Joshua Green shares an amazing story about the secret negotiations between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich for a “unity ticket” during the Republican Presidential primary. In the end, Green reports, neither of the two Republican leaders could agree which of the two would be president.
(T)he two candidates spoke face-to-face at an energy forum just before the primary. Gingrich made an elaborate historical argument that when the party hasn’t been able to agree on a nominee, it always settles on the senior figure. Santorum wasn’t persuaded, and urged Gingrich to do what was best for the conservative movement.
Neither man would yield. “I’d like to have had Santorum drop out, and he’d have liked me to drop out,” Gingrich says.
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“I was disappointed when Speaker Gingrich ultimately decided against this idea, because it could have changed the outcome of the primary,” Santorum says. “And more importantly, it could have changed the outcome of the general election.”
The idea of a “unity ticket” between Gingrich and Santorum surfaced during the election, as an anonymous Newt Gignrich aide floated the idea to Huffington Post reporter Jon Ward in March 2012, but previously there was no serious evidence that the idea was anything but a rumor.
