Newt wins Georgia

44%reporting

Georgia Primary

Updated 9:12 p.m. EST, Mar 6, 2012

Gingrich 204,835 48%
Romney 97,870 23%
Santorum 90,572 21%
Paul 25,933 6%

Newt said in his "victory " speech that he will get gas prices down to $2.50 a gallon. Herman Cain said it should be $2.999. Mississippi and Alabama are next Tuesday and he is looking for wins there.

South Carolina exit polls

I got an email from a friend a few minutes ago saying that Newt Gingrich will win the South Carolina primary with 40% of the vote based on his/her glimpse of the exit polls. We will see.

This certainly has been a strange week in the weirdest presidential campaign seasons I have ever seen. On Thursday one story kept stepping on the other. It turns out that my favorite GOP candidate, Rick Santorum, actually won Iowa. Mitt Romney was still dodging the tax return question when asked if he would follow his father's honorable example he said "maybe." Texas Governor Rick Perry dropped out and endorsed Newt Gingrich. Newt previously said that John Bolton would be his Secretary of State so maybe he would appoint Perry as Ambassador to Turkey.

To top it off Newt turned a question in the debate about an interview with his 2nd wife who said he was a 2 timing shit who wanted an open marriage into an attack on the media. The crowd ate it up because Republicans are always the victim of some media conspiracy.

The thing I'm looking at tonight is the Herman Cain vote. It was too late for Stephen Colbert to get on the ballot and write-ins are not allowed so a vote for Cain is a surrogate vote for Colbert. I'm enjoying the mischief.

Do the Republicans want to win the White House in 2012?

I've been an observer of Presidential politics since shortly after I learned how to read but I've never seen anything like this pre-primary season. Serious candidates like Mitch Daniels and John Thune took a pass then Tim Pawlwnty dropped out after the Iowa straw poll after losing to Michelle Bachman.

Donald Trump was leading the polls in the spring peddling birther nonsense then his bubble burst when Bin Laden was killed and he decided to go back to his TV show. Texas Governor Rick Perry was cheered for executing people and raised a bunch of money but couldn't speak in complete sentences and had a memory lapse. Then it was pizza guy Herman Cain who was sunk by an allegation of a 13 year extramarital affair after being accused of sexual harassment. Cain dropped out Saturday and the Borowitz Report translates his statement:


But before I go, let me share with you my final thoughts on my campaign. After months of crisscrossing this great land of ours and participating in over three hundred televised debates, I am being disqualified because of an extramarital affair. And that raises the following question: are you fucking kidding me?

I mean, let’s get real. I never heard of Libya. I didn’t know whether that CNN dude’s name was Wolf or Blitz. And my only training for running the #1 nation in the world was running its #8 pizza chain. Yet none of that, I repeat, none of that disqualified me. In fact, I was the front-fucking-runner, as long as I kept my 9-9-9 in my pants. (I have no idea what I meant by that — I just like saying 9-9-9.)

But here’s the part that really kills me. You’re kicking me to the curb because I was messing around, and instead you’re going with… Newt Gingrich? I repeat: are you fucking kidding me? Oh, I know what you’re saying: you love Newt because he’s an “intellectual.” Well, Newt Gingrich is the intellectual of the Republican field the way Moe was the intellectual of the Stooges.

Now the front runner is Newt Gingrich who is an ideas man. Most of them are bad like having grade school kids work as janitors. Now he talks about bipartisanship after poisoning the atmosphere in the 1990's.

Every Word Matters: Using 'Keywords' as a Political Tactic

Gingrich's negative words for Democrats

"Anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, anti-jobs, betray, coercion, collapse, consequences, corruption, crises, decay, deeper, destroy, destructive, devour, endanger, failure, greed, hypocrisy, ideological, impose, incompetent, insecure, liberal, lie, limit(s), pathetic, permissive attitude, radical, self-serving, sensationalists, shallow, sick, they/them, threaten, traitors, unionized bureaucracy, urgent, waste"

Now Trump is back in the news saying he will be the moderator of a Newsmax debate about a week before the Iowa caucus that has some Republicans balking . Newt doesn't have a ground game and even if he wins an early contest or 2 it's hard to see him lasting in a contest with Mitt Romney. Andrew Sullivan said that Romney makes plastic look real.

Back to my original point. I really don't think that the Republican media machine want's to see President Obama defeated. It would be bad for ratings for FOX News and Rush Limbaugh if they didn't have a Democratic President to beat up. Not to mention what it would do to their book sales.

It's Rick Santorum's turn to be the flavor of the month

The race for the Republican Presidential nomination continues to be a search for an alternative to Mitt Romney. It's been one flame out after another.

