# Mississippi, Alabama, Hawaii, Samoa
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [March 13, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702 "2012-03-13T23:56:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/21 "2012-03-14T03:34:30Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#):
>
> If the grand prize was just getting the nomination, I might agree that the only thing that matters is delegate count. But presumably, they need to think about the big boy election in November, and Romney is showing very little evidence that he can win where it counts, or excite more than just one voting block.
>
> He’s going to need states like Michigan and Ohio in the general, but he won by the seat of his mom jeans in those primaries. He would probably like to retake VA for the Pubs, but he didn’t even look that good when it was just him and Ron Paul on the ballot. And the south? They do not like him down there one iota. He’s a rich, liberal, flip-flopping, unlikeable, awkward, New Englandy, effete culty Mormon. The only thing he has going down there is that he’s not a rich, liberal, socialist, likeable, smooth-talking, Chicago-y, effete culty Muslim black man. Now that may be enough to win him much of the south, but he is still struggling to really fire anybody up down there or most other places.
>
> The thing with both Hillary and Barack in their primary battle is that both of those people fired up independents and the left. There was passion from the center on leftward for BOTH of them. People actually wanted them, yearned for them. There will be that again once Obama puts his campaign pants back on. But there will still be no passion on the right side of the political spectrum. Not for Mittens. Oh, he may win the delegate count. So he’ll have that going for him. Which is nice-- if that’s all you want from him.
I agree that things look bad for Romney, but winning those states (sic) by the same margin he lost (sic) wouldn’t have meant much either in the delegate math or his chances of winning the general, for several reasons. The first and foremost is that the GOP candidate will win THOSE states no matter WHO it is. Second is that while it might be an index of enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for Romney, elections against sitting presidents are basically referendums on that president. People are going to end up voting their feelings on Obama, not their feelings on Romney. Third is that Romney is bound to win the primary and tilt against Obama, so nothing can be done with the information that he struggled in the primaries.
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### Author:  [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/22 "2012-03-14T03:35:22Z")
Bob Dole. Bob Dole.
Bob Dole.
😃
---
### Author:  [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/23 "2012-03-14T03:43:32Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#):
>
> He’s going to need states like Michigan and Ohio in the general, but he won by the seat of his mom jeans in those primaries. He would probably like to retake VA for the Pubs, but he didn’t even look that good when it was just him and Ron Paul on the ballot. And the south? They do not like him down there one iota. He’s a rich, liberal, flip-flopping, unlikeable, awkward, New Englandy, effete culty Mormon. The only thing he has going down there is that he’s not a rich, liberal, socialist, likeable, smooth-talking, Chicago-y, effete culty Muslim black man. Now that may be enough to win him much of the south, but he is still struggling to really fire anybody up down there or most other places.
> [@Simplicio](#):
>
> I don’t think there’s much correlation on how a candidate does in a primary in a state and how they end up doing in the same state during the general election. At the end of the day, the people that show up to GOP primaries are mainly motivated Republican voters, they’ll all show up to the polls and vote for the GOP nominee in the General, regardless of who it is.
> [@tnetennba](#):
>
> I agree that things look bad for Romney, but winning those states (sic) by the same margin he lost (sic) wouldn’t have meant much either in the delegate math or his chances of winning the general, for several reasons. The first and foremost is that the GOP candidate will win THOSE states no matter WHO it is. Second is that while it might be an index of enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for Romney, elections against sitting presidents are basically referendums on that president. People are going to end up voting their feelings on Obama, not their feelings on Romney. Third is that Romney is bound to win the primary and tilt against Obama, so nothing can be done with the information that he struggled in the primaries.
I think it depends on what states we’re talking about. Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and the other hardcore southern states will go red in November no matter what. But Romney may not be able to hold on to Virginia, North Carolina, and Missouri. He may not be able to run up the leads he needs in the Florida Panhandle and rural Indiana to outweigh the urban areas of those states. Southern performance in the GOP primary isn’t a total write-off; a Republican needs solid support in all of the South to win the election, as John McCain and Bob Dole proved.
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### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/24 "2012-03-14T03:47:52Z")
I can’t think of a state that Romney would lose and Santorum would win.
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### Author:  [@Billy-o](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billy-o)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/25 "2012-03-14T04:33:28Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#):
>
> Bob Dole. Bob Dole.
> Bob Dole.
