Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, coming off his photo finish with Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses, is now in second place among Republican voters in the race for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination.

The news for the rest of the field, save Mitt Romney, is less than stellar:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, taken the night after the caucuses, shows Romney again in first place with support from 29% of Likely Republican Primary Voters, followed by Santorum with 21%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is third with 16%. Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the third place finisher in Iowa, picks up 12% of the vote.

The two remaining Republicans in the race, Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, each earn four percent (4%).

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/election_2012_republican_presidential_primary

Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are tied in a very close race to win the Iowa Republican caucus. And the lesson that was learned in 2010, was once again on display in 2012.  People constantly talked about how well financed and organized the Romney and Paul campaigns were, but us tea partiers turn out to vote!! And elections are decided by votes, not by who has the biggest staff or the largest war chest.

Site polling showed that Santorum received the most tea party votes. Iowans that were seeking ”a candidate with high moral character” also made Rick their top choice.

So what happens now? I see Mitt winning in New Hampshire and Newt or Rick taking down South Carolina. That leaves Florida as the key state in this race. My home state is Florida and I am active in politics as part of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale so I will give my opinion of who will win in Florida, and why.

The tea party movement is very strong in Florida. And the 2010 election results will show that. Tea party favored candidates knocked off well funded establishment Republican candidates in every primary race from governor(Rick Scott) to senator(Marco Rubio). This is also the state that gave Herman Cain the big bump with his Orlando straw poll win.

I think the race will be down to four candidates by then. Romney, Gingrich, Paul and Santorum. I will review all four candidates.

Mitt Romney will do well with seniors, but being ”the establishment favorite” is normally the kiss of death in Florida. Just ask Charlie Crist.

Newt is very bright and will hold his own here. And I see him and Mitt fighting it out for second place.

A racist loon like Ron Paul will not win in Florida. Unless they change the primary rules to let Al-Qaeda members vote.

That leaves Rick Santorum. Florida is the type of state where you want to be the ”three legged stool of conservatism” that Ronald Reagan talked about. The tea party in Florida tends to be really conservative about social and national defense issues . IT ALSO OVERWHELMINGLY VOTES REPUBLICAN!!!! And Rick Santorum is exactly the type of candidate that conservatives in Florida will support.

With Perry and Bachmann dead I can see the majority of those conservative voters going over to Santorum.  And with a Florida win, I think that Santorum will pick up all the financing and organizational staff that he needs to win the Republican primary.

SANTORUM IN 2012!!!

”When Al- Qaeda attacked our country on 9-11, Ron Paul told us the CIA was behind it. And that Bush and Cheney knew about the attack in advance.” That is a quote from ex-Ron Paul staffer and confidant Eric Dondero about Ron Paul. Eric called Paul ”the original 9-11 truther”.

This makes sense on so many fronts. When Congress was getting ready to vote on a military response in Afghanistan, Ron Paul initially OPPOSED responding to the attack, and expressed no concern about those who died that day. In fact, his only concern was that this attack would be used by the Bush administration to invade Iraq.

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/staffer-says-ron-paul-opposed-to-military-reaction-of-9-11-terror-attacks

They say that ”birds of a feather, flock together”. After Ron Paul got destroyed in the 2008 Republican presidential primary by John McCain, he showed his pettiness by refusing to endorse fellow Republican McCain, saying that ”I couldn’t find anything we agreed on”. Ok, so you can’t find any common ground with a highly decorated naval aviator who was captured and brutally tortured as a POW.  When the badly wounded McCain was offered ”to be released out of turn” by the North Vietnamese, McCain refused it unless the men that were captured before him were also released. Yet that’s not the type of man that Ron Paul can support? OK, then who did he endorse?

Also running for president in 2008 was Cynthia McKinney. a race baiting Democrat considered one of the most far left members of congress. McKinney was the elitist who arrogantly struck a white police officer because he ”dared” to ask her for ID. McKinney is also the one who tried to impeach President Bush, Vice President Cheney. and Secretary of State Condi Rice for being ”war criminals”. Yet Paul chose to endorse this worthless piece of trash over McCain???

http://brian-therightperspective.blogspot.com/2011/12/flashback-ron-paul-endorses-cynthia.html#!/2011/12/flashback-ron-paul-endorses-cynthia.html

However, McKinney possessed one advantage that McCain did not. She is a fellow truther. Cynthia has been outspoken in her belief that 9-11 was a ”government conspiracy”. And she accused President Bush of  ”needlessly murdering the innocent people of New York City so his popularity would rise.” So naturally Paul endorsed  her over McCain.

