By my own criteria, Mitt Romney had a good but not great night last night and we should begin to see signs of the Republican electorate consolidating behind him. A sure sign of that will be if Romney wins the Kansas caucus on Saturday. So far, Santorum has owned this area of the country, winning contests in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Colorado. If nothing fundamental has changed as a result of last night, Santorum will win Kansas. The next thing to look for will be the results in Alabama and Mississippi next Tuesday. So far Gingrich has won handily in South Carolina, Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle. There’s no obvious reason why he shouldn’t continue winning in the Deep South. There is also no sign that Romney is improving his performance in the Deep South. He was beaten badly in Tennessee and Oklahoma last night. Can Santorum make a case to the voters in Alabama and Mississippi that he is the only one who can stop Romney? Personally, I doubt it. I think Gingrich will win those contests.
So, a week from now Romney will be able to point to victories in Hawaii and a bunch of U.S. territories like American Samoa and Guam, Santorum will have Kansas in his trophy case, and Gingrich will have won the two big states with the most delegates. Will that clarify anything? I don’t think it will clarify much other than that Romney is still not consolidating the base. But I did predict that a result like Romney achieved last night would help him consolidate the base. My problem is that I don’t think it will yield results in the next week. Look to the Missouri Caucuses on the 17th to see if Romney improves dramatically on the results he achieved during the Missouri primary last month. And then look to Illinois on the 20th. I think that is where Romney will breakthrough and have a big victory that finally begins an end to this process.
After Illinois, Romney’s next big challenge will be in Wisconsin where Santorum has been polling in the lead. If Romney sweeps Maryland, Washington DC, and Wisconsin on April 3rd, he’ll probably wrap this thing up that night. If he loses Wisconsin. he’ll have to wait until April 24th, when wins in New York , Delaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island will more than offset Santorum’s victory in Pennsylvania.
For Santorum to prevent Romney from winning a majority of the delegates, he’ll need to somehow win in Illinois and Wisconsin. I think it’s that simple. As for Gingrich, he can hope to follow up wins in Alabama and Mississippi with a win in Louisiana on March 24th. But after that, he’s out of Deep Southern states until Arkansas votes on May 22nd, followed by Texas on May 29th. Can Gingrich go from March 13th to May 24th without winning a single contest? I kind of doubt it. If he stays in after Illinois, it will be for the purpose of helping Romney by dividing the vote. If he drops out, Romney’s job gets a little harder.
One question: does the Constitutional Convention route require the amendments to go through Congress? My reading is that it doesn’t. Whether the amendments are proposed by a constitutional convention, or by Congress through 2/3rds vote, it seems to me that ratification is the same: by approval of 3/4 of the states.
Wrong thread, but your reading is wrong.
Honestly I think a constitutional convention right now would be a spectacularly bad idea. I dont want to see the garbage that would be thrown into it by the radicals. Balanced budget amentments with exceptions for defence and job creators anyone?
you need 2/3rds of Congress and 3/4 of states. Frivolous amendments are nothing to worry about.
I love that Mitt’s gonna win the nomination over the Evangelical True Believer because a larded-up, ethically-compromised flameout is running a pointless “The South shall rise again!” tour with money from a Jewish chauvinist settler activist. I just love it.
It sums the Republican Party up so perfectly. Historians will have fun with this one down the road.
I agree!! From my perspective of Newt’s post super tuesday news conference, he appears quite subdued just like a guy who now has been sentenced to punching a 7am to 3pm time clock for the “man”. During the news conference, Newt was able to barf up one of his traditional zinger style sound bites, but the old Gringrich enthusiasm has definitely evaporated.
In truth he looks like he has reverted back into his old “K” Street personality going forward. Oh! what the hell, Sheldon Adelson’s big bucks can sure buy a lot of shit over at Tiffiny’s…
Both great comments.
I can remember a Sunday morning talk show in the 2007-08 election season when no Republican seemed to be coming forward and Newt put on his energetic “I could be President face” for a few minutes in the hope that some GOP big wigs would draft him.
I would love to see a detailed psychological profile of this man some day. I’m certain that he suffers from mania with his fabled grandiosity.
