Santorum Sweep!
Politico, I will not underestimate you… twice.
Just in case the 2012 Republican primary race hasn’t already had enough twists and turns – welcome back, Rick Santorum.
After winning Tuesday’s non-binding contests in Missouri and Minnesota by thumping margins, bruising Mitt Romney and proving again that the GOP base isn’t ready to embrace their national front-runner, the former Pennsylvania senator has dramatically resuscitated a campaign that was bordering on irrelevant. Santorum was in a virtual dead heat with Romney in the Colorado caucus results as of early Wednesday morning [apparently Politico doesn't stay up very late- ed] .
Santorum, who faded quickly after his narrow win in Iowa last month, now has his best and almost certainly last chance to show that he can compete at the same level as Romney and Newt Gingrich. In a month his campaign hoped to use as an opportunity to outflank Gingrich on the right and establish himself as the primary alternative to Romney, Santorum is on his way to accomplishing both goals.
Also, kudos for finding a sentence construction (“Santorum Roars Back”) that defies easy joke-making. There is only one thing that I have asked of the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination contest, and that’s entertainment. The Santorum Sweep suggests that even if Romney remains inevitable, there may yet be additional chuckles.
Is it fair to ask after this, whether Santorum, suddenly and forcefully surging from behind, has left the Republican Presidential field a mess?
Oh, goody!
This means more TV debates!
And Americans can watch them debate one another on whose economic policies which will further sink the economy and drastically increase unemployment
Hmmm…
We should come up with a catchy name for these upcoming TV shows:
How about “America’s Idle”?
After the Santorum surge Romney will clean up.
Is there some reason the Republicans have so many meaningless votes? I haven’t been keeping close track, but between nonbinding caucuses and penalties, I estimate the Republicans have selected approximately three delegates so far.
Short answer: the RNC isn’t any better at controlling its membership than Boehner is at controlling his.
Missouri scheduled its primary early, then couldn’t back it off to avoid a delegate penalty because of an intra-Missouri pissing contest in the legislature. State and county level GOP organizations are just as crazed as the party as a whole, but since they’re smaller it takes fewer inmates to run each asylum.
Colorado wasn’t meaningless, and Santorum doubled his delegate total by his performance there.
It’ll be fun to see how the deep pocketed Romney backers go after Little Rickey. They aren’t going to take any chances with Arizona (so close to Utah!) and Michigan (the last place the name “Romney” isn’t a joke), so it should get appropriately brutal and wild eyed.
[...] had forgotten). Related: Appropriately pithy summation of what Santorum’s sweep means from Rob Farley: There is only one thing that I have asked of the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination contest, and [...]
Well, the cream does rise to the top.
“Frothy Comes From Behind”, “New Come Back Kid”,”Frothy Back Again”,”Frothy Over Comes Caucus”
Perhaps I am being to anal retentive about this.
This is going to be entertaining. I love that the whackaloon right is absolutely opposed to the only GOP candidate with a (slim) chance of winning the general election. Ideological purity is victory!
Predictions are hard, especially about the future. – Yogi Berra.
Anyone who confidently holds forth on what Republicans are going to do in the primary contest is blowing smoke. Who the hell knows how these people think?
Oh, there’s a cognitive process involved? Who’d have guessed? I thought it was all lizard brain.
Wait – there’s any type of brain involved in the process?
If there was a rough parity of resources, I agree that the race would be essentially impossible to predict. But that’s not the actually existing race.
Shouldn’t Mitt Romney’s superiority in resources actually start, you know, influencing the outcomes of contests at some point?
Not only did he just lose one of those multi-contest primary days, which was supposed to be impossible because everyone else could only do retail politics, but he got his ass kicked. He lost every single county in Missouri. He lost every single county in Minnesota. He got swept in every one of the three contests.
The precise reason you gave last time for why Romney’s early losses don’t make him less inevitable – the ability of his superior money and organization to deliver multi-state contests, the inability of his opponents to run simultaneously in several states – has just been disproved.
