Santorum Wins Louisiana (By A Lot)

Via Fox:

Rick Santorum won the Louisiana primary Saturday, solidifying his support among conservatives in the Deep South as he faces a tough next couple of weeks in state competitions that are predicted to favor frontrunner Mitt Romney. The former Pennsylvania senator won 49 percent of the vote, with Romney coming in second with 27 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in third with 17 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul finishing last with 6 percent.

Good news for the Not Romney camp.  Meanwhile, Santorum contended he's been outspent 60:1 in Wisconsin by Romney.  Ouch.  A healthy win in the deep south again helps Santorum geographically but Wisconsin will be pivotal because it is a state that has both a Midwest feel but also a more liberal base than other Midwest states.  That means either Romney or Santorum has a shot at winning it under the right circumstances.

A win for Santorum there would certainly provide a strong wind of momentum after Louisiana.  Similarly for Romney, a win could be used to portray Santorum as a regional candidate like the perception took hold for Gingrich (in a big way).

Stay tuned.

Illinois primary will go to Romney

In what I predict will be a depressing development, today's Illinois primary will shake out for Mitt Romney, despite the strength of recent Santorum showings and head-to-head polling versus Obama.  It doesn't matter in the bigger picture.  Yes, there are a lot of potential delegates for Romney to scoop up today, and it will help him progress towards the nomination.  But Illinois will vote for Obama in November anyway.

Surprise: Mitt Romney's Against A Brokered Convention

Internal debate is ultimately a healthy thing.  We're not Democrats.

Mitt Romney says a brokered convention would be bad for the Republican party and by Republican party, he means him.

Via Politico;

“Look, if we go all the way to the convention we would be – we would [be] signaling our doom in terms of replacing President Obama,” Romney said on Fox News.

“You’re going to see me getting the delegates I need to become the nominee and we sure as heck are not going to go to a convention. All the way to the end of August to select a nominee, and have campaigns working during the convention?” Romney said. “Why, can you imagine anything that would be a bigger gift to Barack Obama than us not having a nominee until the end of August? That’s just not going to happen.”

Post Super Tuesday - What's Next? Newt.

To the bitter end.

Newt Gingrich won one state yesterday.  His home state.  True, it's a lot of delegates and a big prize.  But it really does very little to help his case that he's a viable candidate.  Had he won Tennessee or Oklahoma it would have helped but he still could be seen as a regional candidate.  He needed to win Georgia  but that was the lowest possible place to set the bar.  He needed more to energize his campaign properly.  It really would have helped if he'd won a non-regional state - Alaska or Vermont perhaps.  But whether he could have or not, he didn't.  So what's next in the race becomes entirely dependent on Newt.

Romney fever is not back, it was never here.

The Republican vote split - is it simply geographic?

With a win in a week-long process that finished up yesterday, Mitt Romney is back in the win column. It was predictable, as was the whole Romney-is-back-in-the-game meme in the mainstream media and the mainstream conservative media.  Romney is back, and the Santorum roll is over. But just as it was too soon to say that Romney had lost all momentum, it's too soon to say he's regained it.  No one has really had a ton of it and it is still early in the race. Maine changes nothing.

The takeaway from Santorum's second wind

It's early, but if the results hold up as they look so far, there are some takeaways from the results.

(1)  Mitt Romney is in trouble.  In the non-binding Missouri race, Rick Santorum currently leads Romney 55% to 25%.  In Minnesota Santorum leads Ron Paul 43% to 27%.  Mitt Romney has 17% and only leads Newt Gingrich's 12%.  In Colorado, Rick Santorum leads Newt Gingrich 50% to 21%, Romney trails in third with 19%. That represents three majorities of Not Romney in one night.

(2) In the bigger picture there is room for two Not Romney candidates.  Gingrich is still well positioned in the south if he plays his cards right.  Santorum clearly is well positioned elsewhere to compete with Romney.  If the two play the game intelligently, they can split the states they compete with Romney.  Alternately if either Gingrich or Santorum bow out, the remaining candidate can compete with Romney.  Either way, Mitt Romney is in trouble.

