One of our favorite Romney guys, Former NH Governor John Sununu, spoke this morning to FOX News’ Martha MacCallum (America’s Newsroom). With the Santorum/Gingrich led media hoopla surrounding a Romney aide’s comment about Etch-a-Sketch, Sununu pulled no punches:

“Mitt Romney is talking about creating jobs and Santorum is waving kiddie toys in the air. It’s from the sublime to the ridiculous. ~ Fmr NH Gov John Sununu

We’ve now reached the silly stage of primary politics… With the gravity of the domestic and foreign threats America is facing, images of foolhardy Santorum and Gingrich pinching and twisting plastic toy knobs on the campaign trail, hoping to etch and sketch enough favor to hang on for another day, is pitiable.

Romney’s reaction to Etch-a-Sketch flap:





Regardless of frivolous and foolish antics from Romney’s opposition, conservative Senator and Tea Party leader Jim DeMint released a buzz-worthy memo today. Penning lines that are very easy to read between, Demint says it’s time for the GOP to make a decision… to go with Romney:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican and tea party favorite, said Thursday he was ‘excited’ about the possibility of Mitt Romney becoming the GOP presidential nominee.
[...]
“I can tell conservatives from my perspective is that, I’m not only comfortable with Romney, I’m excited about the possibility of him possibly being our nominee,” DeMint said. “Again, this is not a formal endorsement and I do not intend to do that right now but I just think we just need to look at where we are.”

DeMint’s comments came the same day Romney met with influential Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan. Like DeMint, Ryan has not publicly backed a candidate in the GOP race, but is considered a prized endorsement for the White House.

DeMint was impressed with Romney:

“His leadership skills, the fact that he hasn’t lived his life in Washington. There’s a lot to like there,” DeMint said.
[...]
“I don’t have any immediate plans to do an endorsement but I think we all need to look at this presidential primary and encourage the candidates to do a little self-reflection here — what’s good for our country,” he said. “The sooner we can make a decision, I think the sooner we can focus on the real problem which is Obama.”

(emphasis added) Read complete article here.

DeMint’s voice joins a growing chorus; Jeb Bush endorsed Romney yesterday, Frank Luntz, Dick Morris, Henry Barbour, Bob Dole, and Donald Trump say Romney is the one. Freedom Works says it will no longer oppose The Gov. Even Ed Rollins, former Bachmann/Huckabee campaign manager, says he’s grown bored with this drawn-out nomination process and it’s time to get in the huddle with with Mitt.

I wholeheartedly agree.

► Jayde Wyatt

Mr. Neil King Jr. of The Wall Street Journal yesterday wrote “Romney Widens Lead, but Prize is Elusive” providing an excellent snapshot of the race in the graphics below and in his analysis below:

King’s analysis indicates that if Santorum and Gingrich are going to make a difference to impress, they better get on it now. It is my opinion that it is time for a few Republican sages to tap each man on the shoulder and quietly help them see what they are blind to: that their quest entered the selfish phase awhile back and that it is now obvious to all but a few Americans they seem intent on damaging the Republican chances against Obama. While Obama is amassing war chest funds at a pace much faster than the four GOP candidates combined, we are squandering our funds in needless inter-party scrimmages:

Indeed, a look at the delegate math in the Republican contest shows Mr. Romney still could face a drawn-out race against his main challenger, Rick Santorum, as well Newt Gingrich, and he faces a primary calendar that seems structured to maintain the suspense.
[...]
Mr. Santorum, who lags behind the front-runner by well over 200 delegates, would have to win about three-quarters of all remaining delegates to cross that bar, while Mr. Gingrich would have to win nearly 90% of remaining delegates up for grabs.
[...]
Mr. Santorum’s aides acknowledge that April holds little promise for their quest. They hope to do well in Wisconsin on April 3, and then in the former senator’s home state of Pennsylvania on April 24. But the campaign isn’t predicting wins in either state, raising the possibility that Mr. Santorum could go 0-for-8 in April, a month that will put 329 delegates up for grabs.
[...]
That means a central question in the campaign becomes whether Mr. Santorum’s candidacy can survive a nearly 10-week period of sparse delegate pickups in April and few hospitable states in early May.

