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When Newt first began to respond to the Mitt Super-Pac negative ads, I commented that if Newt decided to become his own hatchet man that it would hurt him with the voters. Mitt’s Super-Pac might have started the negative ads in a big way, but when Newt began to retaliate personally during the debates, that hurt him.
The reality seems to be that candidates can benefit from negative campaigning if done by others or in ads, but can be hurt if done by the candidate himself.
Look for the rest of the south to go to Newt. Other than for the northen part of FL which is what is left of the American south is the only part that went to Newt.
I want to see the vote counts with the early voting subbed for EACH and also stripped out.
I just can’t imagine the Cuban conservatives going so hard for Mitt.
I don’t get it, OR what you said about it.
Newt needs a good strategy session that will narrow down the goals, and drive them home from there.
If he wants to go after Romney, there's plenty of ammo to choose from via his record as governor. Contrast it. Show how many jobs were created in the mid 90s and compare it to the job creation in Mass when Mitt was gov. But, I would hope he lays off the Bain stuff and the Kosher food robo-calls.
We took a lump or 4 last night, but due to 1/2 the delegates being stripped this was not anywhere near a mortal blow to his campaign. Florida's neighbor to the north has, what, 76 delegates?
Newt must refocus, listen to some fresh campaign ideas, and make the majority of the push about Newt and his vision to make this country better. I expect him to go after Mitt, but Newt must give America a reason to vote for him, and not just be a reason to vote against Mitt.
seven reasons??? there are over 2 million reasons, and they would be the lazy asses that did not go and vote.. period... end of discussion
Reason #8: Gender gap. Newt thought he dodged that bullet in SC for good. Guess what, he didn’t, and it will be even more of a factor in the general.
Here are the cumulative vote figures to date from an excel file I am keeping and updating after each primary/caucus:
| Romney | Gingrich | Santorum | Paul | Huntsman | Perry | Bachman | Totals | ||||||||||||||||
| Votes | % | Delegts | Votes | % | Delegts | Votes | % | Delegts | Votes | % | Delegts | Votes | % | Delegts | Votes | % | Delegts | Votes | % | Delegts | Votes | Delegts | |
| Iowa | 39,805 | 30.46% | 7 | 16,163 | 12.37% | 2 | 29,839 | 22.83% | 7 | 26,036 | 19.92% | 7 | 245 | 0.19% | 0 | 12,557 | 9.61% | 0 | 6,046 | 4.63% | 0 | 130,691 | 23 |
| New Hampshire | 97,532 | 39.77% | 7 | 23,411 | 9.55% | 0 | 23,362 | 9.53% | 0 | 56,848 | 23.18% | 3 | 41,945 | 17.11% | 0 | 1,766 | 0.72% | 0 | 349 | 0.14% | 0 | 245,213 | 10 |
| South Carolina | 167,279 | 27.75% | 2 | 243,153 | 40.34% | 23 | 102,055 | 16.93% | 0 | 77,993 | 12.94% | 0 | 1,161 | 0.19% | 0 | 2,494 | 0.41% | 0 | 494 | 0.08% | 0 | 602,821 | 25 |
| Florida | 771,842 | 46.30% | 50 | 531,294 | 31.87% | 0 | 222,248 | 13.33% | 0 | 116,776 | 7.00% | 0 | 6,182 | 0.37% | 0 | 6,742 | 0.40% | 0 | 3,947 | 0.24% | 1,667,223 | 50 | |
| At large Dels | 18 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | |||||||||||||||
| TOTALS | 1,076,458 | 40.81% | 84 | 814,021 | 30.86% | 27 | 377,504 | 14.31% | 8 | 277,653 | 10.53% | 10 | 49,533 | 1.88% | 0 | 23,559 | 0.89% | 0 | 10,836 | 0.41% | 0 | 2,637,756 | 129 |
Downthread, Will88 commented that Newt acting as his own hatchetman was not an effective strategy, or perhaps not an ideal strategy. I agree, but a little more pointedly;
Frankly, I don’t think Newt made nor makes effective arguments FOR himself. And he does not make effective arguments AGAINST Mitt. There was and is a fundamental omission in his “connection” strategy. He can rail about “conservative principles” all he wants but relative to Romney that is a losing tack with his divorces, the Nancy couch, Freddie Mac, and his former advocacy of univ health care. I think he needs to connect at a more visceral level. People cannot buy food nor pay their rent with principles. And while I am obviously not advocating abandoning principles, going straight for principles skips over the stomach-shelter connection, fatally, in this case.
For example, there is this idea that Mitt, with his business experience, is the one who will bring back jobs. Mitt has successfully welded together the concept of Mitt = business = jobs. I believe the case could have been made that Mitt’s business experience which was and is nothing to sneer at, but to *accurately* and in *I can reveal truth to you* mode portray as one of wringing out inefficiencies in EXISTING businesses...not STARTING new businesses. Huge difference. Sucking the fat out of an existing business (and I am not being insulting, I am just trying to encapsulate, if overbriefly) more typically results in the offshoring of jobs. It’s definitely not the same thing as starting a business from scratch. In Mitt Romney’s world, Mitt being a successful business is far, far more likely to COST you your job than CREATE your next job. This thought connection was never made effectively. It was made CLUMSILY, and turned into an attack on capitalism. The point MIGHT have been made that the offshoring tycoon wants to fool you into thinking that he is the originator of businesses that might furnish you with your next job, but that is demonstratably not so. That illusion might well have been deflated WITHOUT having the effort turn into a clumsy attack on capitalsim, which is exactly what Newt did. See, some things he says concisely, some he says klutzily. This clumsiness turned off some numbers of GOP voters, there can be no doubt. Newt should have CONGRATULATED Mitt on his business success, but he NEVER MADE the connection that Mitt’s success is your unemployment.
