Reflections about Super Tuesday
It’s funny how Romney’s victories on Super Tuesday are turned into defeats by much of the MSM.
He just squeaked by in Ohio, so he’s in trouble. Ignored is the fact that about ten days ago he was way behind in the polls. And here I thought Ohio was do or die for Santorum, not Romney.
Romney even won the Alaska caucuses, somewhat unexpectedly. But you don’t hear all that much about that.
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve never thought it was in the bag for Romney, and I still don’t. For example, if either Santorum or Gingrich were to drop out—especially Gingrich—things could go quite differently. But I don’t think Newt’s ego would allow that, and it makes very little sense for Santorum, who’s doing much better than Gingrich at this point, to be the one to exit first. So I don’t see either one withdrawing until much more time (and many more primaries) has passed.
What’s more, there’s no saying who would gain more of Gingrich’s votes, Santorum or Romney. My impression of Newt-supporters is that they like Newt’s fighting spirit, sharp tongue, quick wit, and history of leadership in the House. Neither Santorum nor Romney share those characteristics, so I make no predictions about which candidate would earn the lion’s share of Gingrich’s voters.
One thing that bugs me is this whining that Romney has so much money and that’s why he is doing well. Back in 2008 he had a lot of money, too, and the taunt then was that with all his money he couldn’t manage to buy the nomination. I guess the value of a dollar has really increased since then; it buys a lot more votes these days.
What’s more, it seems to me that the ability to raise money is an important part of politics. You may not like that fact—I certainly don’t—but it’s not something that’s about to change, and as long as that’s the way it is I’d rather have a candidate in there who’s good at it. Obama certainly is.
Romney has personal wealth, too, but so far this year he hasn’t had to dip into his own rather substantial savings. Where does he get his campaign money? Mostly from large donors, although he’s been courting the small ones, too. Is it really so surprising that business-and-finance-friendly Romney would appeal to people with money?
[NOTE: Toby Harnden has some good observations on Romney’s win/loss on Super Tuesday.]
I read somewhere recently that his father (Romney’s) got the same rap about buying the election when he was running for President. He said, “I don’t mind buying the election, but I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.” – or words to that effect. Love it.
The liberal (administration, media, blogs, – all of them) side will pull out all the stops: class war, race war, gender war. Whatever it takes. The bottom line to them is power. How to get it. How to keep it.
He was doing well til the media ate him over the “brainwashed by the generals” comment, thus paving the way for RMN. They may get a similar surprise this election.
Well, give credit to Romney for not “pandering” to the larger portion of his base. He refuses even though some pandering is surely tempting.
We don’t have a social conservative candidate (yet) who can appeal to the middle and without one, Romney is the only rational choice. His money is not buying social conservative votes but that doesn’t mean it can’t buy moderate ones. I’m hoping it can.
Romney is really doing what Obama did last election: Rely on his base while giving a super moderate message. Good, good, strategy. In fact, almost too good. He’s got a substantial portion of his base fooled. Will he, once elected, dismantle the executive state or even allow it to be dismantled?
Wouldn’t it be great if the first thing Romney did as his first executive act was to prosecute Obama and Holder.
I disagree. Unless there’s a skeleton in the closet (which would have been vetted by now) or a monumental gaff by Romney (along the lines of a marital affair) this primary was over when he won Florida.
I for one don’t mind the closer contest as it seasons him a bit for the real fight. I think the concentrated mano a mano attacks on Obama will be more effective over a few fast and furious months than dragged out over 10 of them. Gives less time to shape the battlefield messaging and for counter punching by the pliable leftist media machine.
And regardless of how like warm people right of center may be I think they will all fall in line come November. Obama is THAT bad. He will then need a sliver from the middle and he’ll have it.
2 cents..
sorry.. that’s luke warmm
As so often happens, Neo, you beat me to the punch with your comments on Romney’s outspending the other candidates. Why is this treated as a negative, for pete’s sake? Mitt outspends the other candidates because he raises more money than they do. The fact he can raise so much money is one of his strengths as a candidate. It’s an advantage, but not one the other candidates are particularly smart to point out.
