Romney, Santorum camps at odds over delegate math (Mitt's Voodoo Math)

CNN ^ | March 7, 2012

[Cincinatus' Wife]

In a memo to reporters, Romney Political Director Rich Beeson laid out his camp's view that neither Santorum nor any of the other candidates in the race has any chance of securing enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination......

"Super Tuesday dramatically reduced the likelihood that any of Governor Romney's opponents can obtain the Republican nomination," Beeson wrote. "As Governor Romney's opponents attempt to ignore the basic principles of math, the only person's odds of winning they are increasing are President Obama's."

Beeson cited Romney's current lead in delegates and a tough upcoming primary and caucus calendar as examples of the tough road ahead for Romney's rivals. CNN currently estimates Romney to have won 404 delegates, well ahead of Santorum at 165, Newt Gingrich with 106 and Ron Paul with 66. A candidate needs 1,144 delegates to seal up the GOP nomination.

"Neither opponent succeeded in closing his delegate deficit, and the calendar ahead offers them dwindling opportunities to close the gap," Beeson wrote. "Looking at the weeks ahead, the remaining 34 contests have turned into a steep uphill climb for Governor Romney's opponents."

But, speaking to CNN, Santorum campaign adviser John Brabender brushed off the Romney campaign's analysis as "voodoo math," saying the figures were meant to dissuade voters from casting ballots for rival candidates.

"What he is saying he wants to do is disenfranchise Republican primary voters," Brabender said, pointing out that many of the delegates currently awarded to Romney in estimates were non-binding.

"What Romney is trying to do is call the game before it's even halftime because he has a lead," Brabender said.

He asserted conservatives shouldn't let a "moderate" dictate the winner of the Republican primary.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It is still a horse race and not locked up for Mitt -- and why there is this push by the MSM and the GOP-e to make Mitt inevitable (as well as Santorum's PAC riding their slip-stream barrage calling on Newt to get out).

Time to look at the numbers.

They are trying to "disenfranchise" primary voters by calling the game for Romney.

[madison10]

What sort of president would Romney make if he’s already “cheating” for votes?

[cripplecreek]

Its pretty bad when one of Mitt's own supporters (Former Mi AG, Mike Cox) Calls foul on the vote.


The Michigan Republican Party (MRP) Credentials Committee voted 4-2 last night to give Mitt Romney both of the state's at-large delegates, State Policy Committee Chair Mike Cox told MIRS today.

Cox was one of two "no" votes on the committee which met via telephone, along with attorney Eric Doster The "yes" votes included GOP National Committeeman Saul Anuzis, a Romney supporter, and MRP Chair Bobby Schostak.

That would put the delegate split at 16 for Romney and 14 for Rick Santorum, after each candidate won 14 delegates apiece in those divided by Michigan's 14 congressional districts.

As MIRS first reported on Wednesday, the MRP was delaying a final decision on the delegate split until after consulting with attorneys.

Cox said that according to the MRP rules, Santorum and Romney should each get one of Michigan's two at-large delegates based on their take of the popular vote.

"I supported Mitt, but the vote was clearly wrong," Cox said of the Credentials Committee. "It's kind of like Third World voting. We published rules and then we voted to change the rules."

Because The Narrative Cannot Survive A Rewrite

[Jeff Head]

If Rick and Newt continue to split the vote, they are opening up the only opportunity for Romney to win outright. If one or the other would whole heartidly throw in behind the other, they could almost certainly stop Romney fom reaching the magic number. Whether they could gain it themselves is more questionable...but they would surely push to a brokered convention where they could negotiatie a more conservative ticket in order to release their delegates.

Here's my analysis from my latest update to my GOP Primary Tracker Site:

---

Super Tuesday is now over. 10 States held primaries or caucuses. Mitt Romney won 6 of the 10. Rick Santorum won 3 of the 10, and Newt Gingrich one 1 of 10, his home state of Georgia.. A majority was won by a single candidate in only tree of the states. All by Mitt Romney with Mass at 72%, Idaho at 62% and Virginia at 60%. Of the total of 23 contests held to date, Romney has won an absolute majority 4 times, adding Nevada to the above at just over 50%. The only other majority win was Santorum in Missouri with 57%. To date, Romney has won 14 contests, Santorum has won 7 contests, and Newt Gingrich has won 2 contests. Ron Paul has not won any.