We shall see once we get to primaries/caucuses that aren’t beauty contests, but I remain confident that Romney wins big on Super Tuesday. Do you still think Newt gas a better than even chance of winning like you did two weeks ago?
We shouldn’t have to wait until Super Tuesday, if your description was correct. If Romney’s superior money and organization gave him such a massive leg up in the way you’re describing, we would have seen, well, something other than an embarrassing wipeout last night.
If you can’t win a single county in two whole states, your organization ain’t all that.
I don’t recall ever saying Newt has a better than even chance of winning. My prediction remains what it has always been: I’m not making one. Who the hell knows how these people think? I’d still give Romney the best odds, but not with any confidence.
Well, you said Newt was the frontrunner; I guess that might not be a better than even chance if you think Santroum has a real chance. On the larger point, yesterday’s outcomes don’t mean anything because Romney didn’t attempt to use his advantage in resources to bury Santorum. When the primaries start counting this will not remain true.
Sort of like when you said Perry was the frontrunner. At the time you said that, Perry was indeed running in front. At the time I wrote that, Gingrich was indeed running in front.
Not a prediction, a description. At the time I wrote that, Gingrich was leading in the national polls, just like Perry was when he was the frontrunner, and Cain, and Trump, and Bachmann and Palin in their turns.
Since then, Gingrich has taken a beating, and he’s dropped back in the polls.
Oh, and Romney tried to use his resources to bury Santorum in Colorado. was hugely favored in Colorado in the days leading up to the Tuesday caucus. Two of his top aides have deep experience in the state, and his campaign has been busy organizing there for months.
Oh, yeah, that’s right, baby. I’m teh HTML gawd.
Ahem:
The bolded part is exactly what the phrase “superior campaign organization” refers to. Colorado was supposed to be Romney’s firewall state last night.
Just curious – has anyone but me bet money? Because at this point, while not yet willing to concede, I admit I am very glad you picked a charity I like anyway…
By doing everything he could, including skipping Florida, Santorum defeated Romney’s shadow in races that don’t matter. That will keep Santorum’s name in the news, but it is not a possible path to victory.
It doesn’t matter if the races don’t select delegates, for our purposes. What matters is that the candidates act like they matter.
And Mitt Romney behaved as if last night’s races mattered. He tried very hard to win Colorado, and he couldn’t.
As for a path to victory: the country splits regionally, with Romney winning the northeast (including its outpost in Florida), Gingrich wins the south (including its outpost in Oklahoma), Santorum wins the midwest, and the west decides the outcome. So far, Santorum is dominating in the west.*
*Admittedly, the sample size is smaller than I’d really like. A bit.
Agree on the regional split. Mostly because a brokered convention would be awesome.
Too bad none of this matters, since (a) Romney’s going to be the nominee anyway, and (b) none of this effects his chance of being President. If you like watching rich wingnuts set their money on fire it could be fun, I guess.
The more times Romney gets caught on video being crazier than a meth addled wingnut speaking in tongues, the worse his general election chances, and the longer the primary season goes the more that crazy Romney will be caught on tape.
Between the internet and the zillion cable channels out there, being a flip flopper without any principles isn’t as effective an election strategy as it used to be.
Brokered convention, with Palin as the dark horse nominee. It looks like a near-certainty now.
Or maybe Cain gets back in. He’s looking better and better these days — much more statesmanlike.
Don’t feed the troll, people.
Don’t you have papers to grade, Mr. Bérubé-troll?
Palin/Handel 2012!
Palin/Berube ’12 :)
Bérubé/Palin, you mean.
Everything depends on whether I finish grading my papers by the time the brokered convention starts.
Also, I have a new book I would like the American people to buy. It’s called “To Serve America.”*
________
* And yes, I totally stole this Twilight Zone chestnut from Rumproast. So sue me under SOPA.
People will be flocking to Ron Paul any minute now, just as soon as his powerful message reaches them. Just listen to Dr. Paul, people. Come on, damnit, listen to him!
