Nate Silver has some details on just how spectacularly badly Mitt Romney performed in last night’s primary and caucuses. He’s following Hillary Clinton’s trajectory, with wins in New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada, and losses everywhere else. (I believe Obama actually netted one more delegate out of Nevada, but he lost on the percentages). The take away from last night is less that Romney lost than the thoroughness with which he lost in both Missouri and Minnesota, failing to win a single county in either state. Even when Obama was losing states badly to Clinton, he was winning in the cities and college towns. Romney is weak across the board.
Romney has now lost in Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri, and his performance in the Midwest is getting worse, not better. He’s banking on winning Michigan, which is where he grew up and where his father served as a fairly popular governor. But I see no signs in the polling data that should give Romney encouragement. You’d think a man nicknamed ‘Mittens’ would be a lock to win the Mitten State, but he’s polling behind Gingrich in Ohio, and he’ll probably be in third place there when the next survey comes out. I think Santorum will focus all his energy on winning over the largely Catholic Reagan Democrats in the Detroit suburbs and leave Arizona for Gingrich to mine.
The assumption is that Romney can overwhelm his opponents with superior organization and saturation advertising, but that hasn’t worked so far and it might be counterproductive considering that the more people see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him.
Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question.
It’s also a lot easier for Romney to attack Newt Gingrich than it is for him to attack Rick Santorum. What’s he going to attack him for? Being too religiously conservative? Being too sanctimonious? Blasting him for receiving earmarks is just a big yawner.
As things stand, I don’t think Mitt Romney will win in Michigan. He has to hope that the media shines a new light on Santorum’s career and some of his more controversial positions and idiosyncrasies, but it’s not easy to exploit Santorum’s weaknesses while simultaneously trying to convince people you’re a conservative. Blasting Romney’s face all over the airwaves doesn’t seem to work, either. But maybe his people can come up with a really effective ad campaign that can pull him through.
I have less of a feel for Arizona. It seems like a better fit for Romney, and I’m not sure Gingrich has enough left in the tank to get any momentum going. I don’t think Santorum will seriously contest there unless the polls come out showing him in the lead. So, lacking any data or real feel for the conservative electorate there, I can’t predict that Romney will lose Arizona. But he better win, because he can’t afford to get shut out again or the nomination might actually slip out of his grip.
Romney is supposed to be the nominee because he has the money, organization, endorsements, and temperament that his opponents lack. But it turns out that people don’t like his face, he can’t organize worth a damn, no one cares about endorsements, and his temperament is off-putting. Meanwhile, his money advantage is blunted by the Citizens United ruling that allows Super PACs to keep his opponents going on a shoestring budget. Romney’s advantages have so far turned out to not be advantages after all. Even the conservative media has failed to unite behind him.
At this point, even if he wins the nomination, which is still the likeliest result, he’ll be several times weaker than Walter Mondale as a general election candidate. He has now entered the danger zone where he faces the real prospect of epic collapse and failure.
Right now I’m hearing David Bowie in my head singing “1984!” How sweet it would be if Obama proved to be not the black Jimmy Carter but the black Ronald Reagan (electorally speaking, of course).
well, it’s not just the personalities, though I think Obama is already proving to be a great president. Some of the thoughtful discussion about 2008 I heard on the radio driving back from NH where I’d worked on GOTV, saw this as a larger, shift to a trajectory picking up the Great Society and the FDR agenda after the 20 yrs previous Reagan reaction. Someone (don’t remember names of commenters, believe it or not I was pretty tired) pointed out the generational shift, that the Bush/Clinton impasse was of the Vietnam generation and Barack was born into a post Vietnam generation. So yes, could be, but credit is due all of us.
“pointed out the generational shift, that the Bush/Clinton impasse was of the Vietnam generation and Barack was born into a post Vietnam generation.”
That was also something Obama spoke to frequently in the 2008 campaign. It was part of his emphasis that he framed the political landscape in different, newer terms. It was also a basis for his emphasis on getting stuff done and worrying less about ideology.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Florida, Jeb Bush is getting ready to announce his campaign, which would so totally blind-side the Great American Media, and so dominate the coverage for the next month, no other candidate may make it through February.
It is . . . logical.
I’ve thought all along that Romney would be the eventual nominee and I’m not convinced by any means that that won’t happen. But, lord its getting dicey. This nomination is going to be long, drawn-out and fought over wedge issues. And you can forget about them running against Obama while in the primary. Casual swipes will be about it.
Romney HAS to run on the economy. His positions on wedge issues have changed so much that they are suspect on every issue that isn’t the economy. He can’t run on foreign policy because all three of them sound alike. No room to maneuver.
But the economy is not tanking. It is slowly improving and he is currently taking a real risk of sounding like he’s cheering against America.
Santorum and Gingrich will be running on wedge issues, and will probably force Romney even further to the right on issues like the Personhood Amendment, anti-contraception, GayRights (specifically DADT, DOMA, CA Marriage) and veiled racism. He will then have to defend those issues in swing states, and there won’t be a 6 month hiatus for people to forget the positions.
Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
I buy some of the comparisons. The candidate who comes closest in my opinion though is Muskie in ’72. Muskie had money and the establishment, and it meant nothing. In this telling Santorum would make a great McGovern.
I don’t know why people think money is so critical. When Hart had none he beat Mondale, when he had more money than Mondale he got beat. Dean had tons of money. So did Clinton.
There is one enourmous different between Mondale and Romney: the economy is in far worse shape in 2012 than it was in the summer of ’84. His chances are much better than Mondales, though if the recovery takes hold this year he doesn’t have much of a chance either. No republican.
