I wrote about the suspension of campaign by Rand Paul yesterday…..and that he joined Huckabee as a casualty of the Iowa Caucus Massacre……well there is yet another victim of that political bloodbath…..Rick Santorum…..
And then there were nine: Rick Santorum this evening became the latest Republican presidential candidate to drop out of the race. Santorum, who won the 2012 Iowa caucuses but didn’t make much of a dent this year, made the announcement on Fox News and paired it with an endorsement of Marco Rubio, reports Politico. “I don’t endorse lightly,” said Santorum, but he called Rubio a “tremendously gifted young man” who represents “the new generation” of American leadership.
In particular, he praised Rubio’s embrace of family combined with his tough approach to threats such as the Islamic State. He is “someone that can bring this country together—not just moderates and conservatives but young and old.” Santorum visited all 99 Iowa counties for this campaign, but he outperformed only former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore on Monday night, notes the Washington Post. The news comes after Mike Huckabee left the race Monday night and Rand Paul dropped out Wednesday morning.
What’s Jeb! waiting on?
What is Jeb waiting for? Jeb is waiting for somebody to applaud.
LOL…I saw that….kinda felt sorry for him….chuq
He needs to go start up a hamburger chain or something and call it “JB Hamburgers” or something.
LOL….any thing but politics….chuq
Odds are good somebody else is going to drop out in the time it takes me to type this comment (And if it tuns out to be my usual length, probably 2 or 3 more will drop out.)
My question is “Why?” Why drop out now? Why go through all this humiliating bullshit for a year? Why let the media comb through your life? Why risk (nay, “guarantee”) looking like an imbecile/asshole in front of the entire nation? Why expose yourself to this if you’re going to run away crying after the result of ONE lousy vote out of 50 (plus a couple colonies)??? AND it’s the vote of a state that dishes out less than 1% of the delegates! As history has clearly proven, defeat in Iowa is more than just survivable Historically, even winning Iowa means little. Quitting after Iowa is like a baseball team folding after losing on Opening Day! It’s statistically insane!
It’s not like Iowa is delegate-rich California, NY, Texas or Florida. But even if one of them was first, it should still require a solid spanking to inspire a dropout. Other than Martin O’Malley, who had more wheels on his campaign bus than votes. (8 fucking votes!), or Jim Gilmore who only got 12…but is somehow STILL in the race…nobody did bad enough to require dropping out.
To put things in perspective, (excluding Gilmore) in a VERY crowded field every single Republican got more votes than all the Democratic Candidates combined! Most got double, some much more. Not only that, the difference between 6th and 11th is a statistical photo finish. Nobody from 6th down was a noticeable drop-off from the person ahead of them.
By FAR, the most bizarre dropout is Rand Paul. The dude finished 5th in a field of 12. Well behind the leaders, but substantially ahead of the 7 below him, 5 of whom are still running. If you’re ahead of 5 people, you’re not the guy who should be dropping out the day after. More importantly, he won a friggin’ delegate! Delegate wise, he’s only 7 delegates back of the leader! He could make that gap up by winning American Samoa.
But Rand Paul dropping out doesn’t make any strategic sense. Just like his dad, he wasn’t really in it to win, certainly not by getting out to an early lead. He was supposed to be the “niche market” guy who would run the entire marathon in a losing, but respectable, effort. He was there to make his points, advance his greater agenda and set things up for next time. That’s what makes his dropout after ONE vote that he never was supposed to do well in, so fucking bizarre. Maybe he just got fed up with the bullshit. Kids today…not even half the man their fathers were!
And what’s the MOST ridiculous part of anybody dropping out after Iowa is that an ACTUAL Primary, New Hampshire, is only days away. Every one of them sunk lots of time and big money into New Hampshire. They ain’t never getting it back. Why not just hop a plane to New Hampshire, see what they have to say, and THEN drop out??? We’re only talking a couple more days, one lousy plane ticket and one more half-empty reception! Who knows? Given the tightness of the Republican field, you could go from 11th to 4-5th with 100 more votes. You might even score a delegate, or two, so you can walk away with…something other than a giant LOSER sign nailed to your chest.
The whole thing is an illogical skull-fuck.
It is for the war chest they have left…..if they suspend their campaign instead of end then they get to keep the cash left over…I guess for a rainy day….like everything in politics…it is about the money….chuq
Yeah, keeping the cash. But shit. What’s the cost? One more plane ticket? New Hampshire is on the way back to DC anyway. One more half-empty reception hall full of liquor for you to drown your sorrows with? Hell, even if you intend to drop out, it’s worth hanging around for another couple days. You could get lucky…in more ways than one. 😉
But I REALLY can’t understand why Rand Paul would drop out now. As I said above, he did well enough to stick around. His strategy couldn’t possibly have relied on being at the front out of the Starting Gate. Just like his dad, he’s a marathon runner. His objectives & path to (non) victory were always WAY more long-term. If he was going to pin it all on Iowa, he should NEVER have gotten into this. The same is true for most of them, but it’s especially true for Rand Paul. These aren’t his people.
But if you can’t make it to New Hampshire, what the fuck are you doing??? Trying to get laid by some easily impressed corn-shuckers? Save a year of your life and pay an escort to dress up like a Hawkeye fan and massage you with pieces sliced off a butter sculpture of a cow!
An escort? I like the idea and I would have to deal with the public…..makes good sense to me….
@Sedate … hehh