First it was Michelle Bachman winning the Iowa straw poll who's understanding of American history confirmed that our school systems are failing. Then Governor Rick Perry's inability to speak in complete sentences in the debates burst his bubble and shamed his English teachers. Nobody wants another Texas Governor that murders the English language. Next was pizza guy Herman Cain who is mired in sexual harassment charges and seems to think that his ignorance of foreign policy is a plus. Right now Newt Gingrich is topping some polls but was paid over $1 million by conservative boogie man Freddie Mac and is haunted by his past events like serving divorce papers to his 1st wife when she was in the hospital recovering from cancer and being forced to resign from being Speaker of the House because of ethics issues. Not to mention the Tiffany's thing.



So that leaves former PA Senator and Virginia resident Rick Santorum who is banking on a good showing in Iowa to keep his campaign alive until he drops out after South Carolina or Florida. He is only polling 3% in Iowa but polls in a caucus state don't always predict the outcome. Iowa Republicans are known for their religious conservatism and his hawkish foreign policy stances play well. Santorum has always been a consistent abortion opponent who wants to turn the clock back on gay rights and thinks starting a war with Iran is a good idea feeding off the end of times Israel can do no wrong fundamentalism.



His camp is actually touting an interview with Glen Beck of all people. Beck was kicked off FOX News for being even to nuts for them. He also said that Penn State shouldn't go to a Bowl game and Sarah Palin disagreed "It's not the players' fault that they have a perverted former assistant coach," she told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren. "I would like to see the players not suffer more than they have suffered."

Rick Santorum wins Pennsylvania Republican straw poll for President

Capitol Ideas is reporting from the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee meeting where all the buzz is about the plan to blow up the way the state will allocate it's Electoral College votes in the Presidential election and the brewing civil war that has pitted the legislature against the state party leadership worried about down ballot races and the Republican US House members who are worried about getting reelected. I would usually expect cooler heads to prevail who would keep the winner take all system but in this crazy atmosphere anything can happen.

pawatercooler.com has the results of the straw poll that for some reason doesn't attract as much attention as the one in Iowa.

In the interest of fair and balanced coverage that Fox News has pioneered I decided to put up the unofficial Gort42 campaign photos of some of the candidates. Please send pics of the candidates if you have better ones.

Former PA Senator and long time Virginia resident Rick Santorum topped the poll with 138 votes out of 388 tallied. The horse race coverage people like percentages so that is 35.5%


Mitt Romney came in 2nd with 98 or 25.5%. The dog that he strapped to the top of his car for a 12 hour ride didn't have a vote.

Flavor of the month Texas Governor Rick Perry got 71 votes of the faithful (18.3%). If he signs a few more death warrants he may increase that percentage.




Ron Paul continues to be the Rodney Dangerfield of this race, no respect at all. 21 votes



Jon Huntsman may be the most qualified guy in the race after being Governor of Utah and Ambassador to China. He even speaks a foreign language that probably disqualifies him with the English Only Crowd. In today's Republican Party that is a handicap. Look for him 2016. Tom Ridge endorsed him. 18 votes.

Herman Cain. 16 votes.

Newt Gingrich is someone I sometimes liked when he was talking ideas instead of his scorched earth policy of partisan warfare. 14 votes.

Last in the poll was Michelle Bachman.

ALex said: Only 12 for Michelle Bachmann? Maybe that anti-vaccination insanity had a stronger effect that I thought.

Whoever wins the Republican nomination has to run against this guy. 0 votes.

Ames, Iowa looking over it's shoulder

With all the attention on the Iowa straw poll my friend Dave Baloga decided to get a head start and organized his own.


At the Jonathan Balaster Memorial Summer Picnic on Aug.13th, 2011 we conducted a straw poll of potential (age 18 or older) voters and the results were compiled before anyone had known the Iowa straw poll results. There were 120 attendees and many children. It was a mixed political attendance with the majority Republicans, many Independents and an unknown number of Democrats.


The results of the Luzerne County GOP straw poll:

Rick Perry – 23 votes
Michelle Bachman – 15 votes
Rick Santorum – 12 votes
Mitt Romney – 11 votes
Newt Gingrich – 7 votes
Herman Cain – 7 votes
Ron Paul – 3 votes
Sarah Palin – 2 votes
Tim Pawlenty – 1 vote
.

I know this is a small sample but people who go to these events are the hard core Republicans who actually work in campaigns. I'm surprised that Santorum only got 12 out of 77 votes. Maybe they're still mad at him for endorsing Arlen Specter.


Ames, Shmames – Rick Perry Wins Luzerne GOP Straw Poll