[emphasis added]

In a separate WSJ article, Jason L. Riley gave us “Santorum’s Blame Game” (whatever happened to a leader accepting responsibility for failure in a hard fought battle?):

Significantly, Mr. Romney, a Mormon, has continued to beat Mr. Santorum, a devout Catholic, among Catholics — an important swing voting bloc that broke for George W. Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008.

By the way, if you want to see Santorum become snarky, watch the way he answers questions about the Catholic vote! In the Michigan primary loss, he was asked about his big losses to Catholic voters and his reply was that he does well with those that “attend church.” Well, in the Illinois primary exit polls, Governor Romney won the vote of Catholics that “attend church at least once a week.” NICE! It will be interesting to see how he answers the question the next time he is asked about the Catholic vote. Can he blame another Christian for the Illinois loss of Catholics? Why find blame? Why not just accept defeat like a man?

Despite the thumping, Mr. Santorum made it clear last night that he isn’t quitting the race, refusing even to acknowledge that he had performed poorly. [...] The Santorum camp also continued to point the finger at Newt Gingrich. “It’s time for Gingrich supporters to get behind us if they truly want a conservative candidate,” a Santorum aide told reporters, according to Politico.

Mr. Santorum believes that Mr. Gingrich’s presence in the race is splitting the anti-Romney vote and hurting his campaign. That’s certainly plausible but is becoming less so as the nomination process continues. Mr. Romney’s Illinois vote total yesterday was easily greater than Mr. Santorum’s and Mr. Gingrich’s combined.

[emphasis added]

What is it about today’s leadership at the national level? I fear that many Republicans have fallen into the liberal trap of finding blame outside of oneself for failure. We see it everywhere among the Democrats — we expect as much from them. I strongly believe that a President Mitt Romney will accept every responsibility as a man in a way that all strong leaders do — and he will do so by sharing his successes with others while shouldering set-backs with “the bucks stops here” attitude.

Sadly, if either Gingrich or Santorum exit the race involuntarily, it will likely the be the ignoble way: When they run out of runway (cash is gone).

What would Mitt Romney do?

CONGRATULATIONS to Governor Romney and team! And THANK YOU to the voters of Illinois and all the volunteers that made such a difference yesterday! Team MRC salutes you!

THANK YOU to my friend Jim for the humor of this night. (“The secret to humor is surprise.” ~ Aristotle)

What is it about the Brits and Monty Python? There is something about this short video that seemed oddly familiar to me and I just could not resist sharing it with you.

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.” ~ Sun Tzu

“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.” ~ Douglas MacArthur

“A good athlete always mentally replays a competition over and over, even in victory, to see what might be done to improve the performance the next time.” ~ Frank Shorter

And what about Lloyd? I feel sorry for him:

[THANK YOU to "Dave in Colorado" (a frequent visitor to MRC) for the Dumb and Dumber clip!]

Many of our current visitors are new to MittRomneyCentral (MRC); some come here to learn a little about Governor Romney; others are searching for truth related to comments they read or heard in the press or media – many currently support former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, or Congressman Paul.

We are a small, grassroots group of writers — the website has a large following with no affiliation at all to the Romney campaign. We are completely independent, allowing us to “speak our minds” so to speak.

We feel a kinship to the ardent supporters of Senator Santorum, Speaker Gingrich, and Congressman Paul and wish to invite you to join us in our efforts to defeat President Barack Obama in November. We are well aware of the differences we have and we are sensitive to the fact that those differences are important to you. We understand too that the policy positions of any one presidential candidate will not align perfectly with another. That said, we know that Governor Romney has far more in common with your candidate than you may yet understand.

As grassroots volunteers at MRC, we take nothing for granted. We have never stated that we think Gov. Romney’s competing for the nomination makes him the inevitable winner or that he is the presumptive nominee; not at all. To adopt any other attitude is unbecoming any campaign – we hope to reflect the modest attitude of our candidate and unitedly work to the main goal – that of defeating Obama in November.

