It seems like everyone is trying to create drama. Here’s Matt Dowd, responding to a query from George Stephanopoulos: “What happens if Rick Santorum wins Michigan tonight?”
“If Rick Santorum wins tonight it’s the equivalent of a 9.0 on a Richter scale. I mean it is going to shake Washington, it’s going to shake Republican establishment it’s just going to shake things to their very core,” Dowd told me. “And I think what you’re going to see are the conversations that have been going on behind quiet doors saying we need another candidate in this race.”
I think this is a bit of hyperbole. At the same time, I don’t think it’s wrong exactly. Let me explain. As things look right now, Romney is going to win in Arizona tonight, probably quite comfortably. And he’s either going to win narrowly or lose narrowly in Michigan, which will mean very little either way in terms of delegates awarded. Whether Romney nets a dozen delegates or loses a dozen, it can’t possibly matter much in determining the outcome of the overall race. Except, perhaps, if the outcome of tonight’s elections significantly changes people’s perceptions. But, is that likely to happen?
Let’s say that Romney wins in Michigan by a narrow margin. Will that change his position in the polls in Super Tuesday states? After all, Romney is polling in second place in Ohio, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, and in third place in Georgia. Does anyone seriously think that narrowly winning in Michigan will erase those deficits? And, consider that Romney will win on Super Tuesday in Virginia (where he only faces Ron Paul on the ballot), his home state of Massachusetts, and Vermont. There will also be a handful of delegates parceled out that day in Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, and North Dakota. Will how those races turn out hinge on tonight’s results? And will those results really mean anything compared to the big prizes like Ohio and Georgia, Virginia and Massachusetts?
I think the truth is that regardless of what happens tonight, Romney is going to win a lot and lose a lot on Super Tuesday. And that means that he will have proven that he can’t close the deal. He’ll have to deal with upcoming primaries and caucuses in Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, and Missouri, which are all inhospitable states for Romney.
What does all this mean? It means that tonight’s results don’t matter. If Romney wins both contests, he’ll be able to breath a little easier for a week. And then he’ll be in the same place that Matt Dowd said he’d be after Super Tuesday, with conversations going on behind closed doors about how to find another candidate.
For Romney to escape this plotting, he’ll have to win big enough in Michigan to somehow change people’s minds about him in Ohio and Georgia and Tennessee and Oklahoma. Because, unless he can win in the South, he isn’t going to knock his opponents out of the race or get a big enough delegate lead to wrap up the nomination.
I just watched Obama’s speech in front of UAW workers and the man was on fire. Giving that speech, that utterly connected with the working man out there juxtaposed with Romney and his message that cannot and never will connect made tonight’s primary seem even sadder for the Rep’s who must vote.
I’m all for rescuing underdogs from the Humane Society but this crew of Rep’s led by Romney is so bad that they have actually taken the cheering for the underdog right out of politics.
I want little Ricky to win..
I want him to push Willard into SELF-FINANCING.
Here’s what I’m telling you. Romney is going to be self-financing if he loses Ohio and Georgia and Tennessee and Oklahoma and Missouri and Alabama and Mississippi and Kansas, as he seems likely to do regardless of what happens tonight.
What do you think of the possibility, however, that if Romney wins comfortably enough in Michigan (probably through pre-banked early votes) that Adelson jumps ship from Gingrich to Romney and/or Friess starts to pull out (heh heh) from Santorum?
Seems to me that the rich R’s want a win in their column no matter who it is and will pony up the funds to make it happen.
Why would Adelson back off of Gingrich when he’s way ahead in Georgia and Romney is running in third place there? Why would Freiss back off Santorum when he is poised to win Ohio and Tennessee and more states besides?
No, this is why it doesn’t matter:
Thanks Seabe, one of his most fiery speeches and hit all the hot spots. He didn’t leave any room for the Rep candidates to breathe.
And then he’ll be in the same place that Matt Dowd said he’d be after Super Tuesday, with conversations going on behind closed doors about how to find another candidate.
There is no other candidate. What it really means is that to end this, Romney will likely have to make The Frothy One his running mate. And that is embarrassment enough. But keeping up the primaries/caucuses will likely result in worse embarrassment.
The possibility of upsetting Romney in Michigan has given the Santorum campaign a great boost. He is taken seriously as a contender, and Romney doesn’t look so inevitable.
If Romney wins Michigan tonight by a comfortable margin, it could be a shattering blow to Santorum, far beyond the delegate numbers. We’re talking about delegates because of the Democrats in 2008, but most races are not delegate scrambles between roughly-equivalent candidates. The typical primary race is won long before enough delegates for an official win are rewarded. Think about Clinton in 92, or Bush in 88, or McCain in 2008, or Kerry in 2004. The typical primary race involves one candidate pulling ahead of the pack after a few contests and coasting to victory for well over half the primary calendar.
If Romney wins in Michigan tonight, it won’t mean that he was de-facto won, but it certainly puts him in the driver’s seat to nail down a traditional “win” in upcoming weeks.
Most of the time, I really don’t disagree with Booman. However, on this one the Boo (potentially) got it all wrong.
It depends upon the vote turnout in the three big R districts. 538 has a neat breakdown that shows a 4-4 district race (Romney-Santorum) with 10 in tossup.
Scenarios:
If Scenario 3 shows up I think Romney is dead in the water. I think that even if he ends up with the most delegates, he’ll lose to someone else at the convention. I’d go so far as to say that some of the delegates he now has, would turn on him (remember IA, MN, CO and ME still havn’t actually SELECTED convention delegates).
Yeah, I think this one is a 50% game changer.
Dowd.
Translation:
Yup.
Bet on it.
