Lack of Skill and Composure Leads to Unsurprising Santorum Face-Plant in Crucial Phoenix Debate

While there are varied degrees of criticism, it does seem all but unanimous this morning that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum blew a major chance  to convince the skeptical in our party that he's got what it takes to beat the Obama machine this fall.... 

Instead, Ricky Wonder Bread choked (for at least the first half of the debate), confirming the worst fears: unprepared for attacks he should have known were coming, uncharismatic, unconvincing as a debater- while unsettlingly showing flashes of temper and immaturity, serious flaws in a candidate for what is sure to be a brutal, negative battle.

Not only did Mittens have him on the ropes (in a hall stuffed with Romney supporters by the AZ GOP), Santorum was easily ruffled and repeatedly put back on his heels both by Mitt and Ron Paul, appearing quite angry for being asked to defend his past decisions and actions. As heard here time and time again, this one ain't got what it takes to make it in The Bigs, so glaringly obvious after watching him whiff like this... maybe after a few years on the farm team, but not this season. 

Hey, Santorum seems like an OK guy, I myself am a church-going Catholic and yes I do like most all his platform... he simply will not beat Obama in November if nominated, that's all.

Newt Gingrich -while laying off RS completely- actually delivered one of his better performances, hitting Romney as a hypocrite re. earmarks while mainly focusing on Obama, in particular his great enthusiasm for abortion. Combined with Santorum's failure to deliver in the clutch, it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the polls as ST approaches.

But catch this: Ron Paul again joined with Romney in trashing Santorum... while nary a peep about Mittens' (99% opposite of his) foreign policy.  Hmmm, well if that strikes you as exceedingly odd, you're not the only one: some see a pattern in this over the last few debates: since Paul's positions on Iran and such make him nonviable as a candidate himself, speculation is growing that he's in the race as a spoiler at this point, in order to split the right and drag-down Gingrich and Santorum. chokes debate face plant

Why would über-idealist Ron Paul want to go and do a thing like that... collaborate with Flipper, you ask? Rumors also rife the (unprincipled after all) old man is maneuvering to get Rand Paul on the ticket as VP (with unabashed statist Romney!). If true, this would be a hypocrital sellout of the first order... bet you Paulbots never saw this one coming- 

Now we're back to asking all of you take yet another fresh look at Newton Leroy Gingrich: all I can tell you is if Newt is unable to capitalize on Super Tuesday, I will be looking to an open convention in order to nominate a candidate who can go out there and lay into the Obama in the way that it needs to be done: Dear Leader's whole gig is based on maintaining his smiley-faced-mannequin facade while ramming-through a hidden (Marxist, racist) agenda as fast as possible, by-hook-or-by-crook... this reality needs to be exposed thoroughly in order for the Republican Party to win back the White House (as demonstrated by the Former House Speaker last night):

CNN   MarkAmerica   American Power   h/t Riehl World View   Maggie's Notebook