Similarly, it’s an advantage for Mitt that he is competing everywhere, whereas both Santorum and Gingrich have failed to either get on the ballot or deprived themselves of full delegate slates in a couple of states.
My main gripe, however, relates to the constant moving of goalposts where Mitt is concerned. The other candidates are so “obviously” better: more conservative, more consistent, more “in touch” with average folks. Yet, despite these superior attributes, they are never expected to actually win the major contests. All they have to do is win their own home state and the occasional smaller contest (usually a caucus). Mitt, otoh, has to not only win Florida, Michigan, Ohio, etc., but do so in overwhelming fashion. Otherwise, he’s “weak” and can’t “close the deal.” Notice that the other candidates never have to “close the deal,” they just need to stay in the race another week, which then immediately puts the ball back in Mitt’s court to meet the next arbitrary challenge set for him.
Conrad: I think that Mitt’s ability to raise money is treated as a negative by the other candidates because:
(1) they are envious
(2) it’s part of their class warfare strategy. They know their only chance lies in their positioning themselves as the men of the people vs. the patrician Romney.
“Romney’s victories on Super Tuesday are turned into defeats by much of the MSM.”
They’re practicing so they can say, when he wins the presidency in the general election, he actually lost because Obama gets extra electoral votes under the newly discovered affirmative electoral right in the Constitution.
I always thought it was Joe Kennedy who made the “paying for a landslide” remark, after he bought West Virginia for JFK in the 1960 primary. I never had that much trouble with money in politics– free speech and all that. As long as we know where the money comes from and as long as people make their choices based on 30-second TV spots, I guess the current system will be around. I’ve heard that Americans spend more money on potato chips than they do on political campaigns, so maybe the amount spent is actually reasonable.
Calculate dollars spent per vote. Romney will have spent some multiple of dollars (double/triple?) the per-vote cost of the nearest competitor.
This suggests that his management brilliance is overstated. He enhances his moderate talents with blizzards of cash.
That’s an argument I am happy to make. It extends and meshes with my contention that Mitt has been a rent-seeker and rules-exploiter, something quite different from the ideal he hopes the public sees in him. To briefly restate–it has been a while: In Romney’s first term at Bain, he did not make the deals, he *sold* the deals. A regional manager for Taco Bell supervises a greater headcount.
In Rmoney’s 2nd term at Bain, he used leverage to finance deals that made Bain lots of money in the short term, but left the businesses unable to meet debt payment and unable to adapt to changing market conditions. Rmoney cashed out and let someone else eat the bankruptcy.
As manager of the Olympics, he secured record-setting levels of subsidy and the games still lost over $100M if all costs are fairly included. (He shifted security costs to other jurisdictions, whose taxpayers had to eat the debt.)
Speculation about the psychological motivations of opponents who mock his fundraising are fine (and fun). A hard analysis of his management record is a separate matter. He’s buying votes, and he’s not very efficient at it. Why do we want to hire him to oversee the Executive Branch?
Neo,
I know we’ve talked about the Newt/Romney thing at length before, and while I don’t have a ton of time to comment (busy day here at work), I did just want to stop by and say that I voted in OH yesterday. I voted for Newt (as you might expect, although it wasn’t an easy decision), but for me, as much as I don’t really like him, the decision was between Gingrich and Romney. Not Gingrich and Santorum. And your thought is precisely right. I don’t love Newt, and I don’t really trust him. What I do love about him is that when he’s good, he’s just so damn good! (Pardon my French). He won me with the debates and his ability to eviscerate the media and turn their questions back on them and making them look like fools, liars, and knaves.
I would never expect that from Santorum based on debate performances.
I don’t have time to get into my views on the fundraising, and I will also note that I do not watch TV (I streamed the debates I watched), so the negative ads I’ve heard were run heavily by Mitt against Santorum here in OH made 0 difference to me.
The bottom line is Obama would beat Gingrich or Santorum. He might beat Romney, but it’s our best chance. Newt has lots of baggage and Santorum got clobbered in his last election.
