The 2012 Republican Primary thread, early edition

[DU Ute]

CNN made that pretty clear last night.

Like you can trust CNN! What does Sarah Palin think?

[Omaha 680]

Math is not Santorum's Friend

Over and over again you hear pundits say things like, “Well if you look at the math. . . ” and “Romney wants to focus on just the math.” There should be a gong at the ready when talking heads and pundits go into that mode. The nominating process is about the delegates. Math, like gravity, can’t be ignored.

To be clear, Santorum cannot win the nomination by closely splitting proportional states and losing winner-take-all states. That is a formula for falling further and further behind. And that is what is happening.

There are 1,358 delegates yet to be awarded. Romney has 495. He needs 694 delegates, less than 48 percent of the remaining delegates, to wrap it up.

That’s not “just” math; that’s the reality of the nominating process. Santorum, it is not surprising, is going to do better in the most conservative states and regions, but that’s not enough. He hasn’t had the reach to win in Ohio, Michigan, Florida and elsewhere, or even to win in urban and upscale suburban locales in conservative states. (For example, he lost Montgomery County in Alabama by 10 points to Romney. He lost Hamilton County by five points.) Being the most conservative candidate who can win among the most conservative voters in the most conservative states does not get you the nomination.

The trajectory of the race can change only if Santorum improbably can take winner take-all states such as New Jersey and Wisconsin and start winning the lion’s share of the votes in states where he is badly trailing (e.g. New York).

Many talking heads don’t much care for math. It takes the allure out of what they do. Their analysis about “momentum” and such gets subsumed. So like the drunk looking under the lamp post for his keys (because that is where the light is), they shrug off delegate counts and math. But that doesn’t mean the math isn’t important. In fact, it is the only thing that matters. After all, it’s a race to 1,144 delegates not to “most conservative” or “most delegates for a campaign with rotten organization.”

[Pheidippides]

I'm convinced that Romney's strategy team is really, really smart and have a good plan. They have gotten what then can from the tough states but have cleaned up in places like Samoa and Guam - places with no electoral votes but a chunk of delegates - by sending Romney Spawn. Sure, they've had misses and close wins, but it's clear that somebody somewhere sat down and did the math.

I don't see this with either Santorum or Gingrich. It's like they just jump from state to state going scorched earth on their own future.

Romney keeps building a lead on nights on which he is ostensibly losing. Last night just convinced me that he'll have no issue beating Obama in the south, and that's all that matters in a general election.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

CNN had one of the better interactive maps I've seen last night. They went through all the scenarios including what would happen if Gingrich got out of the race. The best case for Santorum included giving him Cali, Illinois, and Jew Jersey, left Romney a few votes shy of the outright nomination and Rick a few hundred votes behind. There's no way Santorum is going to take all three of those states. Rick has to pray for a brokered convention and for Newt to drop out.

Romney would have won more delegates last night with Gingrich out and Romney doesn't have anything to worry about out West and in the Northeast in a one on one matchup with Santorum. Right now, Romney shouldn't care so much about winning some of these Southern hillbilly states, he just needs more delegates. 40-45% of delegates is better than 30%. There's simply no way that Santorum can best Romney in delegate count, so even if Santorum is landing 50-55% of the remaining delegates in these mouth-breather states it really doesn't matter so long as Romney is clearing north of 40%. Romney more than makes up the difference in the more populated states and in the winner take all contests.

Gingrich has no rationale for continuing to stay in this race. That will become increasingly apparent to the idiots that are voting for him and they'll defect even as he wants to continue on.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Delegate count since last Saturday's Kansas Caucus:

Romney 73

Santorum 70

So, even with the three largest states in that period being in Santorum's ideological wheelhouse, he still can't get more delegates than Romney.

This weekend we have Missouri and Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is winner take all. It would be hilarious to see some kind of similar split in Missouri that we saw in Alabama and Mississippi, Romney comes in a close third there and then wins Puerto Rico -- and the pattern thus repeats itself again with Romney getting the most delegates on the weekend (plurality at least).

I imagine that Romney will win Illinois. Louisiana will play out like the other Southern states. Then April 3 becomes a potential knock out blow against Santorum with three winner take all contests in Wisconsin, Maryland and DC -- and 98 winner take all delegates at stake. If Romney wins those three contests, I would imagine that even Santorum would see the writing on the wall. I think Romney should win Maryland because an overwhelming portion of the population is either located in and around Baltimore or live in a suburb of DC. DC itself won't be an issue for Romney. The key then becomes Wisconsin. Romney fared poorly in Minnesota, so I wonder how similar Wisconsin is to Minnesota. It seems like a higher percentage lives in suburban type places than Minnesota, but I could be wrong.

[LA Ute]

One interesting aspect of all this is that Mitt will win the nomination in spite of the hard-core religious right. He will owe them nothing. If he become POTUS, they'll have marginalized themselves. Foolish.

[byu71]

One interesting aspect of all this is that Mitt will win the nomination in spite of the hard-core religious right. He will owe them nothing. If he become POTUS, they'll have marginalized themselves. Foolish.

Exactly and I think it would be a good idea for him to stop catering to them. It isn't going to do him any good.