So, Romney is mostly winning in states he will definitely or likely lose in the general election. How awesome is that. To me the big question is if the base that clearly doesn’t like him very much will turn out in the states he is currently losing just to beat the guy they hate with a white hot anger?
Of course, if memory serves correctly, that’s one of the argument Clinton supporters used against Obama in 2008.
The late, great Molly Ivins used to advise voting with one’s heart in primaries and with one’s head in general elections. There are a lot of voters—across the political spectrum—who do just that.
All of which is to say that the Republican primary elections and the November general election are two very different contests. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will start out with a solid base of roughly 180 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win in November.
Is it yet time to seriously look at the General Election for President?
There just is no chance the swath from Georgia thru Texas will turn blue.
TN? Most likely Red, but stranger things have happened.
NC? Who the hell knows. VA? Maybe blue because of McDonnell’s Vaginal abortion crap.
MD, DE and NJ are blue.
The Rust Belt? I’m thinking Blue right now. The goverining R’s are not well liked and the “base” is flaming out.
The NE? New York and up is BLUE. Possibly excepting NH, but even there …
West Coast? Probably blue. WA is the only real chance at red, but even there…
Interior West? Purple. NM and CO probably blue. WY, ID, UT as red as it gets. NV and MT in play. AZ in play because of the weirdassshit the R’s have been pulling lately.
Dakotas thru OK are red. No chance of anything there except on ECV in Nebraska.
MN Blue.
IA and MO probably red, but in minor play
FL Purple. Who knows what lurks in the hearts and minds of Bubbe?
Doesn’t NH split their delegates now? So if the race is at all close, both candidates probably walk away with something. There’s another state that splits too, right?
the evangelicals want no parts of the Mormon.
period.
but, nobody in the MSM will talk about it.
But in the General, don’t you think they’ll come home (holding their noses) to the R ballot over Obama once Romney gets the nom?
Romney could grow horns and a tail, get 666 tattooed on his forehead and legally change his name from Mitt to Mephistopheles and the evangelicals will still turn out for the chance to defeat the Muslim Kenyan Islamocommunifascist and “take back their country”.
That is how deeply they hate Obama.
You know, I think you’re wrong. No doubt there is a significant percentage of the Republican electorate who feels that way. But what we’re really asking is how many people will vote third-party or stay home or even cross-over to vote for the president. There are a lot of people who simply won’t vote for a Mormon, period. Is it a large number? Probably not. But it’s not insignificant.
Let me give you another example.
In 1996, I was pretty disgusted with Clinton and Gore. I felt pretty confident that they’d committed criminal acts in their fundraising and that Clinton would probably be impeached in a second term. I was not too happy with Clinton’s performance in office either. And I knew he was going to win easily. So I didn’t bother to go vote. But all other Democrats on the ticket paid the price for my disenchantment with the top billing.
What happens if the election isn’t polling closely at all? Millions of conservatives say “fuck it” and stay home.
This is partially offset by the same phenomenon on the other side, where Democrats who are miffed with Obama don’t show up to vote for House and Senate. But which side has a bigger problem with their base?
Is there a significant contingent who would turn up to vote for Republicans in down-ticket races without backing Romney? I know what I would do, but it’s a lot more convenient for me to vote than for most, I would think.
Boo: I know it would be mind-reading, but if Gringrich does stay in past his milk-curdling expiration date, what do you think would be his primary motivation (assuming he realizes that he would be helping not hurting Romney v. Sanatorium at that point)?
Specifically:
Does he think he’d have a shot at negotiating the Veep spot
Does he dislike Santorum more?
Would be benefit financially more in the long-term by staying in longer?
Or would he just be thinking SOMETHING could happen to knock out Romney or Santorum early enough to give Newt the delegate majority?
Anything else?