Another example: Newt’s marital goofballism is out there, there’s nothing to reveal in terms of landmines. Newt never made the case that the number of divorces and/or affairs he has had will not affect you and your job prospects one iota.
He should have joked that his affairs put plenty of money into the economy in terms of the lawyers he had to hire.
At the same time, Newt’s track record of reduced deficits IS something that can be positively linked to legislative leadership and a positive-going economy. Newt says Mitt will “manage the decline”. Yeah, OK, huh? Newt is being too cerebral for his audience, who can appreciate him for cerebralism BUT NOT UNTIL he connects it with their guts.
Newt is IMO making the most fundamental error in modern selling, which is to obscure or ignore the notion that people never, ever walk out of the store with the thing they think they are buying. The corny old example is the best one: People do not buy electric drills. They buy holes. When a man walks into a hardware store and buys an electric drill he is not buying the drill...he is buying THE HOLES he believes the drill will produce for him, and the freedom to place those holes, of different sizes, where he wants them, in various materials. So if you are trying to sell a man a drill, talking about the esthetic features goes nowhere, most of the time. You sell drills by paving over and smoothing, in the buyer’s mind, the gaps between his freedom to place holes and the instrument of his enhanced ability to do so. The buyer WANTS those gaps filled. If you, as seller, fail to do so, there’s nobody to blame but yourself.
How do you figure? The numbers I've seen show the total Republican primary vote was about 1.67 million. In 2008 it was 1.94 million.
Newt was way off his game in Florida, but I think you have missed the main reason for it. I believe he went to Florida completely unaware of, and therefore completely unprepared for, exactly how deep the establishment GOP was willing to wallow in the mud to detroy him PERSONALLY.
They went far beyond endorsing romney, the candidate, and all the way into trying to mortally wound Gingrich, the MAN, in such a massively dishonest and perverse onslaught that it shocked even him.
It was like watching the fourteenth round of Mancini vs Kim except Newt’s coma didn’t kill him...and G-d willing, he now knows what he is actually fighting.
Here’s another reason why Newt lost. Newt has a lot of supporters and fans but he doesn’t have that many friends. He has great ideas but when attacks focused on his character, he had few friends to vouch for him.
Yeah, your prediction was spectacularly wrong. Not even in the ballpark. Virtually every poll showed Mitt winning by a large margin. No matter how politically savvy you may be, ignoring overwhelming polling evidence like that is a true rookie mistake. You basically missed by 17 points (you predicted Newt up by 3 and instead the chameleon won by 14) which is sorta of like analyzing a race and missing a coming landslide. Still, your analysis is interesting and it seems like you had a good handle on SC.
What's with the 7 reasons thing. You listed 7 reasons Newt would win, 7 for why he wouldn't. Do your predictions usually have 7 bullet points?
Theres only one reason... Most Republican women vote for Romney because of the Newt wife thing.. The men voted for Newt or Rick... or even Ron..
Its that simple.. everyone knows Willard is Eddie Haskell(Beavers friend)..
I think it’s really very simple.
The premise of the loose coalition called the “tea party” is that the status quo cannot continue, that bankruptcy or hyperinflation (or both) loom, and that cutting spending is necessary for our national survival. Which is all true.
The problem is that there is a majority of voters, split up among Democrats and GOP-e, who either don’t believe it, or don’t want to.
2/3 of the Florida economy is spending by greedy geezers stealing from young families. Romney is selling the fantasy that the issues are not structural but rather caused by Obama’s incompetence.
The People are not ready for cutting. Oh, yes, they are OK with cutting “fraud”, and “waste” , and some want the immigration laws enforced, with resultant cuts in spending on Mexicans.
But fixing our problems will involve much, much more than that. Palin knows. Gingrich knows. Ron Paul, in his squirrelly way, knows too.
What Florida reveals is that no one who understands is electable. Not until things are much worse.
And this insures the one worst possible outcome, the reelection of Obama, who after all is very, very competent for his purpose, which is our destruction.
ping
The turnout was 1.6 million but turnout in 2008 was 1.9 million. Source.
I saw the attack ads on Tampa TV; they were vicious and frequent. Newt DOES lack money. He and the Super PAC supporting him were outspent 4 or 5 to 1.
You don't consider whether "sexual harasser" Cain's "endorsement" had a Judas Kiss effect on Newt among women. Is there polling on his to show a shift there among women in FL before vs. actual vote?
I guess Romney's name checking a laundry list of Republican Latinos during the last debate had the effect I thought it might.
It'll be interesting to see if you can figure out how Romney beat Newt + Santorum combined and for the first time did not underperform in his polling.
Why did Newt lose? He screwed up in the debate.
Santorum and Newt are splitting the conservative vote. This is how we got McCain last time