And the cult truther movement obviously considers Paul ”one of their own”. In fact, when Paul gave an interview to a conspiracy group called ”We Are Change”, they asked Paul WHY he didnt come out with ”the truth about 9-11”. Notice that they didn’t ask him ”if he believed 9-11 was an inside job”. Why didn’t they ask that? BECAUSE THEY ALREADY KNEW THAT HE BELIEVED THAT!!!!!

But surely Ron set them straight. Stood up for America and said that 9-11 was not a conspiracy perpetrated by the Bush administration to start a war with Muslim countries so that Jewish bankers could get rich. That 9-11 was in fact a cowardly attack by Al-Qaeda on our country. Nope. When they asked Ron the reason he didnt tell everyone ”the truth about 9-11”, Paul actually said that he ”couldn’t handle the controversy because had a full plate and was dealing with other issues”. Wow. I will post the transcript and link including a video of the interview below.

Kyley from ‘We Are Change LA’:

Kyley: Okay and one last thing why won’t you come out about the truth about 9/11?

Paul: Because I can’t handle the controversy, I have the IMF the Federal Reserve to deal with, the IRS to deal with because no because I just have more-too many things on my plate. Because I just have too much to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrQVaiFYmcg

It sounds to me like Ron Paul is a truther but isn’t honest enough to come out and say it directly because he knows it will kill his political career. Or maybe career politician Ron is just acting like a truther to con those morons into supporting him politically. Either way, this corrupt creep belongs in the nut house, not in the white house.

Eric also said that ”Paul is not opposed to foreign aid, he is just opposed to foreign aid to Israel. Whenever you hear Paul talking about cutting foreign aid, he always leads out with Israel. But Egypt and Pakistan actually recieve more aid than Israel does”. ”And Ron wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. Paul has said this to me on many occasions. Ron is 100% pro Palestinian and believes ALL of Israel should be surendered to the muslims”.

I asked Gregg Hilton of the RSC(Republican Security Council) for his assessment of Eric’s claims. ”Dondero is right on the money” said Gregg. And then Mr. Hilton gave me the following examples:

Paul is a supposedly a foe of all foreign aid, but there is one exception. He naturally supports full funding for his Hamas buddies at the Palestinian Authority.

On June 20, 2007, Paul and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) were the only two lawmakers to vote against the Rothman-Kirk Resolution, which calls on the United Nations to charge Ahmadinejad with violating the genocide convention of the United Nations Charter based on his numerous statements.

Paul has called the Gaza Strip ”a concentration camp” and defended the Palestinians right to make bombs and to recieve weapon shipments to attack Israel with.

On June 19, 2009, the House voted to pass H Res 560 by a 405 to 1 margin. The resolution was entitled: “Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes.” Guess which loon was the one negative vote.

He thinks Iran should have nuclear weapons but then says “We need to take out the CIA,” and wants the agency abolished. OK, that combination would give us a nuclear Iran led by a wackjob holocaust denier(Ahmadinejad) and us with no intelligence information on what is happening in the world. And that scenario makes America safer how?????

Ron Paul, a career politican with a well deserved reputation for anti semitism, is currently drawing fire for making loads of money from racist newsletters that bear his name. On top of the recent revelations that the newsletters contained some really nasty comments about blacks, come brand new revelations that this piece of garbage also attacked Jews and gays in print.

Let’s start at the top. We all know the Democrats are going to play the ”race card” against whoever the Republicans nominate. Count on it. Now imagine this scenario, heading our ticket is a candidate whose newsletter said this about Ronald Reagan(for giving Martin Luther a holiday), ”We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey day”. Or how about this little nugget of wisdom, ”Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions.”  You might as well hand Nancy Pelosi her gavel back, because the stench from being identified with this lowlife is going to cause the Republicans to get decimated in every congressional race, as well as get Obama reelected.