In the popular vote, to date Romney leads with over 3.2 million votes which is right at 40%. Santorum is second with 2 million votes or 26% , Gingrich is third with 1.8 million votes or 22% and Ron Paul is fourth with 900 thousand votes or 11%.

The effectiveness of Romney's campaign however, can be measured in his delegate count. Although he has only one 40% of the popular vote, this has translated to date into 431 delgates or 54% of the total delegates awarded to date. Santorum follows with 176 delegates or 21%, Gingrich with 126 or 15% and Paul with 79 delegates or 10%. At this rate, Romney has a good chance of winning the delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the convention, but it will go on until late in the season.

So, after Santorum's three win in February, Romney bounced back with five straight wins. On March 6th, Super Tuesday, Romney added six more wins, Santorum three more, and Gingrich one more. Romney is estatic about coming from behind and winning Ohio, though it was a near thing. Because of the closeness of the Ohio votes, and his other three wins, Santorum vows to stay in. Gingrich because of his strong win in his home state of Georgia also vows to stay in, and there was never any question, even with no wins, that Ron Paul will stay in on principle.

In my opinion, the tough primary season, despite pundents prognostications, continues to strengthen the candidates, keeping the GOP message at the top of the news cycle, and preparing the nominee to fight Obama. Any of the four would be orders of magnitude better than Barack Obama and his dismal failures. Here's the GOPTracking results now after Super Tuesday.

