Why Mitt Romney didn't come down hard on Rush Limbaugh
| Washington
Earlier this week what many in the media called Mitt Romney鈥檚 鈥渕issed opportunity鈥� to condemn conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for calling Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke a 鈥渟lut鈥� and a 鈥減rostitute,鈥� and thereby make himself look brave and principled in the process. Romney 鈥� a famously cautious politician who evidently didn鈥檛 feel standing up to Limbaugh was worth the risk 鈥� chose instead to basically dodge the issue, only saying he wouldn鈥檛 have used that 鈥渓anguage.鈥�
Now we come across some data that underscore why Romney may have made that decision.
asked Republican voters in Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia (three states that voted Tuesday) about the whole Limbaugh/Fluke saga. Overall, they found Rush鈥檚 popularity has taken a significant hit. The last time the group polled on Limbaugh, he was at 80 percent favorable, 12 percent unfavorable among Republicans nationally. But now, Limbaugh's favorability is below 50 percent in all three states surveyed, coming in at 45/28 among Republicans in Ohio, 46/29 in Tennessee, and 44/30 in Georgia. Among Republican women, the numbers sink even lower.
But when you look at how those numbers correlate to candidate preferences, you see why Romney may have held his tongue. PPP writes:聽
鈥淎mong Ohio Republicans who like Limbaugh, Rick Santorum leads Mitt Romney 39-35.聽 With ones who dislike him, Romney has the 39-30 advantage.鈥�
Romney could not afford to lose any of the 35 percent of Limbaugh supporters who were planning to vote for him. If anything, he needed more of those voters in his corner.聽
On another matter, PPP also polled on the birther issue - and found that more than a third of likely GOP voters in Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia do not believe President Obama was born in the US (in Ohio, it鈥檚 as high as 42 percent). Which reminded Decoder of this piece from the Borowitz Report: 鈥�.鈥�
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