Until he is the actual Republican nominee, we will work tirelessly to contribute any way we can, using truth as our only tool; even when he has 1,130 committed delegates. We would like your help to build a larger volunteer base to defeat Obama. We are not asking you to leave your candidate as much as we are asking you to join our team – a winning team we believe.

Gov. Romney has assembled a formidable, powerful grassroots team that is augmented by professionals, led by Gov. Romney himself. We believe it is a winning combination – a winning team. We would be most appreciative and grateful for your support at this important time in America’s history. We fully understand the passion you have for your candidate; we do. As stated above, we feel a certain kinship to your candidate. All three men have accomplished a great deal for this great nation and we are most grateful for their service.

You may decide now is not the time to join us and we understand that too. We just want you to know that we would like you to join us sooner rather than later. We need your intensity and support to press our case against a terribly failed President. We do not consider this a partisan battle as much as a battle for the very heart of the United States of America. We need your help. We are committed to maintain this Internet destination as the finest of any that is dedicated to electing the next President of the United States.

If you would like to consider joining a winning team, we would invite you to subscribe to MRC. It literally takes 10 seconds, is free, and will only result in a periodic email to inform you of new articles. If so, simply go to the home page, find the photo of the T-shirts in the top right hand corner and below it you will see a small box with the words, “Want MRC Delivered to Your Inbox?” Simply drop in your email address and you are done. No spam will arrive; ever.

If not, we invite you to check in periodically for updates to the race. We will continue the battle and battle hard. But always in truth – seeking continuously to maintain the highest levels of journalistic excellence as community, amateur writers.

Obviously, with this invitation to you, we think the time to unite in our efforts to defeat Obama is right now — today. Please join us as we set a winning course to the White House. You are always welcome in our camp!

Illinois, you know the future of the country is in your hands.

The GOP All Agree: It’s Time to Replace Barack Obama

The GOP nearly unanimously agrees that our four year experiment with an inexperienced Senator at the helm has been a disaster. I read yesterday an article at Politico whose headline was “CBO: Exploding debt under Obama policies.” That article says public debt is expected (under CBO rules of prognostication) to increase from $10.1 trillion in 2011 to $18.8 trillion in 2022. For the current fiscal year:

…CBO is now projecting a shortfall of $1.3 trillion. In fiscal 2013, the deficit will still hover near the $1 trillion mark — about $977 billion. And while it will fall to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2017, it then begins to grow again to 3 percent of GDP by 2022.

With 5 more years of Barack Obama, without threat of losing a re-election bid, one can imagine how bad it could get. How long has it been since the Senate proposed a budget? How much time do we have to repeal Obamacare before the contraception controversy becomes par for the course, and the Federal government begins telling religious institutions what it must buy for its employees?

And this doesn’t even consider foreign policy.

Picking the Replacement

So our choices to replace Barack Obama are now clear. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney.

Ron Paul.

While there’s much of Ron Paul’s philosophy on the appropriate constitutional size of government I find appealing, he won’t win an election against Barack Obama. The last two elections in which the GOP nominee was elected were decided by the slimmest of margins. I don’t believe that American citizens are ready to make the radical changes Ron Paul would advocate. And I’m not ready for his approach to foreign policy.

Newt Gingrich.

I’ve written before that while Newt Gingrich seems to be an idea machine, he doesn’t know the difference between a good one and a bad one, which is not a good trait for a president. As an attorney for executives, I have observed that some people actually get things done, and others like to pontificate and tell others what to do. I see Newt in the latter role: wanting to be the professor and tell everyone else what they should do rather than actually getting it done. That is not what I’m looking for in an commander-in-chief.

Rick Santorum.

