Despite far left liberal women screeching about Rick Santorum and his supposed anti-woman views, seems GOP women do not see his views on contraception, prenatal screenings and his opposition to abortion as being anti-woman. Conservative women understand his personal feelings stem from his upbringing, his religious views and his personal philosophy.His popularity among GOP women has jumped in the last week alone and has risen 13 points since January, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The Post-ABC poll, conducted on the heels of a week of scrutiny of Santorum’s conservative views on a variety of women’s health issues, shows that his popularity among GOP women has moved up 13 points since January, with the biggest bump in the past week, so that 57 percent hold a favorable view. Santorum is now within reach of Romney on that score: Sixty-one percent of Republican women view Romney favorably. Romney has higher negative ratings among GOP women than Santorum does — 28 percent to 18 percent — and those negative ratings of Romney have grown over time.
Furthermore, showing that the high volume screeching of the far left progressive liberal women does not speak for the majority of Democratic women (a whole different species), as WAPO reports "there is no evidence that Santorum’s position among women in either party has dropped in recent weeks."
As a conservative woman, but not a Santorum supporter, I can say his popularity has not risen in my eyes, though I respect his views as principled and a see him as a person who is not scared of standing up and acknowledging his views proudly.
The problem I see for Santorum going forward is his habit of saying whatever he thinks without filter. Those types of gaffes, comments that while true, can be edited and used as a hammer to the head.
Soundbites, in a general election, can and will be used against a candidate.
For Santorum it was the "politics is a team sport, folks. And sometimes you’ve got to rally together and do something." Or his emotions remark about women in combat. He later explained it was not the women's emotions he was concerned about, but the men's emotional responses also, but the damage, via soundbite, was already done.
For Romney it was the "I'm not concerned about the very poor," remark within a larger paragraph, yet that will be the soundbite Obama uses against him if he were to become the Republican nominee. Or the clip of his now infamous debate gaffe where Romney challenged Rick Perry to a $10,000 bet.
Romney's gaffes are inexcusable since he has been basically campaigning for President on the national stage for two cycles, since 2007 at least, he should know better than to provide Team Obama with that type of material.
Romney simply cannot unite the Republican party. Many believe that four more years of Obama is better than a potential 8 years of an Obama-like Romney.
Newt Gingrich has the debate skills to go head to head with Barack Obama as well as the memory of an elephant to attack Obama on his failed record as President, his past no votes on the born-alive protection act, his failed stimulus, Obamacare, his energy policy failures, his direct attack against religious freedoms, etc.... the problem for Gingrich is when behind he rises well but when ahead seems to fizzle out giving him that bouncing ball effect of up and down, up and down.
Ron Paul has some very loyal supporters, does well in online polls and straw polls, but cannot seem to garner actual conservative votes and many of his political ideas simply do not resonate with conservatives. Paul is also on his second cycle in a bid for presidency, yet out of the four candidates he is the one who has not won even a single state's primary or caucus.
Those are our four candidates and while many wish for more, Larry Sabato nails it on the head:
At every polling opportunity, Republicans have expressed their desire for a wider choice. Put another way, Republicans would love to combine the economic acumen of Mitt Romney, the social conservatism of Rick Santorum, the debating skills of Newt Gingrich and the enthusiasm of young voters for Ron Paul into one candidate. That feat must await several generations of advances in genetic engineering.
In my perfect world, Newt Gingrich would become President in 2013, Ron Paul would be in charge of replacing Obamacare with a health care fix that was not socialized medicine, Rick Perry would be put in charge of creating jobs, Rick Santorum would head up the social issues and Mitt Romney would be put in charge of negotiating with foreign countries for our business interests.
We do not need genetic engineering to develop a dream team, but we do need a group with smaller egos.
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