> 😃
[Bob Dole]WHO DARES SUMMON ME??!![/Bob Dole]
---
### Author:  [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/26 "2012-03-14T04:41:46Z")
> [@tnetennba](#):
>
> I can’t think of a state that Romney would lose and Santorum would win.
I wonder if North Carolina wouldn’t fit that bill. Obama carried it in 2008, but with a group of voters motivated to keep a Mormon out of the White House, Mitt might lose it.
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### Author:  [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/27 "2012-03-14T05:15:54Z")
> [@tnetennba](#):
>
> I can’t think of a state that Romney would lose and Santorum would win.
He’s doing quite a bit better in polls than Romney in Pennsylvania v. Obama, but not really enough to win it.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/28 "2012-03-14T05:28:48Z")
> [@tnetennba](#):
>
> The candidates don’t really win states. It’s a media fiction. They’re likely to end up with similar delegate numbers, right? And figuring in Hawaii and Samoa, Romney might pad his lead for the night.
This is exactly right. Romney is not overwhelming anyone or blowing his opposition out of the water, but he’s expanding his lead by small amounts, and as the number of remaining contests dwindles it becomes that much harder for anyone to catch him. I’ve read that Santorum and Gingrich are just trying to prevent Romney from getting a majority of the delegates and are no longer holding out hope of beating him outright. I’m not sure they’ll be able to do it, and not just because he’s better at campaigning than either of them.
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### Author:  [@littlespeedysuperbike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/littlespeedysuperbike)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/29 "2012-03-14T05:38:54Z")
Of course, there’s a big danger lurking for any Republican candidate.
Texas.
Last time they polled, last summer and fall, Obama was about 10 points behind Romney and a little closer to the others. If internal polls, or a newspaper poll, shows this race suddenly being within 3, even for a couple weeks, well…
First, DFW, Centex, and Houston are very expensive advertising markets. Defending down there, particularly if you need to try to look invincible by carpetbombing the airwaves, will cost a fortune. On the other hand, all the Democrats need are some billboards and a willingness to spraypaint over obscenities and they’ll look like they’re contending.
Second, any stories about a close contest down there will look very bad in the national press. Texas is deep red and everyone knows it.
Third, the Texas Democratic Party has been beaten down so often and broken so badly that it has trouble just keeping the lights on. Five-ten million bucks gets sent down there to help rebuild a statewide organization, and all of a sudden you’ve got campaign offices that are open after working hours, phone lines that aren’t disconnected, rallies that have food. “We don’t have to lose all the time” gets people out of the woodwork - and the demographics make it closer every election…
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### Author:  [@littlespeedysuperbike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/littlespeedysuperbike)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/30 "2012-03-14T05:42:50Z")
The Texas problem gets more important when you consider that the candidate will be either organizationally-deficient Santorum or Gingrich, or former Massachusetts Governor Romney. Remember, the big-time surrogate and endorsement the candidate would want made a fool of himself on national TV, and it doesn’t take much for candidates to not want a hazardous surrogate - i.e. Bill Clinton being left out of the Gore campaign all through 2000.
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### Author:  [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/31 "2012-03-14T05:43:44Z")
> [@tnetennba](#):
>
> I can’t think of a state that Romney would lose and Santorum would win.
What you are failing to take into account here is the people who will not vote for a Mormon. Period.
They won’t vote for Obama of course but they _will_ sit out the election before they will vote for someone they think is a member of a cult. Southerners do not like Romney. Tonight’s results should make that clear. The reasons for their dislike are many but his religion is a big part of it for a certain demographic. Some of these people will undoubtedly vote for the Republican nominee in the Fall, no matter who it is. But I am confident there will be a significant number of evangelicals who will sit out the election if Romney is the nominee. Will it be a large enough number to cost Romney a state? I don’t know, but if I were one of his advisers I would be concerned about it.
And you can bet David Axelrod has a strategy ready to make this work in his guy’s favor.
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/32 "2012-03-14T05:46:24Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#):
>
> Tell that to John McCain and Bob Dole.
> Sometimes they just stay home. And in open primary states, it’s not only the motivated portion of the party.
More people turned out to vote for McCain in the General in 2008 then did for Bush in 2000, despite the fact that McCain had far more trouble winning the nomination then Bush did. And Dole won almost every state in '96 and lost the General badly. I don’t see how either case supports your argument.
