That was an entirely predictable outcome (which of course I didn’t predict).[1]
Take Iowa for example. First those at the caucus vote for their favorite candidate. Then they spend a couple of hours selecting delegates. But many leave after the first vote, which ironically only shapes the headlines. Under such circumstances, the candidate with the most committed supporters can pull ahead. That would be Ron Paul. And of course the scenario will tend to flip people out, as the Republican base is essentially being tricked – most don’t know that the first vote is for show.
The mainstream arm lost control of the GOP starting with the election of Ronald Reagan and culminating with the Tea Party. The glue that holds the GOP together is the essentially tribal nature of the modern conservative mindset. So slap the label “Conservative” on a candidate and he will have a fair amount of appeal, even if the individual believes himself to be moderate. You can see some of this shtick in Bill O’Reilly’s presentation. Plenty of country club Republicans contribute to Planned Parenthood and think they prefer science to claptrap. Yet they will vote for a consistently anti-choice collection of crackpots every election. Blame the WSJ editorial page.
The real problem is that building an effective campaign from scratch starting on September 1 would be daunting. What would happen is that Romney’s apparatus would be transferred wholesale to the Tim Pawlenty or whomever, with bones tossed to various other factions. Egos would be bruised. Time would be wasted. And points would be lost in November.
Upthread though I quoted a conservative expert who apparently didn’t agree. And 2012 primary rules were set to make a lengthier and more exciting contest. Michael Steele says he wanted a brokered convention. And surprisingly the Romney campaign supported the change in rules. Methinks that was a poor business decision and casts doubt upon Romney’s alleged acumen, but maybe there are angles that I haven’t considered.
ETA: [1] Oh yeah. elucidator sort of predicted it a couple of months ago. Obliquely.
What basically happened was that the head of the county Repubs (a Santorum supporter) was voice voted in as caucus chair. This caused a huge uproar as the Santorum slate of delegates tried to steamroll the process. The Paul and Romney supporters decided to team up, when the Santorum delegates tried to shut down the caucus by saying that people were videotaping the precedings, which was said to be against the rules. Once this happened all hell (relatively speaking) breaks loose and the police are called. The two arrested were two of Paul’s top volunteers in the county. They were charged with disregarding police orders, and trespassing.
ETA: I actually went to this caucus, even though it wasn’t mine and I’m not a republican. I figured since it was giving out the single biggest delegate prize there would be a nice show to watch.
I think that in the end Romney will get enough delegates (including supers) to win an outright majority. If he doesn’t, he’ll be very close and the following will happen: The first vote will have Mitt fall just short. In the second vote, the Mitt supporters will vote the same and there will more more than enough others who switch to him to make it a done deal.
Remember when Chris Christie kept saying he wouldn’t run for President and everybody would just keep asking him anyways. Then one day Sarah Palin announced she wouldn’t be running and everybody was like “OK”
People are done with her. She is a reality TV star like Snookie.
Well that is the point. For the first month after she was announced the general public loved her and McCain had a bump. At one point she had higher favorbilities than either McCain or Obama. Soon though she talked enough that people got a sense of her and she drove McCain further away from having any chance. Now, well now she’s behind four or five imploded crazies worth of old news. The point is what if there was only enough time for that first blush?
I actually think this is a perfect storm sort of opportunity for the GOP to take advantage of: no clear winner in the delegate count, an unpopular front-runner and unelectable runners-up, AND an opponent whom the base detests categorically. (A lot of syllables to say “racists”.) Any asshole the GOP chooses to nominate will have a enthusiastic base of maybe 40% of the electorate to begin with, who are basically Anyone But Obama zealots.
Don’t know squat about her/him? GREAT!!
What little you do know is scary? GREAT!! It’s nice to see them libruls quiver in their boots!!
Says some stupid shit every few days? GREAT!! S/he’ll learn as s/he goes.
Has white skin? GREAT!! That’s all I require anyway.
Get past 68 days and maybe the total of what he or she is ignorant about mounts up, but up til that point she or he will get a total pass from GOP hardliners, and from some independents.
Mitt will win in Illinois tonight. Santorum will probably win Louisiana this Saturday. And then Mitt will sweep the month of April, winning DC, Maryland, and Wisconsin on April 3, and winning Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island on April 24. (Yeah, Mitt will beat Ricky in Pennsylvania.)
Beginning April 25, most of the GOP will be telling Newt and Ricky that it’s time to call it quits.
I think Romney will easily make it to 1144 delegates. After Illinois, he’s up to 560 delegates (NYT link), which is about 56 per cent out of the 988 delegates awarded or decided so far. If his average score drops down to 46 per cent, he’ll still get to 1144. If anything, I think Romney’s percentage will increase. CA, the largest race with 172 delegates, is Winner takes all; NY, with 92 delegates, is mostly winner take all. I’d say Romney has a good chance of winning those states (real clear politics on CA and NY) and the vast majority of those delegates. TX, the second most important race with 155 delegates, and which Romney is more likely to lose, proportionally awards its delegates, so he might be able to get as many as 50 out of there. Moreover, out of the superdelegates, Romney has 80 per cent of the ones decided so far; 77 have yet to make up their minds.
Say he gets 50 more superdelegates, 50 of the TX delegates, and he picks up 75 of the 92 the NY delegates, that gets him 347 delegates for a total of about 907 out of 1484 delegates allocated, which means he would have to get 237 more delegates out of the remaining 804, or 29.5 per cent. This is what he’s been getting in the popular votes in a lot of the states that he’s lost, and even there the percentage of the delegates he gets is often larger because the system’s disproportionality usually disfavors Gingrich and Paul. Of course, some of those remaining races might be winner take all and go to Santorum, but some others will actually go to Romney (CT, RI, OR, NJ for instance).
Basically, if Romney wins NY, CA, maintains his current level of superdelegate support, and just a few other races, he can afford to lose TX and most other races and still get 1144 delegates, probably on 5 June when CA, NJ, MT, SD and NM go to the polls.
I’m pretty sure I read that California is winner-take-all for each Congressional district, which get three delegates apiece. This might actually help Romney. Although California’s a generally liberal state, its Republican Party is dominated by arch-conservatives (similar to Arizona Republicans, just not numerous enough to run anything). This might make it a possible Santorum pickup. But with each Congressional district equally represented, Romney will probably get a bunch of delegates from the urban, coastal areas, which have fewer Republicans, but are represented equally compared to the inland areas where the dyed-in-the-wool types that make up the core of the state’s Republican Party dominate.
Most likely, of course, is that California simply doesn’t matter.
I found a good summary of each of the states’ delegate selection method. California and New York are both winner-take-all by district - the delegate results will heavily favor Romney as Illinois did today. The remaining pure WTA states will also go largely to Romney - DE/DC/NJ/UT are obviously his, MT maybe for Santorum.
Santorum needs strength in non-proportional states to block Romney gaining a majority, and the only place he can do that is PA, which won’t be enough.
It’s over. Gingrich and Santorum are the walking dead. Well, Gingrich isn’t walking that much any more. The batshit crazy vote was divided for too long and the non-crazy vote was never divided. So Romney will get the honor of getting his ass handed to him in November. What’s the slogan going to be? “The economy is getting better and I can turn it around!” “Want Medicare? Tough!” “If you liked Afghanistan, you’ll loveIran!”