After Santorum's stunning 3 state victory on Tuesday, Newt's only hope left is to become the candidate of the conservative wing and the Tea Party crowd, amply represented here in the CPAC.
All the pundit talk has been about how Romney couldn't connect with this crowd, about his stumbling, no longer being front runner, etc. Just this morning, Public Policy Polling released the results taken since Tuesday -- and Santorum has a sizable lead nationally, well ahead of Romney. If there was anywhere you wouldn't expect Romney to do well, it is at CPAC, the more conservative wing of the party.
So, today the delegates at CPAC took a straw poll. And the results are stunning.
Romney 38%Santorum 31%Gingrich 15%Paul 12%
If Newt can't do better than third place with this crowd, I think he's finished -- unless his obsessive revenge keeps him going.
Former ally, Jack Abramoff, said of Newt this week: "He has turned a second rate campaign into a first rate vendetta."
How to understand Romney winning the CPAC straw poll? I guess they really, really want to win the election.
Ralph
Seems to me that Gingrich is the big loser -- not only in Colorado and Minnesota and Missouri -- but also today in Maine and among the CPAC straw poll.
ReplyDeleteRomney's surprise wins are not that much ahead of Paul in Maine or ahead of Santorum in CPAC.
But Newt is way behind everywhere. After S.C., he was saying that Santorum should drop out in order to consolidate the conservative vote behind Newt.
So, by the same reasoning, Newt should now drop out and throw his support to Santorum.
But he won't. No way.