As for Rick Santorum, there’s a lot about his conservative social stands that I like. But I disagree that Rick draws a sharper conservative contrast with Obama than Mitt Romney, that Rick is the “true conservative” in the race, or that Mitt’s having endorsed health care reform in Massachusetts is a handicap. David Axelrod, Obama’s Communications Director, doesn’t hesitate to point out the many differences between Mitt and Obama. Saying Mitt is in any way like Obama is clearly misleading. Santorum calling himself the “true conservative” is also misleading. There are serious arguments to be made that Santorum is not a fiscal conservative at all. And while he attacks Mitt on social issues (principally abortion and Romneycare), Santorum is just as much a convert to the pro-life movement as Mitt is, and Mitt has made it very, very clear that he is both pro-life and intends to repeal Obamacare. When Santorum claims he “never supported the individual mandate,” that’s not true. He supported Mitt Romney as the “true conservative” candidate in 2008, after Romneycare was adopted. Rick’s conversion on health care reform came very recently, and very opportunistically. And we should not forget that Santorum’s endorsement of liberal Arlen Specter is what allowed Obamacare to pass in the first place, since Specter cast the deciding vote. Rick’s habit of compromising his principles has already harmed our country enough.

Mitt Romney.

Meanwhile, in my mind, Mitt has a number of strengths that make him the compelling choice.

Turnaround experience.

Mitt has decades of true executive experience, something unmatched in any other candidate. Mitt has been a governor. He has been a CEO. He led the Olympic games. Mitt’s executive experience has also often been leading organizations needing a turnaround. He’s credited with saving the 2002 Olympics. He’s credited with saving Bain Consulting. He’s credited with balancing the budget in Massachusetts without raising tax rates.

Read more…

THANK YOU to all Puerto Rico voters for your overwhelming support of Governor Romney today! — CONGRATULATIONS to you and to Governor Romney!

##############################################################

There has been one article after another talking about how Gingrich needs to get out of the race to benefit Santorum and to make this a two-man, face-to-face run for the nomination. Often, the implication is that the vast majority of Gingrich voters will swing to Santorum. Even the TV pundits seem to be touting some inherent weakness in Romney that only allows him to garner “one third of all the votes in any given primary” etc.

If you were to believe the MSM (and most passive voters do), you would conclude that Romney is failing miserably and that the perpetual Gingrich ego trip only helps Romney to keep the “anti-Romney” vote splintered — nevermind that Romney is winning in every category! It is simply wishful thinking and has no basis in fact (see Michael Medved’s reasoning as to why the “Major Mainstream Media” hate Mitt Romney at the end of this post).

Let’s look at what happens if Mr. Newt were to walk away from the limelight — behavior that would belie his self-interest. Dante Chinni wrote an outstanding article Friday in The Wall Street Journal, titled, “Politics Counts: Who Benefits If Gingrich Drops Out?”

The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found the dynamics of the national race would not change dramatically if it were a simple Romney-Santorum showdown. With the four current candidates in the field Mr. Romney leads Mr. Santorum 38% to 32%. If it is just the two of them in the running Mr. Romney still leads 45% to 40%.
[…]
The vast majority of Illinois voters live in the big city Industrial Metropolis of Cook County, home of Chicago, and the wealthy Monied Burb counties that surround it. So the net Newt impact would probably be pretty small. The same would probably true in upcoming primaries in Wisconsin, New York and Connecticut.

Louisiana, which votes Saturday March 24, is a very different story. In Louisiana, 70% of the population lives in Minority Central counties and 18% live in the Boom Towns. In other words, if form follows, the Gingrich vote there could play a very big role in who ultimately wins the state. The same might also be true in states like North Carolina and Kentucky that are still ahead.

[emphasis added]

Also Friday, Gallup published an article that included the latest results of one of its surveys to show categorically who “Gingrich voters” would likely support if he were to exit the race. Do you think we will hear much about this in the MSM? It is highly unlikely! Why? See Michael Medved’s article at the end of this post.

FROM THE GALLUP STUDY:

Republican voters who prefer Newt Gingrich for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination are as likely to name Mitt Romney as their second choice as they are to name Rick Santorum, suggesting the race would not tilt in Santorum’s favor if Gingrich dropped out.
[…]
Some conservative Republicans have called for Gingrich to drop out of the race on the assumption that conservative primary voters would then unite behind Santorum as the conservative alternative to the more moderate Romney. But Gallup data indicate that Gingrich voters would not be likely to coalesce behind Santorum, suggesting that factors other than candidate ideology may be attracting voters to Gingrich, Santorum, and Romney.