---

2012 GOP Presidential Primary Season Tracker (including caucuses) - LAST UPDATE: March 7, 2012

2012 GOP Primaries	Date	Mitt Romney				Newt Gingrich				Rick Santorum				Ron Paul				Ron Huntsman			Rick Perry			Michele Bachman			Herman Cain			Totals
		Votes	%	Del's	Win	Votes	%	Del's	Win	Votes	%	Del's	Win	Votes	%	Del's	Win	Votes	%	Del's	Votes	%	Del's	Votes	%	Del's	Votes	%	Del's	Votes	Del's
Iowa	1/3/2012	29,805	24.58%	7	-	16,163	13.33%	2	-	29,839	24.61%	7	1	26,036	21.47%	7	-	739	0.61%	0	12,557	10.36%	0	6,046	4.99%	0	58	0.05%	0	121,243	23
New Hamp	1/10/2012	97,601	39.81%	7	1	23,291	9.50%	0	-	23,362	9.53%	0	-	56,872	23.20%	3	-	41,783	17.04%	2	1,764	0.72%	0	350	0.14%	0	160	0.07%	0	245,183	12
South Caro	1/21/2012	168,152	27.86%	2	-	244,133	40.44%	23	1	102,492	16.98%	0	-	78,362	12.98%	0	-	1,173	0.19%	0	2,534	0.42%	0	491	0.08%	0	6,326	1.05%	0	603,663	25
Florida	1/31/2012	776,059	46.44%	50	2	534,040	31.96%	0	-	223,208	13.36%	0	-	117,410	7.03%	0	-	6,199	0.37%	0	6,773	0.41%	0	3,967	0.24%	0	3,492	0.21%	0	1,671,148	50
Nevada	2/4/2012	16,486	50.12%	14	3	6,956	21.15%	6	-	3,277	9.96%	3	-	6,175	18.77%	5	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	32,894	28
Main		2,190	39.65%	9	4	349	6.32%	0	-	989	17.90%	3	-	1,996	36.13%	7	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	5,524	19
Colorado	2/7/2012	22,875	35.00%	13	-	8,394	12.84%	1	-	26,372	40.35%	17	2	7,713	11.80%	1	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	65,354	32
Minnesota		8,096	16.97%	2	-	5,134	10.76%	1	-	21,436	44.94%	25	3	13,030	27.32%	9	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	47,696	14
Missouri		63,826	26.24%	0	-	9,859	4.05%	0	-	138,957	57.12%	0	4	30,641	12.59%	0	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	243,283	0
Arizona	2/28/2012	216,805	47.99%	29	5	74,110	16.40%	0	-	122,088	27.03%	0	-	38,753	8.58%	0	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	451,756	29
Michigan		409,899	42.34%	16	6	65,016	6.72%	0	-	377,521	38.99%	14	-	115,712	11.95%	0	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	968,148	30
Washington	3/3/2012	19,111	37.65%	30	7	5,221	10.28%	0	-	12,089	23.81%	5	-	12,594	24.81%	5	-	924	1.82%	0	437	0.86%	0	198	0.39%	0	190	0.37%	0	50,764	40
Wyoming		822	38.99%	10	8	165	7.83%	1	-	673	31.93%	9	-	439	20.83%	6	-	3	0.14%	0	2	0.09%	0	2	0.09%	0	2	0.09%	0	2,108	26
Alaska	3/6/2012	4,285	32.52%	8	9	1,856	14.09%	3	-	3,860	29.30%	7	-	3,175	24.10%	6	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	13,176	24
Georgia	S	225,926	25.18%	15	-	417,364	47.81%	47	2	172,473	19.76%	10	-	57,125	6.54%	4	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	872,888	76
Idaho	u	27,514	61.61%	32	10	940	2.11%	0	-	8,115	18.17%	0	-	8,086	18.11%	0	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	44,655	32
Massachusetts	p	260,509	73.29%	41	11	16,756	4.71%	0	-	43,6114	12.27%	0	-	34,575	9.735	0	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	355,455	41
N. Dakota	e	2,691	23.71%	7	-	961	8.48%	2	-	4,510	39.74%	11	5	3,186	28.07%	8	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	11,349	28
Ohio	r	453,927	38.93%	32	12	174,606	14.78%	10	-	441,908	37.42%	20	-	110,633	9.37%	4	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	1,181,074	66
Oklahoma		80,291	28.34%	13	-	78,686	27.77%	13	-	96,759	34.15%	14	6	27,572	9.73%	13	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	283,208	43
Tennessee	T	153,889	28.46%	18	-	132,142	24.43%	12	-	204,978	37.90%	26	7	49,782	9.21%	2	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	540,791	58
Vermont	u	22,533	41.01%	9	13	4,606	8.39%	0	-	13,401	24.39%	4	-	14,407	26.22%	4	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	54,949	17
Virginia	e	158,050	59.52%	44	14	0	0.00%	0	-	0	0.00%	0	-	107,470	40.48%	5	-	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%	0	265,520	49
Kansas	3/10/2012																														40
Guam																															9
Virgin Islands																															9
Alabama	3/13/2012																														50
Am Somoa																															9
Hawaii																															20
Mississippi																															40
Missouri	3/17/2012																														52
Puerto Rico	3/18/2024																														23
Illinois	3/20/2012																														69
Louisiana	3/24/2012																														46
DC	4/3/2012																														19
Maryland																															37
Wisconsin																															42
Texas																															155
At large Del's				23				4				1				0				0			0			0					28
TOTALS		3,221,342	39.61%	431	14	1,820,751	22.39%	124	2	2,071,921	25.48%	183	7	921,744	11.33%	78	0	50,821	1.13%	2	24,067	0.53%	0	11,054	0.25%	0	10,228	0.23%	0	8,131,928	814
To Date % of	Delegates		Romney	53%			Gingrich	15%			Santorum	21%			Paul	10%			Huntsman	<1%		Perry	0%		Bachman	0%		Cain	0%

---

In my estimation, Super Tuesday though certainly not a "knock out" by any means, represented a moderatley strong showing and victory for Romney. He took six states and the lion's share of delegates and is on a path to outright win the nomination. Santorum had a decent night, but it had to be disappointing. If he had won Ohio and his margins had been better in Okalahoma and Tennessee, he would have had an outstanding night. Newt Gingrich has to be strongly disappointed. He won his home state by 20 ponits (but to be fair, Romney won his true home state by 60 points), but then Newt finished 3rd or fourth in all other contests and had a much smaller delegate count to show for it. For Paul, it has to be a huge disappointment. Though finishing second in a couple of races, his overall delegate count, even in the caucus states was meager at best. He was hoping to win North Dakota and gain more delegates overall, but none of that happened.

Romney will most probably at this point begin to pivot and focus more and more on going head to head with Obama and concentrating on finding a VP pick that will solidify as much of the party and base as he can for the general election.

