOND THING YOU HEAR: You have to look at net jobs because a lot have been destroyed along the way. And it's all part of corporate trend of busting down jobs and paying less. Romney even used bankruptcy law to get out of paying some pensions which the government then had to pick up.

So, the story becomes worse, not better, and that matters. The order matters.
Whereas the first and second thing you'll here about Santorum will be horrible.

FIRST THING YOU HEAR: Santorum compared gay people to pedophiles and gay marriage to bestiality and polygamy

SECOND THING YOU HEAR: Santorum wants to ban all abortion even in the cases of rape or incest, believing that pregnancies from rape are "gifts from God"

THIRD THING YOU HEAR: Despite this stance, Santorum encouraged his wife to undergo a medical procedure which led to the death of the fetus, which then he took home and had his children play with as if it were a living child

FOURTH THING YOU HEAR: Santorum wants to ban contraceptives

FIFTH THING YOU HEAR: Santorum believes environmentalism is some form of nature-worship
 
This is how the map looks if Santorum loses states Romney won up to by 10%.
genusmap.php

Obama 384 electoral votes
Santorum 154 electoral votes
It flips the following four states North Carolina (2.4%), Georgia (7.8%), Arizona (9%) and Missouri (9.3%)
 
"Moderate" is probably the wrong word, it would be a focus shifting to economic conservatism over social conservatism.

Good point. You wouldn't see Trump or Ben Carson make the headway they have, and might see the ascendancy of people like Rand Paul or Scott Walker.

This is how the map looks if Santorum loses states Romney won up to by 10%.
genusmap.php

Obama 384 electoral votes
Santorum 154 electoral votes
It flips the following four states North Carolina (2.4%), Georgia (7.8%), Arizona (9%) and Missouri (9.3%)

North Carolina would probably flip, but I'm not sure about the other three. Certainly, he'd take a drubbing in the popular vote.
 
Santorum is frankly weird, even more so than Mitt's roboticness, and that's a very bad quality to have in a Presidential nominee. I reckon he loses by a larger margin than Romney, but not in a landslide - party voting patterns are far more fixed these days. I don't even think an EV landslide is achievable today without a high-polling third party candidate and serious vote splitting for one of the Big Two.
 
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Whether you regard it as valid or not, the Democrats' "war on women" narrative was fairly effective in 2012 in OTL. Can you imagine how much more effective it would be if the Republicans nominated a candidate like Santorum who *actually did publicly criticize* contraception?
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Whether you regard it as valid or not, the Democrats' "war on women" narrative was fairly effective in 2012 in OTL. Can you imagine how much more effective it would be if the Republicans nominated a candidate like Santorum who *actually did publicly criticize* contraception?

No, people saw through the war on women crap, they just still preferred Obama. I don't think there were tons of women voters that were swayed by that narrative. There were rare cases where it affected a Senate race because of something stupid a GOP candidate said, the ones in Missouri and Indiana, I think, but the GOP won both states on the Presidential level.

Look, basically if you were the type of person to actually buy into the war on women nonsense, than you weren't voting for Republicans anyway.
 
No, people saw through the war on women crap, they just still preferred Obama. I don't think there were tons of women voters that were swayed by that narrative. There were rare cases where it affected a Senate race because of something stupid a GOP candidate said, the ones in Missouri and Indiana, I think, but the GOP won both states on the Presidential level.

Look, basically if you were the type of person to actually buy into the war on women nonsense, than you weren't voting for Republicans anyway.

Given that exit polls showed unmarried women backing Obama 67-31, I wouldn't be sure it had no effect on the presidential race. http://elections.nbcnews.com/ns/politics/2012/all/president/#exitPoll (scroll down to "not married women") In any event, even if it had no effect on Romney (which I doubt) it certainly doesn't follow that it wouldn't have had any on Santorum.
 
Whereas the first and second thing you'll here about Santorum will be horrible.

FIRST THING YOU HEAR: Santorum compared gay people to pedophiles and gay marriage to bestiality and polygamy

SECOND THING YOU HEAR: Santorum wants to ban all abortion even in the cases of rape or incest, believing that pregnancies from rape are "gifts from God"

THIRD THING YOU HEAR: Despite this stance, Santorum encouraged his wife to undergo a medical procedure which led to the death of the fetus, which then he took home and had his children play with as if it were a living child

FOURTH THING YOU HEAR: Santorum wants to ban contraceptives

FIFTH THING YOU HEAR: Santorum believes environmentalism is some form of nature-worship
Wow.

Thank you.

I've seen Rick in several contexts. And to me, he's a personal guy generally positive. And I'm a good liberal who keeps up medium well with politics.

Did not know the above. Did not know about his preachy, kooky side.
 
if someone is a survivor of rape and takes the view, this embryonic life is a gift of God unconnected to whatever abusive circumstances the rapist grew up in, that's a beautiful thing and more power to her. In a sense, it's a high-trajectory approach, but of course it's by no means the only high-trajectory approach.