Again, I don’t see any evidence that a candidate having trouble in a states primary contest translates to his performance in the General.
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/33 "2012-03-14T05:51:06Z")
> [@littlespeedysuperbike](#):
>
> Of course, there’s a big danger lurking for any Republican candidate.
>
> Texas.
>
> Last time they polled, last summer and fall, Obama was about 10 points behind Romney and a little closer to the others. If internal polls, or a newspaper poll, shows this race suddenly being within 3, even for a couple weeks, well…
If that happens, the GOP will correctly dismiss it as a statistical abberation and ignore it. Obama won’t be competitive in Texas. He lost by ten points there last time around and he isn’t going to out perform his 2008 numbers by ten points.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/34 "2012-03-14T05:53:18Z")
I’m seeing reports that Romney will get all six delegates from American Samoa. The polls will close in about 5 minutes in Hawaii. In some ways Romney has learned from Obama in 2008: if you can’t win by knockout, you have to win on points, and to do that, you need meticulous preparation. By contrast, Gingrich and Santorum didn’t think they would ever get this far, so they didn’t make the ballot in Virginia and I know Santorum is working from a disadvantage in Illinois (which Romney will probably win) because he wasn’t able to get a full slate of delegates on the ballot in some districts.
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### Author:  [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/35 "2012-03-14T05:54:18Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I’ve read that Santorum and Gingrich are just trying to prevent Romney from getting a majority of the delegates and are no longer holding out hope of beating him outright. I’m not sure they’ll be able to do it, and not just because he’s better at campaigning than either of them.
It seems quite possible he won’t get 1144 before the convention, no? In the past, the other candidates would have dropped out due to money problems, but this year they can keep going. Santorum is doing well enough to continue to get funding.
Romney has 476 now and there are 1315 remaining. If Romney gets half of those he’ll only be up to 1134. It is a rough estimate to be sure. Romney will probably clean up in IL, NY, CA, and UT. TX and PA are up-for-grabs, but Santorum _could_ clean up there. The coasts will go Romney and the rest will go Santorum.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/36 "2012-03-14T05:57:53Z")
If Romney has a chance to win the thing outright and the best the other guys can do is block him, who is most likely to have a problem with funding and enthusiasm and get pressure to drop out? It probably is not impossible for Gingrich and Santorum to block Romney together, although we’ll have to see how Gingrich responds to these losses tonight. He says he won’t quit but nobody thinks he has a chance to win. Romney has the advantage in organization and I think Santorum has enough weaknesses that he wouldn’t be able to stop Romney on his own.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/37 "2012-03-14T05:59:58Z")
> [@tnetennba](#):
>
> They’ll spin it as a huge set back even if he pads his delegate lead a bit with the Pacific totals. They want it to be a long, drawn out media event because otherwise all of those pointy headed experts will have nothing to talk about for several months.
You mean, like, policy? Yeah, that would be HORRIBLE.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/38 "2012-03-14T06:03:03Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> You mean, like, policy?
No. Like “Momentum momentum momentum can’t close the deal momentum momentum Mormon momentum” etc., with some increasingly insane proposals on women’s health issues mixed in.
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/39 "2012-03-14T06:12:58Z")
> [@CaveMike](#):
>
> Romney has 476 now and there are 1315 remaining. If Romney gets half of those he’ll only be up to 1134. It is a rough estimate to be sure. Romney will probably clean up in IL, NY, CA, and UT. TX and PA are up-for-grabs, but Santorum _could_ clean up there. The coasts will go Romney and the rest will go Santorum.
There are a bunch of super-delegates and some uncommited state delegates at the convention as well. If Romney is in striking distance of winning, I think its a safe bet they’ll vote for him on the first ballot to avoid a brokered convention.
I don’t really see how Newt and Santorum keep him from getting a majority.
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### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [March 14, 2012, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-alabama-hawaii-samoa/615702/40 "2012-03-14T06:14:30Z")
> [@Simplicio](#):
>
> If that happens, the GOP will correctly dismiss it as a statistical abberation and ignore it. Obama won’t be competitive in Texas. He lost by ten points there last time around and he isn’t going to out perform his 2008 numbers by ten points.
The only way Obama’s going to win Texas is as part of a landslide not seen since LBJ in '64. That’s not going to happen unles either Santorum somehow manages to win the nomination, or Romney does and get’s caught on video with another man.
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