Only by uniting, can Santorum and Gingrich now prevent Romney from having a real strong chance of winning the nomination outright. At this point I think the best they can hope for is a brokered convention...otherwise, mathematically, I believe Romney will ultimately eak out a win...probably at the 50-55% range of delegates needed. It seems at this point, for whatever reason, that Gingrich and Santorum are unwilling to unite, so they will continue to split the more conservative vote and allow Romney to win more contests and win a larger proportion of delegates in so doing. In the end, I will support any of the GOP candidates, whichever wins the nomination against the abject marxist ideolog, Obama, as any one of them will be far better than Barack Obama. Four more years of his horrific leadership and fundamental change could easily put this nation in a economic, debt, foreign policy, and energy hole we will have a very difficult and very painful time of digging our way out of...and at the cost of decades of heavy burden placed on our children and grandchildren.

If you have a mind, please ping others to this GOP Primary Tracker page.

America is at the crossroads of history and we must choose aright
(http://www.jeffhead.com/crossroads.htm)

Jeff Head
March 7, 2012

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Did you look at these numbers?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Fox News quoted Larry Sabato who said the VA GOP fixed their primary to keep people off the ballot. That they favor Romney and that the powers that be in VA made it happen.

[cripplecreek]

Of course they did. Sounds like there were some late rules adjustments in Florida as well.

[Jeff Head]

Yes. Mine differ because in some of the states where they have not allocated committed delegates yet, I have projected them based on the votes in the counties and districts. As soon as those numbers firm up, I update my chart to agree.

So, my chart contains all of the hard allocated ones, plus the others I project, but that will be firmly allocated as soon as the local, state boards announce all of their numbers. When they do, I update my chart to the hard numbers.

Nice site that.

[Fred]

Newt Gingrich is ahead of Santorum on delegate count. Time for Santos to shut piehole take it like a man and compete.

http://elections.msnbc.msn.com/ns/politics/2012/all/republican/3/6#.T1fEk9XDvYB

[Irenic]

Team Santorum needs to stop calling for Gingrich to drop.

Well...unless they also want to disenfranchise Republican primary voters.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Sounds like there were some late rules adjustments in Florida as well.

Yes. Since the FL GOP moved their primary up (Jan 31?) before March 1 they should have apportioned the delegates and not given the 50 (was 99 but docket to 50 as "punishment") but they could give them all back at the Tampa convention if it suits them).

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It has tons of information. You can get lost in there.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A good one page place for info

[Tublecane]

“They are trying to ‘disenfranchise’ primary voters by calling the game for Romney”

You are a mere two quotation marks away from adopting one of the commonest and stupidest liberal tactics.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I was playing off the article’s use the expession.

And he is.

[napscoordinator]

You know what is funniest of all. Everywhere I go that shows delegate numbers are different. Every last place. So if these so called experts are getting the delegate numbers wrong, how can it possibly be a fair system or maybe that is what they want. I say give each state a delegate count and make them winner takes all and that way this crazy delegate cheating system will not be available. I still think it is dumb for a 2nd or 3rd place finisher to get delegates. Why? I mean it is like in youth sports where the loser gets a trophy too since they don't want that team to feel bad. The dumbing down of America continues even when running for President. Why not keep the electoral college and the first person to get to 270 electorates get the nomination?

[Pollster1]

I’d like to see Newt and Santorum work together to some extent: In the winner take all states, I’d like the one who is running behind in that individual state to withdraw and throw his support to the other. In the proportional states, I’d prefer that they fight it out and take as many votes and delegates from Romney as possible. I have a preference (Newt) but I could vote for either Gingrich or Santorum. I will not vote for Romney even if he is the nominee, and I want to see that RINO stopped. I don’t think America will be recognizable in four years if we have a Romney-Obama contest this year.

[evad]

"What sort of president would Romney make if he’s already “cheating” for votes?"

An excellent dimocRAT.

[Tublecane]

“I was playing off the article’s use the expession.”

I gathered from the quotes.

“And he is.”

Well, then, you weren’t “playing off” the article, you were agreeing with the article. You only alluded to the article’s use to get around making the claim yourself, as was my point. Which begs the question, now that you’ve said it outright (”and he is”), why you didn’t save me time and come out with dirty lib doublespeak from the get-go.

[muleskinner]

I agree with your post, but why are the other 17 states not on your list? Most of those are on the left and right coast and more Romney friendly, i.e. California and New York.