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Friday, February 24, 2012

Rachel Maddow Nails the Santorum Strategy

      On Wednesday night, Rachel was funny, she nailed the exact way many liberals feel right now about the Republican race.

       She asked Nancy Pelosi if she would say the same thing about Rick Santorum that she said about Newt Gingrich-'it won't happen. It just won't'

      She did not say the same thing about Santorum. To the contrary she said that she respected the GOP's right to choose their candidate, and it's up to the marketplace of ideas to decide whose the best candidate.

      Rachel then wondered about Ms. Pelosi's motivations. Sure, Nancy probably means this, But...  As Rachel said among liberals there is just this sense of:

       "Shhhhh! Be very quiet. The Republicans are about to nominate Rick Santorum. Don;'t say anything!"

      That's certainly how I feel. If they are about to nominate Santorum I sure don't want to say anything to discourage them. That's why I don't even see the point of cataloging all the just plain weird things Santorum says and believes.

      That's what the general election is for. Santorum is pretty clueless about how to dial certain things back. Then again who knows, for today's Republican voter crazy is what sells.

      The beautiful thing as well is that Romney is being forced into saying some pretty far Right things as well. Yesterday he was in ecstasy over the draconian Arizona immigration laws promising to drop legal challenges to it within the first half hour after he is elected.

      Even if Romney ultimately wins, he loses. For that matter I don't see why some of the MSNBC hosts waste so much energy mocking Palin's "delusion" that she could win at a brokered convention. Maybe she is-probably she is-but so what?

     Rather than invite experts on the show just to declare she's clueless if she thinks there's any chance, why not bring on an expert to speculate that maybe it is possible? Right now you don't want to discourage any candidate but Romney.

     Well ok, it would be nice to discourage Newt. You have the billionaire that owns Las Vegas Sands putting millions of dollars into his campaign just to help Mitt by dividing the conservative vote.

     You might wonder why we are still about Anybody But Romney when the recent head to head polls vs. Obama show little difference between Romney and Santorum. Well first of all-that's good. That shows Romney has been discredited as being the best chance to beat Obama. Second, Romney is still the favorite, and especially the favorite of the Republican establishment.

    I got to think that Romney's more plausible to independents than Santorum. Of course the longer this drags out the further Right Romney has to drift and then the less plausible he becomes. As he has been the presumptive favorite and is clearly the pick of the GOP establishment, you at least want it to drag on as long as possible whether he wins or not. If it drags out he will be very tarnished by then anyway.

   The one thing you don't want is a quick Romney victory where he easily takes control. The chances of that have already dimmed greatly.

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