I remember when I thought this blog wouldn't talk about politics much. But due to overwhelming popular demand,
Yesterday, we established Romney is going to win New Hampshire in a landslide and that he actually won a state where the Republican electorate should have been relatively less favorable to him. He's got an early lead in delegate math, and he's got a superior campaign infrastructure set up that makes him better positioned than any other candidate to maximize his delegates from every possible situation.
Takao Yamada points out that more than 75 percent of the Iowa caucus goers voted for someone else. I tend to be highly skeptical of the idea that the "anyone but Romney" vote means anything. Ultimately, one real candidate would have to gather all the disparate voices that make up the more conservative side of the party and overcome the financial and institutional advantages Romney possesses.
As we've seen time and again with Newt Gingrich, once people actually get a look at a real, live person and consider them, and not some "anyone but Romney" abstract ideal, as the opponent, they start to think Romney might not be so bad. I called the Crazy Guys crazy yesterday not because I think they're crazy but because as the electorate learns about them, the electorate looks at them as too kooky to do the job. Santorum is about to go through the media treatment for the first time, and people won't like what they see. Paul is too unconventional. Perry couldn't win a student council election outside of Texas.
The only candidate with any kind of leaderly gravitas left is, somehow, Gingrich. Don't ask me why or how, but he's the only other guy in the race that I think most Republicans can imagine as President. People are comfortable with the idea of Gingrich as a leader. No one expects him to do well in NH, and if he gets a win in South Carolina he can claim momentum. If Romney really isn't going to get the nomination, I still think Gingrich is the only real threat to take it from him.
But let's be real. Newt Gingrich is not beating Mitt Romney. Romney is going to win convincingly in the Northeast, the Pacific coast, and the Upper Midwest, where the social conservative crowd is relatively less important. And even in the South and other socially conservative, do we really expect that social conservatives are going to rally behind Mr. Lova Lova? Do we really think Gingrich can go a week, let alone four months, without saying something abysmally stupid?
Things can still happen in the primary season that can affect the general election, I guess. But all the drama of who will be the Republican nominee is over.
Name Checked!
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's Santorum. Let me get that out of the way first. That guy is basically a fascist. He is not going to do well going forward.
And I'm not saying that Romney isn't going to win. I think he probably will and I think that would probably have severe consequences for the GOP's ability to unseat Obama.
What I'm saying is that the drama is very far from being over. A world where Herman Cain can lead and where Rick Sanotrum can almost win Iowa is a world fluid enough to see the return of Rick Perry.
I'm just saying that Mitt Romney has been running for President for 5 years now and the entire base of his party is constantly searching for a way to reject him. Given the way the media is similarly searching for other candidates I think it's premature to call it for Romney until he swings through the south.