Gallup can simulate Republican preferences without Gingrich in the race by removing Gingrich votes and reassigning them to his voters’ second-choice candidate. The results of this procedure suggest that national GOP preferences would change little if Gingrich dropped out. The reconfigured preferences show Romney getting 40% of the vote and Santorum getting 33%. That seven-percentage-point Romney lead is essentially the same as the six-point (34% to 28%) Romney lead in March 8-15 interviewing with Gingrich support included.
[…]
Thus, Santorum may not benefit much from Gingrich dropping out because the most conservative voters already support Santorum to a large degree, and Gingrich’s appeal to this group is not substantially greater than Romney’s.

[Gallup continues below the fold + Medved + Chart + Photos]… Read more…

It’s a landslide!

Governor Romney scored a HUGE win today in Puerto Rico!

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney won a crushing victory in Puerto Rico’s primary contest on Sunday.

CNN and the Associated Press both projected Romney as the winner shortly before 7 p.m., three hours after polls closed in the island territory.

With 11 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had 82 percent of the vote followed by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum with 9 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) had 3 percent of the votes cast, followed by Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) at 1 percent.

Romney was seen as the leading candidate in the territory, as he had the endorsement of Gov. Luis Fortuño (R), who also campaigned with Romney late last week.

Puerto Rico has 20 delegates up for grabs, all of which go to Romney on passing the 50 percent threshold. The island only awards delegates proportionally if none of the candidates receive half of the vote.

Both Romney and Santorum visited the territory last week in an effort to win delegates in what could be a prolonged GOP nomination fight.

Romney held two events on the island, including a rally on Saturday in Old San Juan, where he was joined by Mr. Fortuño, a prominent advocate of statehood for the territory.

The win increases Romney’s delegate count to more than 500, and he still has more than twice as many as Rick Santorum.

(emphasis added to article)

Tweet from The Gov:

Ann and I are deeply grateful to @LuisFortuno51, his wife, & the people of Puerto Rico for their support & help in winning today’s primary.

Here’s a look at CNN’s election projection::

Here’s video of Mitt and Ann getting the news they had won (Drudge on iPad… gotta love it!):

Many Romney supporters watched a live feed of a roof-raising, hand-clapping RALLY held in Puerto Rico. Amazing! Enthusiasm was OFF THE CHARTS and we fell in love with Puerto Ricans. I wish I had the full video; here’s a small portion of the event (Gov Fortuno begins his English intro of Mitt @ 8:32):

Video streaming by Ustream

Romney is to be commended on his grand slam win of the islands: Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Hawaii!

Now, our focus is on this Tuesday’s primary in Illinois (69 delegates) and Thursday’s primary in Louisiana (46 delegates). The islands got it right; time to close this process and rally behind Romney. Let’s get started on unifying the GOP and taking on the monumental task of beating Obama.

Thanks to all who voted for The Gov today and helped in any way. We appreciate Romney supporters who are making phone calls on his behalf. He needs our help; it’s easy! Click here to keep those calls going.

Here’s a pic taken by Romney Campaign embed D.G. Jackson: “Mitt with 5 year old Celina. She was so excited to meet him.” March 17, 2012

If you missed seeing The Gov on FOX News Sunday today, click below the fold to see video. (Brett Baier substituted for Chris Wallace) More pics from Puerto Rico, too…

Read more…

By Greg Stapley

Much has been said about the faceless “Republican Establishment” that supposedly wants this candidate or that candidate to represent the party in the upcoming presidential election. I don’t know who that is, or if such an Establishment even exists, but the people talking about it ignore one important fact: this thing is in the hands of American voters. And American voters seldom take orders from “establishments.”

Greg Stapley

This, week one state’s voters have the unique and historic opportunity to seal the decision in what could be the last meaningful contest of this primary season. Illinois voters can determine the course of history by finally picking the opposition candidate to Barack Obama.

