Posted on 03/20/2012 7:00:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A quick glance at the map might tempt you into thinking that the Republican nomination is roughly an even battle between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, with Mr. Romney tending to prevail in the Northeast and the West, and Mr. Santorum in the Midwest and the South.
Do the math, however, and you’ll find that the nomination isn’t all that close. Mr. Romney hasn’t done that well in the South — but he also hasn’t been shut out there, winning Florida and its 50 winner-take-all delegates, and Virginia, where only Ron Paul was on the ballot alongside him. The Southern states that were poorer for Mr. Romney still tended to split their delegates in a relatively proportional way, and some of the anti-Romney vote there has gone to Newt Gingrich rather than Mr. Santorum.
In the Northeast and the West, on the other hand, Mr. Romney has often carried his states by clearer margins — like in Arizona, Washington or New Hampshire. Mr. Santorum narrowly beat Mr. Romney in Colorado, and Mr. Paul nearly did in Maine, but that has been about the extent of their incursion onto his turf.
Then, there are the delegates that few people pay attention to. From the five U.S. territories given a primary or caucus, including Puerto Rico on Sunday, Mr. Romney won 54 delegates, and Mr. Santorum won none. Mr. Romney has been endorsed by roughly 30 super delegates so far, and Mr. Santorum 2.
Mr. Santorum has been harmed by failures to qualify for the ballot or to post full-delegate slates in several states. And the Republican Party establishment, which would prefer that Mr. Romney be its nominee, has made decisions that work against Mr. Santorum in the event of delegate or vote-counting disputes.
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Fix is in.
And of course, Santorum tends to make statements that people will MISUNDERSTAND and his opponents WILL EXPLOIT.
He said this (IN FULL CONTEXT ):
“We need a candidate who’s going to be a fighter for freedom. Who’s going to get up and make that the central theme in this race because it is the central theme in this race,” Santorum told a crowd of about 200 voters during a rally here on Monday. “I don’t care what the unemployment rate’s going to be. Doesn’t matter to me. My campaign doesn’t hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It’s something more foundational that’s going on.”
Of course, Mitt’s team pulls out the entire statement and only shows video clips of the sentence:
“I don’t care what the unemployment rate’s going to be. Doesn’t matter to me.”
Santorum obviously didn’t mean that he doesn’t care about the unemployment rate in the abstract. He meant that, unlike Romney, his vision for the country is bigger than whatever the most important issue at this particular moment happens to be. But Romney’s team is going to MISCHARACTERIZE HIM and exploit these unfortunate choice of words nonetheless.
"An Election Day Oddity"
"Well, sort of. Although the page is gone now, a reader in Chicago says a local network affil web site had a page up with results already on it.
Of course, if Rick Santorum gets 32% and 987,453 votes in Illinois today to Romney's 29% and 919,993, then we would expect rioting in the streets tomorrow but of course that won't happen. (gulp...)
Aw, come on...I'm sure they were just testing the page layout with dummy data...we're just sure of it....err....right? If Newt Gagrich gets 28%? 876,937? I might be out there myself... "
At any rate, no sooner will have the votes been cast in Illinois, and Senator Santorum will be off to LOUISIANA, where he will tear that RINO apart in Good People Country down there, a real conservative stronghold. It is not over, it is not a last stand for Rick. Santorum has always underperformed in the polls and then over performs in the actual vote. He is playing it the right way.
The nation is on the verge of economic collapse and Willard is still playing stupid gotcha games.
The nation is on the verge of economic collapse and Willard is still playing stupid gotcha games.
Well you make a good point about Illinois.
The same one I was making about Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado — etc. Funny, you weren’t too concerned about those “big wins” for some reason.
WRONG! Santorum does well in “OPEN” Primaries, where Obama Democrats are allowed to tamper with our primary. Only a complete moron, could not understand that this is how it was so close in Michigan, how Santo was 5 points behind Romney in the polls in Alabama and Mississippi, but wound up winning by a slim margin, etc.
The Democrats would love to have Santorum win, so Obama can make roadkill out of him.
We just voted. Rick Santorum got two votes in Illinois.
If Democrat leaning states want more voice in delegate selection, then they should adopt the Maine and Nebraska system for awarding presidential electors: two for the statewide winner, one for the winner of each congressional district.
We had such legislation introduced in Pennsylvania with solid GOP majorities in both the House and State Senate. Governor Corbett had pledged to sign it.
The only thing which stopped it was an intense lobbying effort by Rob Gleason, our Quisling GOP Chairman, who feared it would dilute his influence. There needs to be consequences for so-called GOP leadership which works for the other team. Weighing delegate counts by electoral votes actually delivered would certainly be a step in that direction. Particular if states adopt the district system and get the delegate formula adjusted based on electoral votes which would have been awarded had the system been in place.
In general, far to much of the delegate allocation is based on remote possibility of a state to award electoral votes to the GOP candidate in the fall and far too little on realistic chances and actual past performance.
This needs to be a top priority in reforming the GOP.
How do Japanese keyboards work? Are there 10,000 keys? Seriously 8-)
NYT - spinning as much as it can.
Because of the political imbecility and moral corruption of “conservatives” Romney is likely to get the nomination. Only $10 gas will get him elected.
That’s the letter-sound version of Japanese, right? Kanji (sp?)? What about the pictograph version?
No the fix is not in. Candidates running against Romney cannot stand up to the carpet bombing. He has a lot more money than Santorum or Gingrich. It works in the primary because of his money advantage, and it is the only way he can win, but it will not work in a general election against Obama who will have the upper hand on money.
Barring a total economic collapse obama will make road kill out of Romney as well.
Romney brings out about as much enthusiasm as a strangulated hernia for the conservative base.
With Romney as the nominee you will lose 5-10% of the conservative base and that will cost the GOP liberals the election.
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