Thank God!: Rick Santorum is out of the 2016 race

I do not think that I can ever properly convey, how happy I am that this theocrat is out of the race to the White House.

The Video is at CNN and the story:

(CNN)Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is ending his presidential bid, two Republican sources told CNN.
He is expected to make the announcement Wednesday night and will endorse a candidate.
Santorum won the 2012 Iowa caucuses and ended that race with the second-most number of delegates to eventually GOP nominee Mitt Romney. But he was unable to capture any momentum this year, despite extensive barnstorming efforts in Iowa.
He is the third Republican presidential candidate to drop out after Monday’s caucuses. Mike Huckabee ended his campaign that night, and Rand Paul suspended his campaign Wednesday morning.
The Santorum sources did not say whom Santorum would endorse. When asked about a possible endorsement, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said he hasn’t spoken to the former Pennsylvania senator on Wednesday.
“I think he’s fantastic,” Rubio told CNN’s Dana Bash.
Santorum faced a drastically different landscape this year than he did in 2012. A crowded field of 17 Republicans and lackluster early polling kept him off the main debate stage for each of the GOP debates. He also faced competition for the hearts evangelical voters, particularly from Ted Cruz.

See ya bye!

I think I should remind everyone about Santorum and some of his comments:

and his defense of Government spending:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=441DKQU2EFw?rel=0

I’m glad he is out. Go back to serving the pope and leave the politics to the adults. One less Christian Statist and Christian Dominion buffoon. One down, one to go.

Others: Yahoo Politics, Vox, The Atlantic, American Spectator, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Right Wing Watch, The Stream, Mashable, Talking Points Memo, WBAY-TV, The Week and Outside the Beltway

Rand Paul calls it a day and goes home

Sad thing, but, I knew it was coming.

The Video is at CNN.

The Story via Politico:

Rand Paul dropped out of the 2016 president race on Wednesday, short on cash and support, two days after finishing with under 5 percent in the Iowa caucuses — less than one quarter of the support his father had drawn four years earlier.
The Kentucky senator, who pitched his libertarian-infused brand of conservatism as transformational for the Republican Party, will exit the national stage and instead run for reelection to the Senate. His moment in the 2016 campaign never materialized.
“Brushfires of Liberty were ignited, and those will carry on, as will I,” Paul said in a statement.
Paul told senior staff about his decision on Tuesday. Other staff were notified Tuesday evening and the entire Paul campaign was told via a conference call on Wednesday morning at about 8:45, according to a campaign source. In that call the Kentucky senator talked about smaller government, continuing his fight for “liberty” and the Fourth Amendment.
For months, Paul struggled to gain traction or garner attention in a race that has been dominated by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Paul hadn’t registered in double digits in any national poll since May, after he had led some surveys in 2014 and had been declared the “most interesting man” in Republican politics.
Paul had initially been viewed as a stronger contender than his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for president in 2008 and 2012 on a narrow libertarian appeal. The younger Paul had hope to build on the libertarian grassroots base that had poured tens of millions of dollars into the elder Paul’s campaigns and expand it to more mainstream Republicans.
In the end, he was able to do neither.

Rand Paul’s biggest problem is that he is not his Father and because of that hardcore Ron Paul supporters are leery of him. Paul also tended to flip-flop a bit. He also was very anti-trump and that did not help him one bit.

Other Blogs: American Spectator, Advocate, Morning Consult, Shot in the Dark, Outside the Beltway, addictinginfo.org, Business Insider, CNN, Maryland Scramble, Vox Popoli and New York Times,

Video: Special Iowa Rant

This was done at the last minute, so please forgive the amateur look about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpIErQGPB4?rel=0

Microsoft to tally up caucus numbers

Drudge is promoting this one big time. Looks like Microsoft is helping out in Iowa.

Anyhow, here’s the story via the Hill:

Microsoft volunteered to provide the technology to help tally up the results of Iowa’s caucus, free of charge. Now it will be put to the test Monday night.
The contests in both parties are expected to go down to the wire. And the spotlight will be on precinct officials who have been trained on a new Microsoft app, which is meant to cut down on human error and speed up the reporting process.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties in Iowa have expressed strong confidence in Microsoft, dismissing late suspicion of corporate influence from the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) early last week.
Party officials have said no errors have been spotted in caucus dry runs. But the Sanders campaign has created its own backup reporting system, as has the Hillary Clinton campaign.
“It will be interesting to see what happens if and when there are discrepancies between the Microsoft system and either Democratic or Republican campaign tabulations,” Iowa State University professor Mack Shelley said.

Some would say that this smacks of corporate influence in elections. But, I really don’t see that, I mean, it would be worse. It could be the Government involvement. We all know what a disaster Mitt Romney had with that software he used. So, this might be a plus.

The 2016 Presidential Race Begins: Iowa caucuses are today

The first step of the 2016 election starts today.

Video:

The Story via Fox News:

As Iowans prepare to cast the first votes in the presidential nominating process Monday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders hoped to defy the polls and pull off upset victories in Monday night’s caucuses.
After months of campaigning and more than $150 million spent on advertising, the race for supremacy in Iowa is close in both parties.
Among Republicans, the latest polls show real estate billionaire Donald Trump holding a slim edge over Cruz. Cruz, who became the first major candidate from either party to enter the presidential race 315 days ago, has pinned his hopes to a sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation. Cruz has also modeled his campaign after past Iowa winners, visiting all of the state’s 99 counties and courting influential evangelical and conservative leaders.
“If you had told me 10 months ago that the day before the Iowa caucuses we’d be in a statistcal tie for first place I would have been thrilled and exhilarated,” Cruz told Fox News late Sunday.
The Republican caucus is also the first test of whether Trump can turn the legion of fans drawn to his plainspoken populism into voters. The scope of the billionaire’s organization in Iowa is a mystery, though Trump himself has intensified his campaign schedule during the final sprint, including a pair of rallies Monday.

I predict that Trump will come in first, with Cruz second and Rubio third on the Republican side. On the Democrat side, I think that one could be a surprise. Sanders has a good deal of support, while Hillary has the name and the money. So, that one is a toss. It will be interesting to see to say the least.