We have some great candidates to oppose the current occupant of the White House. Every one of these contenders — Mitt, Rick, Newt, Ron — is a faithful son of the party. Each has substantial electoral credentials, and each of course has a record.

Not one of them is exactly like me or you. Each one is conservative in many things, but none of them has been perfectly consistent in all.

For example, Mitt is an economic conservative, but historically has not been as socially conservative as I am.

Rick is a social conservative, but his repeated earmarking, votes for Davis-Bacon and unbridled debt-limit increases make him anything but an economic conservative.

Ron is a monetary conservative, but he is somewhere to the left of Jane Fonda on national defense and foreign policy.

And Newt is a political conservative, but the danger for political conservatives is that they are political, and sometimes that means they compromise when they shouldn’t, and wind up sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi.

Nobody’s perfect.

But this is undeniable: Every single one of them would be miles ahead of Barack Obama in getting our economic house in order, putting America back to work, and restoring the American values that we hold dear.

This too is undeniable: None of them can win the general election alone. It will take all of us unitedly fighting together against the Obama machine to put our nominee over the top. And we need to start now.

The first step, if our opposition nominee is going to win the general, will be for us as voters to pull them all off of the hamster wheel that this primary has become. You know what I’m talking about: the increasingly cruel and counterproductive exercise in which the candidates are forced to constantly run around the country trying to “out-conservative” each other just to get that next block of delegates. It’s wearing all of them (and us) out, and it will ultimately damage our cause in the Fall.

And so without descending into the quagmire of which one is better than the other on this particular issue or that, it seems like it’s time to pull back and look at the big picture. It’s time to finally figure out which one is best positioned to carry the banner for American values and priorities in the upcoming general election. It’s time to put the debate amongst ourselves to rest. [more photos of romance below the fold] Read more…

Mitt Romney holds four-month old Ryan Pratt while campaigning at the Pancakes Eggcetera restaurant in Rosemont, Illinois. Romney Campaign embed Garrett Jackson: “Wherever we go there are always a lot of people who want the Gov to hold their babies. With 16 grandkids he’s a pro.” March 16, 2012 ( Photo/Garrett Jackson)

It was pancakes and eggs and FOX & Friends in the Prairie State this morning…

Governor Romney met with voters very early this morning at Pancakes Eggcetera in Rosemont, Illinois to rally support ahead of their delegate-rich primary next Tuesday. He spoke on jobs/economy, gasoline prices, housing market, and Obama’s 18 minute Hollywood created infomercial (*poster below):

Mitt Romney pans new Obama documentary with two thumbs down

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney gavePresident Obama’s new campaign infomercial two thumbs down at an Illinois campaign event on Friday morning.

The “so-called documentary about President Obama is now on the Internet . And you can take a look at it. It’s about 17 or 18 minutes,” Romney said at a diner outside Chicago.

He ridiculed director Davis Guggenheim for remarking recently that he had nothing negative to say about Obama. Romney used that as a takeoff point to attack the president over gas prices, the struggling housing market and continued high unemployment.

“I’ll give you some help, Mr. Guggenheim,” Romney said. “You can make a call to some of the moms that are having a hard time paying for gas as they get their kids to and from school and practice and music lessons. And you can also talk to the people who are having a hard time getting to and from work, given the price of gasoline.”
[...]
…Romney said gasoline prices “have gone through the roof, in part because of this president’s failure to develop our energy resources.”

Later, FOX & Friends’ Alisyn Camerota, Steve Doocy, and Brian Kilmeade caught up with The Gov at the restaurant. Here’s the interview:

“We’re not gonna drive cars with windmills on them.” ~Mitt Romney

Using the telephone, Romney also held a half-hour townhall with Illinois Republicans. He hammered home the point that Rick Santorum is an ECONOMIC LIGHTWEIGHT :

Romney, in a half-hour telephone town hall to Illinois Republicans solicited by his campaign, warned the state’s voters to beware of Santorum.