It is ironic that Romney is tagged for being a member of the fat cat crowd while BHO has raised millions upon millions from Wall Street, GE, Hollywood, etc. Romney should start reminding voters that BHO is joined at the hip to the “1%”.
I hope we get someone better than Romney at the convention.
I thought it was a GREAT Super Tuesday. Not a whole lot of excitement on the Republican side with all the candidates adding to their delagates proportionally, but some very intriguing cracks in the Democrats’ armor:
1) Dennis Kucinich (D, Neptune) defeated!
Rank and file Democrats starting to tire of the clown brigade?
2) Obama loses 12 counties in Oklahoma, giving Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry 6 delegates.
I’d love to see the analysis of how that one happened. I have a feeling that it was a combination of too many Democrats crossing over to try and sabotage the Republican primary, Democrats casting protest votes, and Republicans crossing party lines to cast protest votes against Obama’s forced Catholic abortion funding. That probably covers it. Maybe Democrats should take some advice and stick to their own primaries.
At any rate, now Terry’s delegates get to nominate Terry at the convention, and block a unanimous nomination. Do they get to make speeches for their candidate? That would be popcorn worthy.
Oh yeah, and Joe the Plumber won his primary, so I’m happy with the day.
derrick bell
jeremiah wright
james cone
these people exist
they are not crop circles
they are not bigfoot
we do not have to apologize
for wanting to know
who they are and what theys stand for
The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
The beauty, the majesty, the glory of the Scripture of King James.
It is almost capturing the timelessness of dancing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peTnXmZxuZQ&feature=related
Risking up to the challenge of our Rivals.
“I am writing this article for the same reason I wrote the book: to tell the American people, especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not emigrate willingly to Israel; that to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews; and that, to buy time to confiscate even more Arab lands, Jews on numerous occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors.…I write about what the first prime minister of Israel called ‘cruel Zionism.’…I write about it because I was part of it.”
Raiem Giraldi
Naeim Giladi, author of “Ben Gurion’s Scandals”, was a first-hand witness to the Zionist oppression of Jews in Iraq including the unwilling expatriation of Iraqi Jews from their homeland to Israel.
An investigative commission, created as a result of Giladi’s book, determined that Israeli Mordechai Ben-Porat promised financial incentives to the government of Iraq to enact a law which would lift the citizenship of Iraqi Jews.
The bill was passed by the Iraqi Parliament empowering the government to issue one-time exit visas to Jews wishing to leave the country. Following the passing of this bill the bombings in Baghdad began. Ben-Porat, accused of the bombings, denied the charges but the Iraqi Jews in Israel still call him Morad Abu al-Knabel, Mordechai of the Bombs.
What say you Neo-necon?
Run for your lives. Really. Here comes the Rothschild-Rockefeller cartel! Zionist Israel is their tool of imperial aggression against the oppressed Muslims of the world, who, incidentally, are now fighting back by killing as many non-Muslim as they can because they love peace so much and are so misunderstood. Yes, the Jews have nearly overtaken France, England, Denmark, India, Africa! They are praying in the streets, attacking all others who will not join in, and are actually extorting money while claiming they are “protecting” their victims. Their perfidy can now be openly viewed. They seek to replace their host’s culture and to require all to live by Orthodox Torah law.
Jews are evil. Kill them. Except the nice ones that know they are evil. We’ll let them live since we need someone who can make money. Hunh.
david: I say hi, anti-Zionist troll!
I say, get your own blog and stop trolling on mine, in threads that have absolutely nothing to do with your pet thesis or the topic of Jews, Iraq, or Israel.
I also say (perhaps): hi stevie, or stevie’s compatriot (those who remember troll stevie will know what I’m talking about).
To the ABO faction, if Romney doesn’t get to 1144, how does Gingrich-Santorum strike you?
I find wide agreement that Gingrich would be an awesome VP, but his ego wouldn’t stand for it. Santorum in the 2nd chair would be less of a threat to the “free contraceptives” faction, but still have a pulpit from which to preach his values. Could Santorum help Newt be Good Newt more often, enough to make the ticket satisfactory?