The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Your Choices: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum or ‘Sweet Meteor of Death’

Posted on | February 7, 2012 | 18 Comments

This looks to be a big day for Rick Santorum, which probably explains why last night Erick Erickson began apocalyptic doomsaying:

Influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson said he would endorse the “sweet meteor of death” over any of the current GOP candidates, but would back the party’s eventual nominee in the general election against President Obama. . . .
Erickson has been highly critical of all the remaining candidates, saying the only reason Romney was seen as the eventual nominee was because “the other candidates, right now, are a pretty pathetic lot.”

Here’s a partial transcript from Erickson’s Monday WSB radio program:

It’s time for a moment of candor, I believe. I’m going to give my endorsement for President of the United States tonight. . . . Of the candidates running for President of the United States, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, on the Republican side — oh, I guess I’ll throw in Ron Paul there, as well — my choice for President of the United States is the Sweet Meteor of Death. Yes, that’s right, the Sweet Meteor of Death. Now, naturally, you could presume that, being a conservative, that of course I would choose something like a great fireball coming from the sky, annihilating us all, because women and minorities are hardest hit. . . . I’ve decided, a pox on all their houses. They’re all terrible. I doubt any of them can beat Barack Obama, unless the economy goes back down, which it may very well, in which case they don’t need my endorsement — they’ll have the economy.

(Hat-tip: Hot Air.) I had written a very long rebuttal to Erickson, but then thought better of it. Why bother? Dan Riehl calls Erickson’s rant “basically a concession to Romney and simply another incidence of his being one of the first to quit the battle.” And permit me to quote from Erickson’s Wikipedia biography:

The analysis from one of Erickson’s “Morning Briefing” emails, just after the November 2009 election, was posted on the website of Human Events, referred to on the website of The American Spectator, and by Rush Limbaugh, and “fueled discussion later that morning at two influential weekly meetings of [Washington,] D.C. conservatives”, according to an article in the Washington Post. The Post added, “The ability of a single e-mail to shape a message illustrates the power of the conservative network.” The article described Erickson as one of the American conservative movement’s “key national players”.

Hmmm. Erickson’s analysis was “referred to on the website of the American Spectator,” and thence became an example of “the power of the conservative network.” How do such things happen?

The value of Neutral Objective Journalism is sometimes overlooked, and I would assert that Doug Hoffman’s victory in New York was the irreversible turning point in the Florida Senate campaign. But there were hundreds, even thousands of people who deserved credit for those victories, and it was Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Hoffman that crushed the spine of Dede Scozzafava’s campaign.

Don’t know how that happened, either.

When was the last time Erick said anything nice about Sarah Palin?

Category: Colorado, Election 2012, Minnesota, Missouri, Rick Santorum

Comments

18 Responses to “Your Choices: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum or ‘Sweet Meteor of Death’”

  1. Finrod Felagund
    February 7th, 2012 @ 4:41 pm

    Ironically, three different frontpagers at RedState have endorsed three different candidates: Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum.
     

  2. Conan The King of Aquilonia
    February 7th, 2012 @ 5:28 pm

    “I doubt any of them can beat Barack Obama, unless the economy goes back down”

    This guy thinks the economy has gone up?
    That there tells me plenty.

  3. Shawn Gillogly
    February 7th, 2012 @ 5:31 pm

    I did my part for Rick today here in MO. As far as Erickson goes. He’s gotten addicted to the sound of his own voice. The only one on RS worth reading is Moe Lane.

  4. JimmyZ
    February 7th, 2012 @ 6:40 pm

    @font-face {
    font-family: “Times”;
    }@font-face {
    font-family: “Cambria”;
    }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

    Erick Erickson is pathetic.

    Here he is in 2008 endorsing Mitt Romney

    @font-face {
    font-family: “Times”;
    }@font-face {
    font-family: “Cambria”;
    }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

    “So
    if the Presidential Preference Primary in Georgia were tomorrow, I’d vote for
    Mitt. Sure, he has waffled on social issues — but I think that highlights his
    pragmatic approach to politics. He was never going to get elected as a pro-life
    candidate in Massachusetts and he knew it. I won’t fault him. I think, if he
    gets elected based on conservative support, he won’t betray that support in
    office.”Does Erickson have any sense of shame?  The way him and his site acted during the Perry train wreck was downright disgusting.

  5. JimmyZ
    February 7th, 2012 @ 6:41 pm

    Erick Erickson 4 years ago

    “So if the Presidential Preference Primary in Georgia were tomorrow, I’d vote for Mitt. Sure, he has waffled on social issues — but I think that highlights his pragmatic approach to politics. He was never going to get elected as a pro-life candidate in Massachusetts and he knew it. I won’t fault him. I think, if he gets elected based on conservative support, he won’t betray that support in office.”

  6. Bob Belvedere
    February 7th, 2012 @ 7:40 pm

    Erick who???

  7. Anonymous
    February 7th, 2012 @ 8:08 pm

     It’s been going up for him, at any rate.

  8. Anonymous
    February 7th, 2012 @ 8:09 pm

     Isn’t he the guy that owns the blog Moe Lane cross-posts political stuff to?

  9. richard mcenroe
    February 7th, 2012 @ 8:10 pm

    Erick is the bastard child of rape, pillage and plunder Leif is actually embarrassed about…

  10. Anonymous
    February 7th, 2012 @ 10:41 pm

    Hopefully Rick will pull this thing off.

    If he doesn’t, the GOP will go the way of the Whigs.

  11. Pathfinder's wife
    February 7th, 2012 @ 11:20 pm

    Lovely, this whole “I vote for sweet meteor of death” is really going to convince people to vote GOP and/or take conservatives/Republicans anymore seriously than liberals/Democrats.

    Reason #5,345,234,001 why I refuse to be anything but an independent.

  12. Adjoran
    February 8th, 2012 @ 12:23 am

    It’s about time someone arranged an intervention for Erick.

    Does he have any close friends or sycophants?  Oh – and it’s just a psych intervention, so I think serving booze and recreational drugs is permitted. 

    Do NOT let Amanda Marcotte bring the snack tray this time, though – everyone is afraid to touch it, they don’t know where it’s been.

  13. Finrod Felagund
    February 8th, 2012 @ 12:44 am

    To be fair the choices by the time it got to Georgia were between John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney.

  14. Santorum Surge Returns: Wins Missouri, Minnesota; UPDATE: Wins Colorado UPDATE: NY Times ‘Unexpectedly!’ : The Other McCain
    February 8th, 2012 @ 3:03 am

    […] Fire Andrea Mitchell — thanks! Guess Tuesday’s vote doesn’t bode well for “Sweet Meteor of Death,” eh?One of my friends from Team Santorum pointed out on Twitter that a tropical storm just […]

  15. Bob Belvedere
    February 8th, 2012 @ 7:37 am

    Isn’t that guys name Shemp?

  16. Of Mice And Meteors … Conservatives And Santorum | My Blog
    February 8th, 2012 @ 11:56 am

    […] Stacy McCain on Santorum: […]

  17. Bob Belvedere
    February 8th, 2012 @ 1:35 pm

     [sings] Oh Sweet Meteor Of Death now that I’ve found you…

  18. Duke Chesnut
    February 8th, 2012 @ 11:18 pm

    Anybody but Romney. The Beltway GOP may now get that Mitt is Unacceptable to flyover country. Drudge and Coulter be dam*ed, we don’t like Mittens and Rick, Newt, Michelle or Sarah is OK with us.