Booman:
He’s not s’pose to “close the deal,” Booman. He’s supposed to be a good-looking loser. If he becomes not such a good-looking loser, they will indeed attempt to find another one. One who can be trusted just in case Obama slips up somehow.
Predict on that if you’re going to predict on anything.
Who’d be a good-looking, trustworthy Ratpub loser?
Christie?
No way. Too mercurial. Imagine him with a bad case of indigestion after having eaten a steer or two, with his finger hovering over the “Boom!!!” button. One unexpected fart and the whole world goes up in flames.
Nope.
Jeb Bush?
Bushes don’t lose. He’ll wait.
Hunstman, Pawlenty and Johnson? Maybe. Probably Hunstman, if it really comes to that. I think Paul will save Romney’s ass, myself. Politics make strange bedfellows, don’t they?
Strange indeed.
Later…
AG
You have a fairly expansive worldview, Arthur. But it’s cramped and claustrophobic, too. You’ve created five or six filters that you put all information through. The filters aren’t bad. But they’re too restrictive. You become like a rat who memorizes one route to navigate through the maze, even though there are several possible solutions. You see only small parts of the picture.
There are thousands of small skirmishes going on that you don’t even see. Margo Kitsy Brodie was put on the U.S. District Court for Eastern New York this week. That makes five Democratically-apponted judges to 9 Bush (Poppy and son) appointed judges. Dubya put five judges on that court in his second stolen term. If Kerry had taken office, the composition of the court would be 10-4 Dem instead of 9-5 GOP. Repeat shit like that thousands of times and you begin to understand why the skirmishers persist in skirmishing, and why pie-in-the-sky crap either doesn’t matter or has to take a backseat to the here and now.
Couldn’t have said it better so I won’t try.
Make up your mind. You cannot have your cake and be eaten by it, too.
I live outside of a box that you do not even know you inhabit, Booman. All of the skirmishes in the world mean next to nothing to the controllers…they’re just entertainment for the wish-happy like yourself who think that things work the way that you were told they’re supposed to work when you went to school. Nobody said much about mass mind control by the media when you were coming up, and as a result you do not see it. You really don’t. That much is quite obvious in almost everything that you write.
So it goes. Sigh.
Clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp.
Obama Obama Obama Obama Obama Obama Obama.
It is no coincidence that the media have mounted massive subliminal whispering campaigns against the riskier Ratpub candidates, Booman. Risky to the PermaGov, whether risky/incompetent or risky/smart. One by one, the media have succeeded in taking each one down, and Santorum will be no different. They can’t really take Ron Paul down…he’s too fucking smart, too fucking stubborn and his message is both too honest and too correct, so there will always be people who hear what he is saying…but they have certainly succeeded in minimizing his chances of being elected, and that’s enough for the controllers.
“Flaky,” “crazy,” “racist,” “anti-female,” etc., etc., etc., etc.
You’ve certainly bought into it, even though you have been offered ample evidence to the contrary. Your conditioning filters out everything but what you have told to think right out of the equation.
They will support Romney until they decide that he is such a lame candidate that he threatens the success of the scam, and then they will try to substitute a better-looking tomato can. If they cannot do that…if someone truly threatening to their system were to somehow get nominated by the Rats, be it a fundamentalist asshole like Santorum or a true revolutionary like Ron Paul…then just as they did with Goldwater they will make sure that he goes down early and and goes down hard. Bet on it. We haven’t had a “free” election in this country since the Eisenhower years. They chose the wrong horse w/JFK…he reneged on his promises…and as a result they had to off him to get out from under their mistake, but as the years have passed they have gotten much, much better at the game. No more wetwork necessary; now it’s all digital. So much more efficient, and so much neater, too.
You think I operate behind filters?
HOO boy!!!
Someone who continues to support as “progressive” the man who signed the N.D.A.A.?
Nice.
Doublethink.
The ultimate filter.
Clomp on it.
AG
When you find yourself thinking that a major political party, or a leading candidate belonging to one of those parties, wants to lose a presidential election, it’s time to go back and check your premises.
It’s subtler than that, Joe. It’s not that they “want” to lose…not all of them, for sure. It’s more like they are forced into losing by a very powerful set of forces.
There is an old saying about the devil.
Update and translation:
Until you really understand the breadth and depth of corporate and intelligence control of the media and thus the minds of the people…the new fascism, corporations and intelligence systems rather than corporations and “government”…then you are walking blind in a very complex maze.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man still has lousy depth perception.
Bump!!!
Please.
Spend some real time and read up on “Operation Mockingbird.” It’s old news now…the original cancer has metastasized into a monster that is so big and so all-inclusive hat it cannot easily even be seen (Ask a fish about water. He’ll say “Water? What’s that?” Just like you guys say about the media control mechanism.) It’s old news, but the principles on which it acted are still in operation, only now they operate on a much grander scale and at a much higher degree of efficiency.
But…NOOOOOoooooo…
You’re Joe from Lowell, and you’re not being hornswoggled, by gum!!!
I’ll ask of you the same general thing that I asked of Booman above.
How can a “progressive” president get away with signing an incredibly repressive piece of legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act and still keep his “progressive” base fairly well intact?
Answer?
It’s all in the advertising, baby.
All in the constant hype.
WTFU.
Please.
You be bettah off.
AG
Apparently MI turnout is so far lower than usual and than expected. I would think that’s going to hurt the least-liked candidate, Romney, as the fanatics go to the polls to express their passions. Prediction: Romney will do worse than the polls predicted.
I’m gonna second the person above who posted about POTUS speech to UAW. If that was streaming in any household in Michigan who are union members or heck any household in America, then the idea of that Barack Obama against Mittens will really hit home who they should be supporting if they are not already.