I think Gingrich is banking on a brokered convention. He can’t win with only the deep South, but he can rack up major delegates and be a player. Since he is largely out to spite Romney and the Republican establishment that turned on him, I think he will then support Santorum. This is how Santorum can win even if, as likely, Romney has the plurality. Newt will want his pound of flesh, though. Nothing Newt is more into than pounds of flesh. Couldn’t be Veep. Newt is too much of a diva. Put a diva in a secondary position, and she just becomes a noisy madwoman in the attic. Which Newt is, but he would like people to pretend otherwise. If he is President, people have to try to keep a straight face at proclamations of moonbase statehood. If he’s Veep, not so much. Perhaps he’ll pull a Hillary and want SOS. Adelman would like him there too. Scary thought. But what I’d expect at this point.
Back in November, I saw Santorum as stronger and Romney weaker than most, but I underestimated how effective Romney would be at pure negative campaigning. So I called the ticket as Gingrich/Santorum. I don’t buy the reverse, but I still buy the alliance.
Romney took my popcorn away. I’ll still be watching, but a lot of the fun is gone.
The narrative driven by the corporate press is already shifting to Romney’s significant delegate position and how the math isn’t there for any of the others. I really think big donor money is going to have another slow down period here for everyone but Romney.
Santorum only had one chance to significantly extend the campaign and it was yesterday. His organization’s poor execution of delegate slating in Ohio and his inability to put Romney away in any of the other states tell the tale. (I don’t count Santorum’s 37% – 28% win over Romney in Tennessee as putting him away.) Romney beat Santorum in delegates something like 216 – 97. It needed to be more like 180 – 155 to continue the primary season in earnest.
There was a downward shift in momentum for Santorum in the last week and Romney did better in in many states than polls suggested one week ago. I think Romney will be OK for the rest of this month even in strong Santorum states and by the end of April 24 he will still hold the majority of delegates.
My take is, from here on out, Santorum has no positive motion and begins to slide at various rates of speed throughout states where he currently leads.
I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon looking for polls from Illinois but wasn’t able to find anything more recent than October or November, which is beyond useless now. I would guess though that Mitt is carrying Chicago, and perhaps enough of the suburban/exurban vote to tip the balance in his favor. If Santorum is somehow leading anyway, I think the smart money is on him losing it by the 20th: Romney has learned how to wipe out his opponents with money, and IL will be a top priority in his advertising budget.
Santorum will probably fare a little better in the smaller midwestern states, especially those where Romney chooses to commit less funding and time. Even so, his time in the national spotlight is going to continue to erode his popularity across the board; at the same time, the GOP establishment is going to start pushing hard for solidarity behind Romney as the electable choice.
Newt and Paul are like insects trapped in amber: they’re going to get what they were always going to get (in Newt’s case, he comes out with more delegates than he stood to gain in the beginning, but his momentum halted a long time ago and isn’t coming back), and no doubt they’ll use their pledged delegates to some sort of personal advantage.
Paul obviously made his compact with Romney a long time ago, and before long we’ll find out what his angle has been. In the meantime, he can continue on course, plodding through the remainder of the primary racking up 10% here, 7% there. He does no harm to Romney by remaining in the race.
Newt, on the other hand, will have a fairly large number of delegates to bargain with, not enough to do anything for himself, but maybe enough to put Romney decisively over the top well before the end of the primary schedule. It will be worth a lot to Romney to be able to declare victory as soon as possible.
In no case is Newt going to get a sensitive position from Mitt like VP or SOS, but Mitt might do something callous and infuriating like appoint him to Education or HUD or something like that. You can bet though that Romney will do his best to place Newt as far from the spotlight as possible, where he’d be least likely to bring scandal down on his (as yet theoretical) administration.
However, as long as Newt enjoys backing from Adelson, he’ll be in a position to play hard to get–and his ego will be impossible to satisfy with minor compensation.
Another consideration: we don’t know what all Newt has committed himself to do in exchange for Adelson’s money. Yes, we all know about his pledge to move the US embassy in Israel, but for all we know he may have signed a suicide pact of sorts, promising to ride the primary out to the bitter end. I think at the very least it’s sensible to assume he owes Adelson a lot more than has been publicly admitted.
As things stand, short of secret negotiations among the candidates, nobody is going to drop out of the race for a good long while to come. Each of them has his compelling reasons to stay in.