(3) Santorum may be surging.  But it is too early to claim that, just as it was to early to claim victory for Romney after Florida or Nevada.  The race is more likely a lot more fluid than pundits have realized.

(4) Mitt Romney is not doomed now.  But he is in trouble. He doesn't have this race sewn up.  Other contenders can compete.  Clearly Santorum has a claim to be the not Romney.  Gingrich can also now claim his southern states strategy is more viable than people thought last week.  And with a  lengthy lull coming after tonight (with the exception of Maine), there is time for all the candidates to reformulate their plans.

(5) Ron Paul can't win, but his share of the votes in some states can be significant.  He cannot be ignored, not forever.  What remains to be seen is how he is included or excluded from the party.

Debate Winner: Not Gingrich

The person who looked best in the final Florida debate was Rick Santorum.  That means Mitt Romney, who did well won.  Newt Gingrich who did okay, lost.  Gingrich needed a really solid performance and he only  had decent performance.  In the dying days of the Florida campaign, with polls suddenly turning against him, Gingrich needed a win and he didn't get it.  He may have lost the state as a result of that debate.

Rick Santorum is competing now for the same space in the electorate as Newt Gingrich.  He won the debate but he won't win Florida.  Florida is a momentum state.  If Santorum doesn't get out (or Gingrich), there is still one too many not Romney candidates in the race.  The remaining not Romney vote will be split and it will effectively ensure that Romney racks up delegates very quickly.  It will ensure Romney wins the GOP race.  With Nevada coming up shortly after Florida time is quickly running out.

Did Santorum actually win Iowa?

Tonight's CNN debate just got even more interesting.  More "not Romney-mentum".  With the final confirmed count on hold while missing ballots are located, it now appears Rick Santorum may have beaten Mitt Romney.

Seacrest OUT! Wait, I mean Perry.

What do Rick Perry and Ryan Seacrest have in common?  Neither one is running for the Republican nomination for president.

While word is that many of his financial backers might jump to Romney, his endorsement of Gingrich, and his dropping out of the race might be just enough not Romney momentum to make the rest of the race interesting.

Do we need fewer GOP candidates?

We aren't getting anyone else so let's concentrate on the ones we've got now. Huntsman is out, following Bachmann and Cain. And Trump for that matter. That leaves us with Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Paul as the possibilities. Would fewer candidates allow for someone to seriously challenge Mitt Romney? There's a strong case to be made that if everyone dropped out but one not Romney candidate, the eventual nominee would be not Romney. The problem is, Perry, Gingrich and Santorum are not going to blink. They all want to be that last man standing and benefit from the convergence of the not Romney vote. But the longer they hold out the further ahead Romney will get as the not Romney vote is split.

Conundrum.

Yawner - Huntsman bows out.

Establishment conspiracy? The one not Romney candidate who could actually hurt Mitt Romney by staying in the race, Jon Huntsman has decided to drop out and endorse - Mitt Romney.  Yawn.  Now the 6 Republicans outside of New Hampshire who might have voted for him will likely vote for Romney.

Jon Huntsman will drop out of the Republican presidential race on Monday, a campaign spokesman told ABC News. A source close to the Huntsman campaign said the former ambassador to China and Utah governor was “proud of the race that he ran” but “did not want to stand in the way” of rival Mitt Romney, the current front-runner for the Republican nomination.

Huntsman plans to endorse Romney at an 11 a.m. press conference Monday in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Does that mean anything?  It strikes me that Romney must be worried about South Carolina.  He must not be on the verge of a pre-Florida sweep.  He must need that Huntsman voter in South Carolina, in light of Gingrich's resurgence there and the religious endorsements accruing to Santorum.  And I did mean voter, not voters.

No Tebow in New Hampshire

NH - not always this serene.