But no one needs to preach at her from the sidelines. And I'd say most religious people understand this, and understand there's a broad range of conscience in which you should not question or criticize someone else, other than perhaps one or two respectful questions a friend might ask another.

Santorum is going further than merely lecturing and is making the additional mistake of trying to enshrine his favorite approach into law. He really should have thought this one out a little better and definitely should have known better.
 
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IMO, you need to remove Romney from the equation if you want Santorum to go far. Take out Romney and Santorum likely benefits from a Santorum-Paul-Gingrich race. Perhaps if Paul wins NH, it will scare conservatives enough into supporting Santorum so he can win.

Hard to say who he's running mate would be (as in who would want that position). The obvious choice would be someone more mainstream, but it may be slim pickins' after people have more and more insight on Santorum's positions. Someone religious enough, but not as overly conservative as Santorum. Hmm, someone like Scott Walker could pair well. A moderate obviously would be best, but beggars can't be choosers.

Rick certainly gets hammered by Obama during the general election. The man is just too extreme and controversial to win. Depending on how hard he loses, the Religious Right will be hurt post-election. Obama wins somewhere around 2008 results is my guess.
 
IMO, you need to remove Romney from the equation if you want Santorum to go far. Take out Romney and Santorum likely benefits from a Santorum-Paul-Gingrich race. Perhaps if Paul wins NH, it will scare conservatives enough into supporting Santorum so he can win.

Hard to say who he's running mate would be (as in who would want that position). The obvious choice would be someone more mainstream, but it may be slim pickins' after people have more and more insight on Santorum's positions. Someone religious enough, but not as overly conservative as Santorum. Hmm, someone like Scott Walker could pair well. A moderate obviously would be best, but beggars can't be choosers.

Rick certainly gets hammered by Obama during the general election. The man is just too extreme and controversial to win. Depending on how hard he loses, the Religious Right will be hurt post-election. Obama wins somewhere around 2008 results is my guess.

But Santorum would never have been a serious contender if Romney wasn't in the race. Romney was enough of a repellent establishment candidate to allow candidates as extreme and unelectable as Santorum to gain traction, and that was only after all the other flameouts, who would likely have been butterflied away or completely altered by a race with no Romney. Only a situation where the base refused to go with Romney but could not find anybody else could Santorum poll above 1%. That allowed him to get a burst of momentum and leads in the national polls before Michigan, and if he'd won there and gained more momentum it's possible his insurgency could solidify him as the not-Romney candidate and potentially win.

In a race without Romney either another establishment candidate could run that could be more effective, or another conservative would win. The only reason Santorum was a contender was when Gingrich crashed weeks before Iowa Santorum managed to go from an asterix in the polls to tied with Romney in a sudden surge. If it had been later he would have lost Iowa and withdrawn, if earlier he would probably have been pummeld by attack ads and gaffed and then lost anyway. There is a very narrow path Santorum needs to go down to get the nomination, and a race without Romney would probably block that path.
 
But Santorum would never have been a serious contender if Romney wasn't in the race. Romney was enough of a repellent establishment candidate to allow candiadtes as extreme and unelectable as Santorum to gain traction, and that was only after all the other flameouts, who would likely have been butterflied away or completely altered by a race with no Romney. Only a situation where the base refused to go with Romney but could not find anybody else could Santorum poll above 1%. That allowed him to get a burst of momentum and leads in the national polls before Michigan, and if he'd won there and gained more momentum it's possible his insurgency could solidify him as the not-Romney candidate and potentially win.

Right, this is more of an issue stemming from the Republican leadership being out of touch with its base rather than Santorum, Cain, etc. being viable candidates. A gap that opened up after 2004 and that has continued to widen with each passing election.
 
But Santorum would never have been a serious contender if Romney wasn't in the race. Romney was enough of a repellent establishment candidate to allow candidates as extreme and unelectable as Santorum to gain traction, and that was only after all the other flameouts, who would likely have been butterflied away or completely altered by a race with no Romney. Only a situation where the base refused to go with Romney but could not find anybody else could Santorum poll above 1%. That allowed him to get a burst of momentum and leads in the national polls before Michigan, and if he'd won there and gained more momentum it's possible his insurgency could solidify him as the not-Romney candidate and potentially win.

In a race without Romney either another establishment candidate could run that could be more effective, or another conservative would win. The only reason Santorum was a contender was when Gingrich crashed weeks before Iowa Santorum managed to go from an asterix in the polls to tied with Romney in a sudden surge. If it had been later he would have lost Iowa and withdrawn, if earlier he would probably have been pummeld by attack ads and gaffed and then lost anyway. There is a very narrow path Santorum needs to go down to get the nomination, and a race without Romney would probably block that path.

Sorry if I wasn't being clear. I didn't mean not having Romney run at all, just sinking him to make sure he's not a frontrunner when states have their primaries, but after of course he has taken out much of the other candidates.

Basically have Romney take out most of the competition, have Santorum (and maybe Ron Paul to take NH from Romney) edge Romney out, then Santorum finishes off Gingrich for the nomination.
 
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