I think they’ll all ultimately coalesce around Romney. They may not like him, but if he’s seen as the nominee apparent, and I don’t see how any other conclusion can be drawn at this point as it is a foregone conclusion that he will win the NH primary and, I believe, get bumps for both SC and FL, even the most ardent social conservative will fall in line behind him sooner or later, and probably sooner.
There was no deal, though. He dropped out because he was clearly going nowhere, and only after that did Obama start talking to him about VP consideration.
This was a good result for Paul. He was polling at 21.5 on the RCP average and ended up with 21.4, even with every candidate piling on him the last week or so. On to NH where he’s holding down a solid, yet distant, second place.
I turned on CNN for a few minutes around 11 last night to check the results. I sat through some astute political analysis along the way. Imagine my surprise.
A woman whose name I didn’t catch was slamming Santorum, saying that he’ll be the not-Romney frontrunner going on but that it will be a disaster, because he’ll be facing almost a primary a week and he doesn’t have the money or staff to put together the ground campaigns for a task that large. And she was the Tea Party grassroots activist. I never could figure out who she wanted to have in that position but she’s right about the impossibility of Santorum gaining traction. The negative ads alone will kill him as they did Gingrich, but I’ve been saying all year long that campaigns are won by staff and organization, not positions.
James Carville took the other side, naturally, saying - paraphrased - that this was the White House’s best possible outcome. By not narrowing the race to two people, or even just to Romney, the clown circus will continue for another month or more. The more the Republicans battle each other the rosier the picture gets for Obama because it’s another month, week, day of sitting back and saving his money and time.
OTOH, Carville took the position that Romney didn’t do at all well because his 25% was the same figure that he had gotten in 2008. Ari Fleischer had said that reaching a tie in a conservative anomaly like these caucuses without spending Santorum time there was a huge triumph. Have to go along with Fleischer on this. Even a close second would have been excellent. A win, no matter how close, is beyond his dreams.
Not that it makes any difference in the long run for Romney. He was the nominee, he will be the nominee.
The big question coming out of this is whether, finally, at long last, Iowa has been fatally hurt as the first campaign. Santorum did as well as he did because he ran a 99-county campaign. But he could do so because he had nothing to lose. The others were running national campaigns and applying wholesale politics - heavy negative advertising, phone banks, internet - to the state. The negatives hurt Perry and Cain nationally and Gingrich locally. Santorum got spared mostly because he wasn’t worth the trouble to go after. That will change now, and sink him. The only thing Iowans (and New Hampshirites) had was the claim that meeting the candidates was a better way to run a campaign. If that’s irrevelant, then so are they. In a rapidly approaching majority minority America, giving special privilege to the most conservative voters in two states that are more than 90% white is an obscenity. I predict that the 2016 campaign, with primaries for both parties, will see major changes in the way the race is set up. Iowa and NH will be challenged and successfully. The only people who can believe otherwise are the kind who can claim that someone with Ron Paul’s views isn’t innately racist.
BTW, thank for the gigantic laugh WillFarnaby.
Sad how 122,255 people can have so much influence. Still if Hillary had done better in Iowa and came in first, she’d have likely been president today.
Iowa carries a lot of weight.
Everyone spends santorum time in Iowa!
Why do so many drop out after this one state? Lack of money ( or potential money)?
Why is that?! A list of Cabinet picks should be a campaign promise required of and binding on every presidential candidate! The Brits, they have the right idea here, they always have a “Shadow Cabinet” ready to step in.
I was hoping that this season’s results would have diminished Iowa’s influence. Unfortunately, it seems to have done the opposite.
This is just the break McCain was waiting for!
Donations are going to dry up since few people are going to give money to someone who finished with just a couple of percentage points. And in a lot of cases, they realized long ago they’re not going to win and this is the most convenient point to drop out. If you drop out before that, you might wind up realizing that there might have been an opportunity for you after all. Cough cough.
It’s definitely the most network airtime he’s gotten in months. Let’s see if he can turn this to his advantage in the '08 general.
Hillary publically offered Obama the VP position for dropping out of the race.
Santorum was simply lucky enough to have not only been the latest in the long list of not-Romneys to gain traction, but to also have his moment in the sun happen to arrive the week of the caucuses. If the caucuses had taken place two or three weeks ago, Gingrich would likely have been the one battling it out with Romney for the top spot, and Santorum would have been in the bottom three where he had been dwelling for most of the campaign. And, likewise, if they had taken place two or three weeks from, it could very well have been someone else contending for first place.
Perry’s still in it. Also, he doesn’t look nearly as hot in running gear as Sarah Palin does.
Cite? I recall plenty of discussion of this possibility, but never a public offer.
I don’t remember an offer either. I remember her saying that she would be willing to do it and that they’d be a good team, but that’s not the same thing. Essentially every candidate says that kind of stuff. They don’t commit one way or the other. It was bluster anyway- at that point he was in first place, so she wasn’t in a position to offer him second billing.
Santorum lost by 0.5 Duggar families.
Call me crazy, but I think Perry might have another run in him. Santorum was in a perfect storm in Iowa. The caucuses there are dominated by extreme evangelicals, of which he is one. He also benefitted from being the last not-Romney to ascend, and his opponents didn’t have time to run negative ads against him. He will crater quickly as he has no money or organization elsewhere, and his votes will have to go somewhere.
The anti-Romney sentiment runs very deep, and getting McCain’s endorsement is just going to make things worse. The Tea Party crowd hates McCain just as much as they hate Romney. Bachmann’s voters are up for grabs as well, and Perry is the one most like her. If Gingrich starts to ascend, Romney’s PAC has already got the ads made that cratered him in Iowa. Perry’s backers seem willing to give him one more shot, as well.
I just don’t see the Tea Party types getting in line behind Romney - not yet. I think they are going to give it one more big push, and the only candidate left who is palatable to them is Rick Perry.
Romney’s people felt Santorum was the one most like Bachmann, and I’d be inclined to agree. Either way, Romney isn’t expecting the Tea Party vote to get behind him yet. They’ll be the last ones to come around after the rest of the party concludes he’s their best shot.
Not like that, I don’t think. You’re not allowed to offer the position to Bolton to get Bolton’s support, but the law doesn’t prohibit you from thinking up a “dream team” and letting other people know who’s on it.
In other words, using the cabinet post as a bribe is illegal, letting your supporters know what they’ll be getting if you win is not.