Mitt Romney will win New Hampshire tomorrow, and he'll win it big.  There will be no miracle Tim Tebow story from the other candidates.  The outcome has already been discounted in the overall picture.  Everyone knows Romney will win.  But that doesn't mean all of the questions have been answered yet.

Will Romney win by 20 points?  Anything less might look like a loss of momentum since he was expected to win by at least that margin.

Part 3 - GOP primaries – Beyond the Nomination

Continuing my look at the 2012 GOP nomination process, whom will be left standing to face president Obama in the general election after the nomination process is less important than what they have in their arsenal and what they will be faced with to do political battle. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s not as rosy as 2010. However, there is one secret weapon that might still help.

Part 2b - GOP primaries – The Wildcards (cont.)

NOTE: this post is a continuation of Part 2a - GOP primaries – The Wildcards.

In addition to the wild card factor posed  by Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, there is some wild card factor with two people still in the race - Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.  How will they affect the race?

It was by all accounts, a squeaker

The GOP caucuses in Iowa yesterday were unbelievably close.  Romney won with 30,015 votes (24.6%) and Rick Santorum came in second, a mere 8 vote back, with 30,007 (24.5%).  Ron Paul came in third with 26,219 (21.4%) and Newt Gingrich was fourth with 16,251 (13.3%).  Everything pretty much went according to expectations as far as who the top four were, although the exact positions and the closeness of the top two were a surprise - to me at least. I thought Santorum had enough momentum to overtake both Paul and Romney, even though he was still well behind the two in the polling averages at RCP in the last week. Boy was I close - off by 8, or rather 9, votes.  I also thought Ron Paul would drop off further than he did and would place fourth behind Gingrich, who I thought would perform a few percentage points better than he did (I was thinking 15% to 16%).

Part 1 - GOP primaries – after Iowa, what next?

Spoilers alert.

The Iowa primary race is a watershed moment for the GOP presidential race. Right now the possible paths, even knowing the likely outcomes of the Iowa caucuses are too numerous to contemplate. But if we winnow it down to a number of possible first stage results, some of the likely consequences and next steps can be extrapolated.

The likely outcomes of Iowa based on polling are possible to narrow down. The polling could result in a number of different Iowa winners, despite the decidedly large number of undecided Iowans. To simplify, let’s narrow the field into two buckets – Top 4 finishers, and Also-rans. Perhaps a bit harsh, but this is politics, so there’s no need to couch the wording in niceties.

RWN - John Hawkins' Case For Newt Gingrich

Right Wing News

John Hawkins makes the case for Gingrich over at Right Wing News; My Final Short & Sweet Case For Newt Gingrich. Despite Newt's obvious shortcomings, I agree with John Hawkins - Newt has a number of things in his favor and I am leaning towards Gingrich. He's a better choice than Mitt Romney and despite everything you hear, he's quite electable. As for the rest of the GOP field, there are great qualities in many of the candidates and if it were a three or four way race, I'd be less inclined towards Newt and more towards being undecided. But I don't think any other candidate has the potential sustainability plus polling to go head-to-head with Mitt for the whole of the primaries. John Hawkins makes that his very first point in his case for Newt.

I've always been a fan of Right Wing News, but I have to say, I'm very happy to be in synch with Mr. Hawkins in this case. Not to mention Thomas Sowell and Art Laffer.  I'm in quality company.

Mitt Romney convinced he'll lose, or win?

Mitt Romney has two reasons to reject a face-to-face debate with Newt Gingrich.  The question is, which one is driving his decision?

Bizarro World GOP style

I missed the debate last night, so I'm still looking to see if anything went down out of sorts. Nonetheless, this morning South Carolina Governor, Nikki Hayley herself a recipient of Tea Party support has chosen to endorse - Mitt Romney?

What...how...huh?

Romney Round-up: Don't settle too soon

There's three news items I'd like to tie together here concerning the GOP primaries and Mitt Romney.