I do not believe that Romney is going to win this nomination.
You think Santorum is going to actually win the nomination?
I’d prefer that Romney win it, I think (not sure if I’m overestimating Santorum because I just haven’t seen him that much), because he strikes me as uniquely weak, unable even to get any passion from the base … and I think he’s still pretty much inevitable.
He wins when he buries his opponents in ads, and spends all that money on negative campaigning. He loses when he doesn’t. Isn’t that right? So why won’t he just bury Santorum with ads and take the prize?
Someone has to win it. Romney better not lose MI and AZ or he very well might fail.
But Santorum? I don’t know, I don’t see it. fladem knows this stuff way better than I do, and maybe money isn’t the determining factor, but surely it matters–now, post CU, more than ever.
I just don’t see how Romney fails to take MI and AZ after saturation airing of negative ads.
Start with the fact that Michigan is split between conservative Calvinists in the west and Catholic swing-voters in the east. Santorum speaks to these people in a way Romney never could. Romney’s got the GM and Ford managerial and executive staffs. Santorum has the line workers.
Follow that up with the fact that Santorum’s weaknesses are almost all related to out how far right he is on social issues, and realize that Romney doesn’t want to attack him for that. So, he’ll try to go after Rick for earmarks, which absolutely no one gives a shit about.
Finally, realize that the more that people see of Romney, the less they like him, so saturating that airwaves with Romney ads is counterproductive and drives up his negatives to astronomical levels.
Romney was able to bomb Gingrich in Iowa because Gingrich provides a ton of ammo that doesn’t relate to the left-right axis.
I’m not saying that Romney can’t win Michigan, but he’ll need a very smart ad campaign because Santorum should be able to the lock the thing up without too much effort.
Maybe it’s been pounded into the ground enough that it doesn’t warrant mentioning, but don’t forget to account for how people in Michigan feel about this. That’s not just general election fodder.
I do. This is a very volatile race – and one reason it is volatile is because turnout is so low.
If you push the ’84 example a bit more, Ron Paul is taking up conservative votes that Romney would be unlikely to win the same way Jackson helped Hart in the late primaries by splitting the African American vote with Mondale.
In the end, though, Santorum is closer to the base than Romney is. The notion of the “establishment” has been outmoded since the ’72 McGovern Commission changed the nomination process. It’s really a very outdated way of thinking about politics.
Santorum scares me more than Romney, though I really don’t the GOP nomination matters much. If the economy recovers, this will be a route. If it doesn’t, I don’t think Obama can win.
Is there any evidence that Paul is hurting Santorum/Gingrich more than Romney? Both Paul and Romney are running on the economy and how to fix it. In that sense are they not competing directly against each other?
It’s really not. Your talking point is six months out of date.
Here’s the unemployment rate for 1984:
It was over 10 percent for much of 1982 and 1983, so it was moving in the right direction. If the rate improves .7% this year from Jan to Nov, as it did in 1984, the unemployment rate will be 7.6% on election day. That’s not much different from the 7.2% rate Reagan overcame by winning 49 states against Mondale.
Oops. It should by .8%, so a 7.%% on election day. Three/tenths of a percentage point difference.
I was looking at Dec instead of Nov.
really it’s the direction, not the level that matters.
mean by “talking point”. Here are the numbers from 1983 and 1984. Your comparison forgets that in the 1980 election inflation was rated in exit polling as important as unemployment, and Reagan (well actually Volckler) killed inflation. By the summer of 1984 a recovery had been underway for over a year.
The variable from a political perspective is actually consumer sentiment (which is at 61). Two factors cause changes in consumer sentiment: oil prices and initial unemployment claims. If oil remains stable and unemployment claims remain under 400K, Obama is going to kill the Republicans.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/PA/S/01/epolls.0.html
The exit polls for Casey-Santorum in 2006. Amusing reading.
…He lost independents 3:1! 72-28. He lost women voters 60-40! He’s the most notorious loser in modern Republican history.
Leave it to the teabaggers to make their presence felt with another epic temper tantrum.
Man, what a beating. I found this table most interesting.
Was your vote mainly…
for your candidate (64%) – Santorum 51%, Casey 49%
against opponent (36%) – Santorum 17%, Casey 83%
Granted, Santorum was the incumbent and thus on the wrong end of the “throw the bums out” sentiment, but… 17%?
Romney’s got a huge disadvantage in Michigan: “Let Detroit go bankrupt.” If I’m Santorum, I find a way to reference that in every ad. Let Romney defend the creative destruction of Michigan’s few remaining jobs.
I have less of a feel for Arizona.
Arizona is Mormon country, which says Romney, but it’s also far-right far-gone fruit-loop country, which sorta says Gingrich. That’ll be a good one.
There are a lot of Mormons in Colorado too. Just sayin’.
Speaking of money, has Santorum managed to capitalize on his recent wins that anyone knows of yet? I’m not seeing any reports.
Obviously we can see that who has the most money doesn’t determine who wins, necessarily, but too little money and you go the way of Pawlenty and Bachmann. Not to mention, with a little cash infusion Santorum wouldn’t have to make choices on whether to contest Michigan vs Arizona.
Usually by now you’d see lots of stories about fundraising spikes in the wake of sweeping 3 states. If Santorum still can’t raise money, then that’s pretty sure evidence that he’s a 100% protest candidate. Even so, he’s a scary opponent in the GE for at least one reason: he can fire up the fundie base, and that can make a huge difference in the Senate races.
According to CNN, Santorum’s seen a surge in donations:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/09/santorum-website-sees-boost-after-wins/