No story will bring you more joy today than Joshua Green’s thoroughly reported autopsy of the Gingrich-Santorum “unity ticket” that never happened. It overflows with hubris, from Santorum’s insistence that this campaign by two thoroughly rejected politicians would have been strong in the general election to Santorum consultant John Brabender’s idea that Gingrich would drop out during a televised debate. The scheme collapsed because—surprise to end all surprises—Gingrich thought he belonged at the top of the ticket.
He proposed that both men join forces but remain in the race, each concentrating on the states where he matched up best against Romney. Gingrich thought he could carry Georgia, Delaware, Washington, and Wisconsin (from which his wife, Callista, hails). Santorum would focus on other states in the South and the upper Midwest.
Given the timing Green lays out—after the Florida primary, before the Michigan primary—Gingrich’s theory made a kind of sense. The only electoral evidence for a Santorum surge came with the non-binding Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and non-binding Missouri primary, which only Santorum really spent the time to win, as Romney and Gingrich focused on Super Tuesday states. Romney’s campaign expected to win Colorado and didn’t focus on the other two states. Gingrich wasn’t on the ballot in Missouri. Even the political press was joking about the pointlessness of the February 7 primaries. But when Santorum swept those three states – again, winning zero delegates – the great God Momentum turned Santorum into the only credible Romney challenger. No less weird and baseless than the idea of a “unity ticket.”
John Dean is not a fan of Ted Cruz.
Common sense is almost unknown to authoritarian personalities, who excel nonetheless, because they are extremely highly-motivated, and driven by their usually well-hidden fears. More often than not, they ignore common decency, because they feel so strongly about the correctness of their thinking, and because they believe they can do no wrong since they are addressing a greater good.
This Bloomberg story on Bob Menendez reads like the lead from 2003 didn’t pan out, but they had to publish something anyway.
Reihan Salam explains everything about the Arkansas-led Medicaid compromise, in which conservative states accept more money but outsource the insurance.
