GOP wanted their 2012 primary to look like the Dem 2008 primary

[Grace62]

"The Republican plan, writes Benjy Sarlin, was to emulate the Clinton/Obama contest of 2008 by rearranging the primaries to draw them out, which they thought would encourage more donations, build enthusiasm among voters and keep attention focused on the GOP message.

It might have worked, too. If only they had had a couple of solid candidates of the caliber of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton instead of a clown car brimful of clueless, gaffe-prone, dog-whistling, foghorn-blowing, take-us-back-to-the-14th Century ideological hard-heads with an even bigger than usual bucket of It's-OK-If-You-Are-Republican attitudes and a never-ending forgetfulness of the power of YouTube to spread what they'd previously said on camera a few years or a few days ago that was opposite to what they were saying now."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/28...via=blog_1

[Ted King]

"It might have worked, too. If only they..."

...didn't have a party base that was looney-tunes.

[cbelt3]

Dem's base and lineup in '08 looked a bit shaky in the wings too. Except... Republicans don't seem to have much of a 'main stream' candidate. It's as if Dennis Kucinich was the front runner for the Democratic Party in 2008.

[Dennis S]

This is the same thinking that got them Bobby Jindal to make that awful speech. They thought if they just emulated the Democrats, everything would fall into place. Comparing the Clown Car to Obama and Clinton and thinking Jindall was equal to Obama because he was somewhat well-spoken and somewhat exotic just doesn't cut it.

[Grace62]

Low turnout in MI today is interesting.
For all their talk of "riling up the base" these guys aren't lighting many fires.

[Grace62]

Santorum not carrying a majority of Catholic voters. Dissing JFK might have been unwise.

[Dennis S]

Remember how many of the Catholic's principles that Santorum breaks? That's why he's not doing well with the Catholics.

Quoting Juan Cole:

1. So for instance, Pope John Paul II was against anyone going to war against Iraq I think you’ll find that Rick Santorum managed to ignore that Catholic teaching.

2.The Conference of Catholic Bishops requires that health care be provided to all Americans. I.e., Rick Santorum’s opposition to universal health care is a betrayal of the Catholic faith he is always trumpeting.

3. The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty for criminals in almost all situations. (Santorum largely supports executions.)

4. The US Conference of Bishops has urged that the federal minimum wage be increased, for the working poor. Santorum in the Senate repeatedly voted against the minimum wage.

5. The bishops want welfare for all needy families, saying “We reiterate our call for a minimum national welfare benefit that will permit children and their parents to live in dignity. A decent society will not balance its budget on the backs of poor children.” Santorum is a critic of welfare.

6. The US bishops say that “the basic rights of workers must be respected–the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions…”. Santorum, who used to be supportive of unions in the 1990s, has now, predictably, turned against them.

7. Catholic bishops demand the withdrawal of Israel from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967. Rick Santorum denies that there are any Palestinians, so I guess he doesn’t agree with the bishops on that one.

8. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops ripped into Arizona’s law on treatment of immigrants, Cardinal Roger Mahony characterized Arizona’s S.B. 1070 as “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law,” saying it is based on “totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources.” He even suggested that the law is a harbinger of an American Nazism! Santorum attacks ‘anchor babies’ or the provision of any services to children of illegal immigrants born and brought up in the US.

9. The Bishops have urged that illegal immigrants not be treated as criminals and that their contribution to this country be recognized.

10. The US Conference of Bishops has denounced, as has the Pope, the Bush idea of ‘preventive war’, and has come out against an attack on Iran in the absence of a real and present threat of an Iranian assault on the US. In contrast, Santorum wants to play Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove and ride the rocket down on Isfahan himself.

http://www.juancole.com/2012/02/top-ten-...ntrol.html

[cbelt3]

As noted . Santorum is NOT in tune with Catholic doctrine and teachings, nor with the political opinions of the majority of American Catholics. He's primarily pandering to the Southern Fundamentalists, with a few sops thrown in for the flying rodent guano mentally unstable types.

[mattkime]

YAY POLITICS!