An excerpt:
The discussions between the two camps commenced in early February, just after Gingrich got trounced in Florida. Brabender called members of the Gingrich brain trust, hoping they could persuade Gingrich to drop out and endorse Santorum, who was rising in the polls. “I’ll tell you this,” says Brabender, “If Gingrich had dropped out at the right time, Santorum would have been the nominee.” Brabender wasn’t short on moxie: He wanted Gingrich to declare in the middle of a nationally televised debate that he was dropping out and endorsing Santorum. “I couldn’t write an ad to match the political theater that would have created,” he says.
There's always a chance that a Gingrich/Santorum team might've caught fire and won the hearts, minds and votes of the electorate, but I don't see how it would've achieved the ultimate goal of defeating the incumbent President Obama. Mitt Romney ran to the left of both Gingrich and Santorum, and despite that relative moderate centrism that had hopefully connected with the independents last Fall but didn't really, and failed. How a more conservative ticket would've somehow won over the centrist votes Romney failed to, defies logic. They wouldn't have.
A Gingrich/Santorum ticket would've been sweet, sweet music to the Obama campaign, trust me. A splintered opposition would've siphoned off considerable votes from Romney and almost none from Obama. As decisive as the Obama victory was last November, had the above scenario every become reality, Obama would've won in an absolute landslide.
Ultimately this idea failed, in part at least, due to the inability of either Gingrich or Santorum to agree to be the other guys running mate. The degree with which either man was so out of touch as to not realize the certain doom that awaited such an ego-driven move. Hard to imagine, eh?
Read the full article here: "The Secret Gingrich-Santorum 'Unity Ticket' That Nearly Toppled Romney"
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