“Sen. Santorum, for instance, is going to be campaigning in Illinois,” Romney said. “I think you’ll find he’s an economic lightweight — not because he isn’t an intelligent person but because not having ever spent any time in the private sector. He really doesn’t understand fundamentally what it takes to make this economy grow and thrive and add jobs. The economy is in my wheelhouse, it’s something I know well.”

Romney sought to paint Santorum and Gingrich as lifelong creatures of Washington while portraying himself as spending his life “in the real economy.”

“I’ve actually run things,” Romney said. “Now as you know, we elected three years ago a president who’d never run anything. And it hasn’t worked out so well. And both Speaker Gingrich and Sen. Santorum, like the current president, have not really run anything. I think it helps to have run something and understand the economy by working in the real economy.”

Leaving no media stone unturned, Romney for President released a new television ad today in Illinois titled Wrong Choice:

Rick Santorum’s weakness is the economy and his economic plan has been criticized as the worst of all the GOP candidates. Mitt Romney has proposed the boldest plan since Ronald Reagan and has the leadership experience to lead our country.

Read more…

In the last week, we have all read articles or seen interviews with Santorum and Gingrich operatives passionately stating how their candidate is in this race to the end and to win it. Keep in mind the reasons they are so vociferous. Every one of them receives a salary from the campaign. It is in the self-interest of each campaign worker to keep their candidate in the race as long as possible and so they will always continue to talk him up!

Dan Hirschhorn wrote an Op-Ed in The Daily yesterday that provides outstanding insight into Pennsylvania politics as related to Mr. Santorum. It is titled, “NOT PENN. PALS — Even if he wins his home state, Santorum could walk away without delegates”

Santorum Delegates: As in NONE.

BTW, if you have not read Karl Rove’s latest, it is worth the read to see why Obama is really worried!

EXCELLENT reporting by Hirschhorn!:

As Rick Santorum desperately tries to make a dent in Mitt Romney’s formidable delegate lead, he faces an unlikely obstacle on the primary calendar: his home state of Pennsylvania.

Yes, Santorum is currently favored — though hardly a lock — to win the popular vote in the state he represented in Congress for 16 years.

But Pennsylvania’s non-binding primary rules for distributing delegates raise the prospect that Santorum, who has said he’ll win the vast majority of the state’s delegates, could actually come away from next month’s primary empty-handed at a time when he can ill-afford it.

Which means the April 24 primary could represent yet another chance for Romney — who kicked off his Pennsylvania campaign this week by trotting out supportive Republican leaders — to finally deal Santorum a knockout blow.
[...]
Interviews with about two dozen Pennsylvania Republicans and a review of the delegate candidates brings Santorum’s challenge into focus.

The ranks of delegate hopefuls are littered with Republican state committee members, elected officials and others with close party ties, who will ultimately be more beholden to a state party leadership that, while officially neutral, is visibly leaning in Romney’s direction and increasingly vocal in its fear that Santorum could hurt the party in a general election — especially after witnessing his 18-point drubbing in 2006.

Romney, Ron Paul and even Newt Gingrich got some of their supporters on the ballot as delegate candidates. But Santorum’s campaign officials, who have struggled with ballot organization issues across the country, privately concede that they just didn’t have the time, nor resources, to organize their own supporters to run as delegates when the paperwork was due earlier this year.

“At this point the delegate candidates are lined up everywhere but with Rick,” said Charlie Gerow, a longtime GOP strategist supporting Gingrich.

The state party has so far not made an endorsement in the race. But Bob Asher, a Republican National Committeeman and one of the most powerful forces in state politics, is backing Romney. So are top party fundraisers and members of Congress from the Philadelphia suburbs who, like many elected and party officials, worry that a Santorum candidacy would send independents fleeing from the GOP and damage their prospects in down-ballot races.

“I think most people recognize we have to put forward the best candidate to beat Barack Obama,” said Rep. Jim Gerlach, a suburban congressman and Romney backer who’s also a delegate. “There’s a lot of support to make sure Gov. Romney is ultimately our nominee.”

Added a top Republican fundraiser who’s neutral in the race: “People like Rick, and they often like his policies. But his brand is so tarnished and we’re all terrified at the prospect of him on top of the ticket.” Read more…