Needs more blimp.
Thank you, JfL, I should have asked people to just google him and linked to that blimp. After all, if they just pay attention…
Wake up, sheeple!
Stassen-mentum!!!!!
I don’t understand the “if” or the “could” in that last sentence.
I still say that for the best chuckles we need Ron Paul to flip-flop and come out in eager support of blowing up muslims for shits and giggles. That would have the potential to really play havoc with the Republican presidential nominating process. But if that’s not going to happen then some surging santorum is a good second best.
Speaking of Santorum, has anybody else noticed the promulgation of a new meme among Republicans that Santorum is a ‘nice guy’ or a ‘likeable guy’? The construction is usually something like ‘Well, Rick is a nice guy, but…” or “Senator Santorum is clearly a likeable guy, but…”.
‘LIKEABLE’?! Say what you will about him – rigid, serious, sincere, ideologically (mostly) pure, super Catholic – but one thing he most certainly is *not* is ‘likeable’. Little pricks like him are the opposite of likeable.
Calling anyone who made his political bones as a highly corrupt frontman for Jack Abramoff “likable” is a sign of moral confusion.
His smile is somewhat more natural than Romney’s characteristic grimace or Gingrich’s “I’m Thinking about Having Sex with your Daughters” leer.
…or Grandpa Paul yelling at you.
They’re grading on a curve, on which the other points are Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney.
Santorum wins that tallest-dwarf contest easily.
Wearing a sweater vest now means you are likeable. It use to mean you were not cheating at college athletics.
I blame Fred Rogers.
Is Rick Santorum the evil Fred Rogers from the Mirror, Mirror universe? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Yes, but that means that Santorum needs a beard.
I would have gone with the headline “Santorum Tsunami” myself.
Just FYI…Oklahoma has more delegates than Massachusetts at the RNC. I guess that makes sense in that Oklahoma is one of the reddest states in the union and MA is one of the bluest, but it still surprised me when I found that out.
Here are the delegate rules… link
I thought Romney would cruise to a win because he would win the blue state primaries by big margins but it seems like the deck is stacked against him a bit more than I realized. He should still cruise to a victory but it may take a little longer than I thought.
As a native Okie, whose grown son still lives there, I can only say that magnifies the convention crazy coefficient by 12.
Bad link. Here.
I think Romney will end up with the most delegates but I think there is a decent chance now that he ends up with less than 51% and the race goes to the convention with four candidates still in the race. Romney/Gingrich? or Romney/Santorum anyone? Now is the time to invest in popcorn futures.
If that happens, I’d consider Gingrich/Santorum or Santorum/Gingrich more likely. Their supporters are likely to have more affinity towards each other, and there will be a sense that Romney is a failed candidate.
You just gave me an erection.
Oh, great. You’ll be off with a dog next, is what.
On a side note, I think Democrats should pit Jesus against Ayn Rand. I don’t know why they have not been doing this all along especially in the “bible belt”.
This is my contribution to that cause:
Whose side are you on G.O.P.
Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ?
You must choose.
IT CANNOT BE BOTH!
http://aynrandhatedjesus.blogspot.com/
But can one choose neither?
Ayn Rand hated Hippy Jesus. Republican Jesus, the guy who likes the wealthy, hates immigrants, favors an expansive use of the death penalty, and does not believe in health care fore the poor? That’s a different question. But all Republicans hate the Jesus of the Bible.
All conservatives hate the Rabbi Yeshua. It is not confined to just the Republicans. After all, the Rabbi was a revolutionary (in a purely ideological sense) communalist radical.
I did some Ayn research for the blog. She was fine with gay rights, suicide, abortion and was pro drug legalization. She was also a devout athiest who thought all religions were for fools. Suck on that Christo-Teabaggers!
So, should I expect an easy Romney win here in Massachusetts on Super Tuesday, or is it worth my while to go cross-register and vote for someone else?