And it only goes downhill from there for ”Racist Ron”. Everyone knows Paul published racist newsletters under his name for profit. But did anyone ever wonder about the direct mailer ads that went out for these newsletters, and to see who they were marketed to. Well guess what REUTERS managed to get ahold of? The ads(which were signed by Paul) talk about the ”federal homosexual cover up of AIDS”. Of course that fits right in with Paul’s newsletter’s disgusting comment that people with AIDS ”enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick.” And of course at the bottom of the ad was a solicitation for $99.00 to subscribe to this newsletter, which would also give you Paul’s ”unlisted phone number” so you can recieve fast breaking news. I wonder how many suckers sent him 99 bucks. LOL

And no column on this sleazebag would be complete without a discussion of Ron’s anti-semitic, neo-nazi pals. Did you know that this newsletter was listed as recommended reading in the directory of the Heritage Front, a neo-nazi hate group based in Canada? Or that his columns are repeatedly featured in the American Free Press, which is published by Hilter admirer and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. Ron Paul certainly knows his base, which is why he recently criticized conservative tea partier Michele Bachmann for hating muslims…. but yet has never condemned the anti semitic behavor of his dirtbag paulbot followers.

Paul is also known for his friendship with white supremist Don Black. In fact, the former KKK leader and founder of white hate group Stormfront donated 500 dollars to Paul’s campaign in 2008. And Paul refused to return the money despite the pleas of Jewish conservatives. Is it any wonder that conservative David Horowitz of the Freedom Center wrote an article in February titled ”Ron Paul Is A Vicious Anti-Semite and Anti-American and Conservatives Need To Wash Their Hands of Him”. Or that the Republican Jewish Coailition banned Paul from their recent debate because of his anti Israel agenda. In fact, they said inviting Paul to speak would be like ”inviting Obama to speak”. Ouch. Maybe Paul’s wacky opinion that condemning the Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli women and children would cause violence didn’t sit too well with them.

And the ”guilt by association” will be even worse for the tea party. I recently blogged an article here at REDSTATE showing that 93% of tea party members do NOT want Ron Paul as president. And also showing that Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, America’s longest running tea party, overwhelmingly voted nutjob Paul as the Republican candidate they LEAST wanted to see win the presidency.

http://www.redstate.com/mikeymike143/2011/12/12/new-gallup-poll-nutjob-ron-paul-only-gets-7-of-the-tea-party-vote/

But despite Paul’s rejection by the tea party, the press is undoubtedly going to try to tie this loon into the tea party in order to discredit it. The liberal press has wrongly and unfairly been trying to paint the tea party as racist. To no avail. Until now. And then they hit the ”mother lode”.  A genuine racist with a documented paper trail of inappropriate comments and a busload of looney racist and anti semitic supporters. Hopefully tea party leaders will quickly denounce and ostracise this nutcase because real tea partiers are completely colorblind and would NEVER EVER condone these type of beliefs and comments. And this issue is NOT going away.

And of course his followers are the dirtbags of society. Conspiracy loons, racists, anti war leftists, and anti semites. That is why most sites, including this one, have policies banning paulbots. I say they are a cancer to the both the tea party and the Republican party, and that we should treat them like lepers and shun them.

Ron Paul’s foreign policy is not only offensive to many, it is dangerous.

Paul never speaks of America as a “shining city upon a hill,” as Reagan did.  Instead, he starts with a false premise – that the United States is a warmongering imperial power bent on conquest for fun and profit.

Listening to Paul, one gets the impression that all conservatives want to do is go to war for the sake of killing innocent people and building an American Empire.

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/why-gop-voters-should-reject-ron-paul-s-dangerous-and-offensive-foreign-policy

Note: Original article written by my friend Joe Newby and reposted with his permission.

Ron Paul bends over backwards to defend Islamo-fascists. He also does all he can to attack a patriot as he does everything possible to appease a Hollywood elite stereotype of conservatives.

http://www.conservativesnetwork.com/2011/12/18/ron-paul-defends-islamo-fascists-but-attacks-patriotic-conservatives/

Note: Original article written by my friend Jeffrey Goff and reposted with his permission.

In other words, 93% of tea party members wisely reject this anti semitic loser as a presidential candidate.

