It’s quite dizzying how quickly the polls have turned around. The Quinnipiac poll turned from 40-34 for Newt on Jan 22/23 to 38-29 for Romney on Jan 24/26. Clearly the momentum that Newt got from his primary win was unsustainable and perhaps some kind of systematic polling error. The consensus is that he didn’t have a good debate so it’s hard to see him recovering now.
This is true. Paul is hoping for a brokered convention at this point, but his real goal is just to get his message out there.
The problem is that most of the delgates are assigned from winner take all states so there is a hard cap on how many more delegates Paul can take because he will never win a primary (and apparently the same can be said for Santorum and Gingrich).
Well, he might win Virginia because he’s the only not-Mitt on the ballot.
Indeed he does disgrace the libertarian cause by associating with it, if that is possible.
Romney still leads by 12 points. Don’t suppose there’s any chance Newt can pull it out now. (Wait, it’s Newt, there’s always a chance he’ll pull it out . . .)
All pledged delegates are released if the first round of voting does not produce a majority winner. In theory, a brokered convention could lead to a victory for Paul (or Santorum, or Bachmann, etc).
If he does I expect Santorum will be all over any opening it creates.
It looks like Romney will win handily, so I’m wondering if this means he’s asserting full control over the race and will power through to the nomination - Gingrich’s campaign seems pretty deflated - or if this is just a prelude to greater nastiness.
What does this say about the voters? One week they kind of like a guy, and then after a solid few days of carpet-bombing of negative advertising, they’ll happily vote for someone else. Are the voters just willing to sell their votes to the guy who spends the most bashing the other guy?
It would be a huge blow to Romney if he loses to Paul in any state,
I’m hoping for the latter. I’m hoping Newt goes down kicking screaming and biting. Or better yet, it turns out that Romney becomes unelectable for some reason and the Republicans end up getting stuck with Newt. Or better yet, they end up getting stuck with Paul or Santorum.
I wonder if Newt has changed his mind about Citizens United?
It says that Romney has a huge advantage in money, all of the candidates have significant flaws, and Gingrich’s background wasn’t the subject of a lot of attention unti recently because he wasn’t seen as a contender.
It says Florida voters are looking for the candidate that they think can beat Obama, not the guy who is a disorganized jerk.
Romney would have done well to just pay Newt a bunch of money and let him use it making up spurious accusations against Obama. Maybe tell him he can be head of NASA or VP or something, with a Tiffany account for his mistresses. Then Newt could be the pitbull and Romney could be presidential.
I don’t think Newt would work for a Romney administration in any capacity, nor would Romney be inclined to ask him. One gets the impression that the mutual contempt is quite real.
Newt may be scum, but I think he’s got a point about the Republican establishment. They are going to nominate the Anointed One, and have no qualms whatsoever about crushing whoever dares get in his way. If Romney has to put anyone on the payroll, it’s Santorum. Given that Paul will get the anti-establishment but batshit crazy vote, the longer that Gingrich and Santorum split the anti-establishment sane vote, the better for Mitt.
Pretty much, yeah. It also shows a number of primary voters in Florida aren’t really sold on any of the candidates.
IMO they’re going for Romney now merely because he’s attacking; they desperately want to be confident that whoever they pick will bring a fight to Obama and “them libruls” in the media. He’s essentially stolen Gingrich’s schtick (albeit to a less-crazy degree), so he scores a tie on the question of which of them will really “go after” Obama. Romney then wins because he’s unquestionably “more electable”.
I don’t think that’s true at all. Romney’s said plenty of stuff about Obama throughout the campaign (and he’s not as effective at attacking the media as Gingrich is). I think he’s just done a better job of bringing Gingrich down, and Gingrich’s own failings are coming to the fore.
The schedule doesn’t much favor Gingrich until March, and even then his “should win” states are spread over the whole of the month.
February 4, 2012 Nevada (caucus)
February 4–11, 2012 Maine (caucus)
February 7, 2012 Colorado (caucus)
Minnesota (caucus)
Missouri (primary) – *See note below on Missouri
February 28, 2012 Arizona (primary)
Michigan (primary)
March 3, 2012 Washington (caucus)
March 6, 2012 Alaska (caucus)
(Super Tuesday) Georgia (primary)
Idaho (caucus)
Massachusetts (primary)
North Dakota (caucus)
Ohio (primary)
Oklahoma (primary)
Tennessee (primary)
Vermont (primary)
Virginia (primary)
March 6-10, 2012 Wyoming (caucus)
March 10, 2012 Kansas (caucus)
U.S. Virgin Islands (caucus)
March 13, 2012 Alabama (primary)
Hawaii (caucus)
Mississippi (primary)
March 17, 2012 Missouri (GOP caucus) – *See note below on Missouri
March 18, 2012 Puerto Rico (primary)
March 20, 2012 Illinois (primary)
March 24, 2012 Louisiana (primary)
*Missouri: Missouri will hold a primary on February 7th, 2012, which will not count for
delegates toward the 2012 GOP convention. The Missouri Republican Party will hold a
caucus on March 17th, 2012, which will determine the delegates sent to the 2012 GOP
convention
Well they aren’t exactly the same voters. Florida is a larger, less Caucasian and less evangelical state than South Carolina. Also it’s a closed primary so fewer Democrat leaning voters will be able to vote for prolonging the arguments by voting for Newt.