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Well, This Would Have Been Weird
From Joshua Green at Bloomberg:
It’s one of the great untold stories of the 2012 presidential campaign, a tale of ego and intrigue that nearly upended the Republican primary contest and might even have produced a different nominee.
As Mitt Romney struggled in the weeks leading up to the Michigan primary, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum almost agreed to form a joint “Unity Ticket” to consolidate conservatives support and topple Romney.
“We were close,” former Representative Bob Walker, a Gingrich ally, said. “Everybody thought there was an opportunity.”
“It would have sent shock waves through the establishment and the Romney campaign,” said John Brabender, Santorum’s chief strategist.
The negotiations collapsed in acrimony because Gingrich and Santorum could not agree on who would get to be president, as reported by Bloomberg Businessweek.com.
“In the end,” Gingrich said, “it was just too hard to negotiate.”
I’m not sure that “almost agreed” is the correct terminology when the stumbling block was who was on top of the ticket. That’s like saying that you “almost” started a business, but couldn’t decide what you were going to sell.
That being said, I’m curious as to how many of the Ricochetti would have backed this unity ticket as an alternative to Romney.
What do you think? Could it have successfully consolidated the anti-Romney energy in the primaries? Would you have supported them? If they had secured the nomination, how would it have played out in the general election?
Published in General
That they couldn’t agree who’d be top of the ticket is the most unsurprising element of the entire notion. Gingrich, Mr. Ego Himself who in a National Review piece I think Rob Long parodied as preferring to wear a Roman toga, even if he weren’t the top dog, would be uncontrollable. And I love Newt, from his old district here in Georgia, but he is the Republican’s version of Bubba.
I have a soft spot for Santorum and think he gets an unfair shake. I think he’s right on just about all the important elements save foreign policy, where his hawkishness on Iran was misplaced and not what the country wanted to hear, basically calling for another war in the Middle East. His Alex P. Keaton vibe, though, just ruins him in most people’s eyes.
That said, I would have voted for the duo, however.
I still don’t understand the visceral antipathy toward Romney. Unimpressive? Okay. Disagree? Okay. Not a “real” conservative? Okay. But why anything stronger than “Meh?”
Because his nomination was treated as inevitable. We were fighting as much for a choice as we were for any specific choice.
Why stronger than “Meh,” Mr. Finlay?
Because Romney wouldn’t get out of way.
And he spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative campaigning so he could climb over the corpses of candidates who did have a lot to commend themselves (and a miniscule portion on positive campaigning, confirming Romney’s own view that he had little to offer.)
And as a result of Romney’s efforts, we now have Obama Unbound.
No.
Just, no.
Because Romney ran a less than stellar campaign. He had no problem fighting, even going negative, to win the Primaries. That same “fighting spirit” did not show up in the General Election. This was a year Republicans should have been able to win. Mit did not play to win, he ran out the clock playing not to lose.
If the two couldn’t put aside their egos in a (comparatively) small contest such as this… (see Luke 16:10).
Romney/Ryan’s economic credentials had to be attacked. Gingrich/Santorum’s main strengths – megalomania and social conservatism, respectively – would just have been mocked. Mockery is the one political weapon more potent than the attack.
Yeah, but all those people already were going to vote for Obambi. Where the Gingrich/Santorum ticket would’ve made inroads is with those undecideds or squishes who watched the prez and vprez debates, and conservatives who stayed home.
Newt/Rick would’ve attacked their intellectual lightweight opponents, would’ve pounded them mercilessly. Something like Benghazi would have been a major issue. Newt wouldn’t have let that disgraceful moderator lie about it and bail out Maobama.
The media would’ve had a field day…but they already and always do, anyway!