Republican Presidential Nomination Preferences, by Ideology and Tea Party Support.
(Based on Republican and Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote)

TEA PARTY SUPPORTER %:

Newt Gingrich              47%
Mitt Romney                 17%
Michele Bachmann        8%
Rick Perry                       7%
Ron Paul                         7%
Rick Santorum                4%
Jon Huntsman              <1%
Other/Any/None            11%

Gallup Daily Tracking. Dec 1-5, 2011

http://www.gallup.com/poll/151355/Gingrich-Romney-Among-GOP-Voters-Nationwide.aspx

In fact, Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, America’s longest running tea party, recently held a straw poll for it’s members asking for our choice of candidate as POTUS, and also the man or woman we thought would make the worst president. And unlike the usual straw polls that the delusional paulbots spam up, this poll was only open to actual group members.

And our straw poll numbers validated the Gallup poll numbers. Ron Paul finished with Jon Huntsman as THE ONLY TWO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES to pull in less than 5% support from our group. However, the left wing cancer that Paul spreads was not appreciated by our conservative members as career politican Paul overwhelmingly won as the candidate we least wanted to see as president, winning that dubious honor by a huge margin over our second place loser(Huntsman).

Tea Party Fort Lauderdale Presidential Straw Poll

The question was asked;

Who would you least like to receive the Republican nomination to run against Barack Obama?

1st Place

Ron Paul 38%

Jon Huntsman 16%

Mitt Romney 13.5%

Rick Perry 12.5%

Undecided 9.5%

331 people participated in this straw poll that ran from 10/13 – 10/21

Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, America’s Longest Running Tea Party   www.TeaPartyFortLauderdale.com

These numbers also fall in line with Wrong Paul’s performance in the last presidential elections. As I recall, he won a bunch of straw and internet polls. And his delusional paulbot followers claimed this represented reality. Of course, us sane people knew that he had no real life political support. And that was proven in the 2008 when the nutjob only got 5% of the primary vote. That means 19 OUT OF 20 REPUBLICAN PRIMARY VOTERS REJECTED HIM AS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE LAST ELECTION!!!

And of course his followers are the dirtbags of society. Conspiracy loons, anti war leftists, and anti semites. That is why the Republican Jewish Coalition banned him and his paulbots from the presidential debate they moderated. And that is why most sites, including this one, have policies banning paulbots. I say they are a cancer to the conservative movement and we should treat them like lepers and shun them.

In fact, Ron Paul’s foreign policy is even to the left of Barack Obama’s.

The Republican Jewish Congress will ban Ron Paul from their debate next week. They say he’s just too far outside of the mainstream of the Republican party.
Reason.com reported:

On Wednesday, Dec. 7, the Republican Jewish Coalition will host a presidential-candidates forum featuring Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Not invited is the GOP candidate currently polling around third in New Hampshire and second in Iowa: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). The explanation:

Paul was not invited to attend the RJC’s candidates forum because the organization – as it has stated numerous times in the past – “rejects his misguided and extreme views,” said [RJC Executive Director Matt] Brooks.

“He’s just so far outside of the mainstream of the Republican party and this organization,” Brooks said. Inviting Paul to attend would be “like inviting Barack Obama to speak.”

Maybe the fact that Ron Paul believes that Israel encouraged and started Hamas had something to do with today’s announcement?

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/12/republican-jewish-coalition-bans-ron-paul-from-debate-inviting-paul-would-be-like-inviting-obama-to-speak/

Tea Party Fort Lauderdale is proof the tea party movement is alive and well!!! Next week will be the 140th CONSECUTIVE WEEK that our group has held some kind of public demonstration or event.

And let’s look at our record of picking candidates here at Tea Party Fort Lauderdale.

