The First Read gang cites a new NBC poll that shows no bounce for Newt Gingrich is Rick Santorum quits the race:
Santorum’s vote splits off evenly if he’s removed, and Romney has an even WIDER lead over Gingrich, 49%-33%. So, Gingrich can’t make the argument that if conservatives weren’t divided he would win. The numbers just don’t bear that out. What’s really interesting — Santorum probably could argue that if GINGRICH weren’t in the race, he’d have a better chance against Romney. Santorum’s image is as good as it’s been since the campaign began.
Musing to myself this morning on this question, I reckoned that perhaps 2/3 of his supporters would go to Newt Gingrich and the remaining 1/3 to Mitt Romney. I reasoned that, while Gingrich was more ideologically similar, a large number of the supporters of staunch family man Santorum could not stomach the serial adultering Gingrich. Apparently, though, the latter group is much larger than I’d guessed.
While Santorum’s extreme religious views, which amount to bigotry in some cases, mean I couldn’t vote for him in November, he does come across as earnest and, at least within the context of a belief system I despise, decent. Indeed, it would seem that, if Gingrich were really interested in maximizing the chances for a conservative to knock off Romney, he’d quit the race rather than the other way around.
via Taegan Goddard