[Pheidippides]

One interesting aspect of all this is that Mitt will win the nomination in spite of the hard-core religious right. He will owe them nothing. If he become POTUS, they'll have marginalized themselves. Foolish.

Foolish for them.
Magnificent for everybody else. A marginalized religious right (and I include Mormons in this group too, if they are nutball zealots) would make me very happy.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

So, basically any contest held before April 1 had to be proportional. Oddly enough, there have been at least a couple winner take all contests -- Arizona and Florida.

Anyway here are the winner take all contests (many of these are by congressional district):

Puerto Rico (pure winner take all) 23 Advantage Romney ?
Wisconsin (by congressional district) 42 tossup
Maryland (by congressional district) 37 Advantage Romney
DC (pure winner take all) 19 Advantage Romney
Delaware (pure winner take all) 17 Advantage Romney
California (by congressional District) 172 Advantage Romney
New Jersey (I've heard both) 50 Advantage Romney
Utah (pure winner take all) 40 Advantage Romney

There may be, say, 4-5 districts in California that go Santorum's way. That's probably being generous. But let's say Santorum gets 12 California delegates. Then let's say he captures one of Maryland's districts, so that's three more delegates. Leaving Wisconsin out of the equation (and Romney will certainly win at least half the districts in Wisconsin), Romney is going to capture 343 delegates from these contests alone.

Romney already has roughly 500 delegates. These contests alone, not including Wisconsin, puts Romney at 843. Which leaves him 301 delegates away from the nomination. But look at these states:

Illinois 69, Advantage Romney (Santorum isn't on the ballot in some districts and the state is more blue than Ohio -- I'm thinking 45 delegates)

New York 95, Advantage Romney (Romney should get about 60 out NY)

Connecticut 28, Advantage Romney (Romney should get at least 20)

Rhode Island 19, Advantage Romney (Romney should get at least 15)

Oregon 28, Advantage Romney (Romney gets 18)

Texas 155, Romney should have similar results here that he had in AL/MS -- 30

Total: 188 -- So now Romney is 113 delegates away.

The amount of delegates in the remaining states up for grabs (this includes Wisconsin) -- 537. And these include states like Montana and New Mexico(49 delegates combined) where Romney probably has an advantage anyway. Basically, Romney would have to win 20% of these remaining 537. The pundits continuing to prop up this race is ridiculous. They're enabling a candidate with no money, no organization and no appeal outside of evangelicals to continue with this race.

[LA Ute]

Exactly and I think it would be a good idea for him to stop catering to them. It isn't going to do him any good.

I think his strategy this time has been not to cater to them. (Didn't work out so well last time.) He's pretty much working around them.

[Moliere]

I think his strategy this time has been not to cater to them. (Didn't work out so well last time.) He's pretty much working around them.

It's been refreshing to see him motoring towards the nomination in spite of the correlated effort of the religious right to back Santorum. It's nice to see some breakage from the social conservative part of the GOP. I saw a poll the otehr day that showed 31% of GOPers were for gay marriage and the trend is increasing faster there than with the Democrats (not that the comparison means much since the Dems were already more for it but was an interesting point).

I'd love to see the GOP move to a social platform closer to the Dems but have them retain their fiscal conservatism platform. I might even join up if that were to happen.

[Moliere]

http://www.barackobama.com/obama-bra...ALLENGE_SIGNUP

Obama picked West Virginia over Gonzaga, Purdue over St. Mary's, Marquette over BYU #waronreligion #waronWCC

[Blueintheface]

http://www.barackobama.com/obama-bra...ALLENGE_SIGNUP

Obama picked West Virginia over Gonzaga, Purdue over St. Mary's, Marquette over BYU #waronreligion #waronWCC

[Portland Ute]

One interesting aspect of all this is that Mitt will win the nomination in spite of the hard-core religious right. He will owe them nothing. If he become POTUS, they'll have marginalized themselves. Foolish.

Wouldn't that be lovely?

I'd love a fiscal conservative that doesn't pay any particular attention to social conservativism.

Hopefully Romney wins and hopefully he is that fiscal conservative.

[Portland Ute]

The pundits continuing to prop up this race is ridiculous. They're enabling a candidate with no money, no organization and no appeal outside of evangelicals to continue with this race.

That's the lot of a republican who is a social moderate.

The lefties on MSNBC and CNN are going to prop up the strawman opponent so that it will make the moderate look bad.

The far right will decry him and will make any effort to prop up the no-go opponent because they want to push the moderate further to the right, or, best case, get the social conservative elected.

I find the tie between Gingrich and Santorum to be interesting. The two insist on claiming they control the socially conservative vote. I just don't see many similarities between Newt and Dick Santy other than they are both NonRoms. Newt is not appealing to the religious right. While he talks a good talk regarding hard core conservativism, his past betrays him. DickSanty on the other hand is appealing to the social/religious conservatives but is not really any more conservative based on his record than Newt or really even Romney.

Gingrich and DickSanty are playing word games and the people voting for them are believing it. I guess if you call yourself the conservative choice enough, people will believe it regardless of your record and character.

Romney, to his credit, hasn't tried to play the "I'm more conservative than you" game. He's content to be labelled the moderate while garnering an ever increasing number of delegates. This, should he win the nomination, will make him appealing to a much broader demographic than the polarizing DickSanty and Gingrich.