When everybody was saying establishment favorite Charlie Crist was a lock for the senate seat, we overwhelmingly backed a then unknown named Marco Rubio. When the liberal media said Ron Klein was unbeatable in District 22, we strongly supported Allen West for the seat. And in our last tea party presidential straw poll in May, our winner in a very close race was Herman Cain with 18.5% of the vote. And this was BEFORE Cain was well known. : )

Anyway, we just had another presidential straw poll. It was ONLY open to active members of TPFL(Tea Party Fort Lauderdale). We voted for the candidate we thought would make the best president and also the candidate we liked the least. And both categories were landslides with our tea party members. I was in Asia when the last straw poll was taken and didnt get to participate but I sure voted in this one. My choices were Rick Santorum for the candidate who I most wanted to see as president and of course nutjob Ron Paul as the candidate I least liked. Anyway, i will copy and paste the email I got from TPFL with the results below:

Date: Monday, October 25th, 2011

To: National & Florida Media Outlets, Tea Parties, Grass-Roots, & Conservative Networks

Herman Cain Wins Tea Party Straw Poll; Ron Paul Not So Lucky

Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, America’s longest running tea party, just completed a nine-day straw poll for the 2012 Presidential race.

Herman Cain has been on the rise nationally ever since winning the Presidency 5 Poll in Orlando in late September. Businessman Cain received 53% of the first-place votes in our poll, followed by Newt Gingrich finishing a distant second with 13.5% of the first-place share. Cain also won our straw poll in May taking 18.5% of the pie.

Ron Paul was unfortunate, finishing at the top of the list of “who you would least like to receive the Republican nomination to run against Barack Obama,” with Jon Huntsman next down the ladder.

1st Place:

Herman Cain 53%

Newt Gingrich 13.5%

Mitt Romney 9.5%

Michele Bachmann 6.5%

Rick Perry 6.5%

Rick Santorum 5%

Less Than 5%:

Ron Paul

Jon Huntsman

*Jason Chaffetz

*Sarah Palin

*Donald Trump

*Allen West

Undecided

*Write-in Votes

Tea Party Fort Lauderdale Presidential Straw Poll

The question was asked;

Who would you least like to receive the Republican nomination to run against Barack Obama?

1st Place

Ron Paul 38%

Jon Huntsman 16%

Mitt Romney 13.5%

Rick Perry 12.5%

Undecided 9.5%

331 people participated in this straw poll that ran from 10/13 – 10/21

Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, America’s Longest Running Tea Party   www.TeaPartyFortLauderdale.com

If he were alive today, Ronald Reagan would STRONGLY OPPOSE Ron Paul. Reagan believed in spending generously on our national defense and certainly had an interventionist foreign policy. And according to the Ron ”The Nutjob” Paul’s playbook, that would make the greatest president of my era ”a neocon”. Their policies and beliefs are totally and completely different.

Naturally Ron Paul’s followers will attempt to hide that fact by showing you an old video of Ronald Reagan praising Ron Paul as a candidate and using that as proof that Ronald Reagan would support Ron Paul in 2012. Now watch me dismantle that silly argument!!! Does anyone remember Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania? Arlen was the senator that everyone on tea party and conservative sites called a liberal RINO. He was challenged by a tea party backed conservative in the primary named Pat Toomey and when Specter saw how opposed conservatives were to his candidacy he changed parties to Democrat. He voted for TARP, Obama’s socialized health care plan, and was pro affirmative action and amnesty. Yet, Reagan praised him as a true conservative back in the 1980′s and even cut a campaign ad for him. But go ask a Pennsylvania tea partier what they think of Specter today. LOL. If you were a House or Senate member, and of course running as a Republican, Ronald Reagan would praise you as a candidate for office. That’s part of what a sitting president does for members of his party.

But rather than look at a 30 year old video let’s look at Ron Paul has to say about Ronald Reagan. In 1987, Ron Paul wrote a letter to Frank Fahrenkopf, chairman of the Republican National Committee, stating that he wanted to totally publically disassociate himself with the policies of Ronald Reagan(funny but he yet to publically disassociate with the 9-11 truther movement or Code Pink). He later told the Dallas Morning News that the presidency of Ronald Reagan was a ”dramatic failure”. OK, let’s take a look at the political success of both politicians and decide if that is true. In 2008 Ron Paul ran in the Republican primary for president. He got 5% of the vote. In other words, 95% OF THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY VOTERS REJECTED RON PAUL IN THE LAST ELECTION!!!! In 1984, Ronald Reagan was reelected as the president of the United States in a landslide, winning 49 out of 50 states, and his 525 electoral votes were the the most of any candidate in American history. Hmmm, I think we have to score this one for the Gipper.