Posted on 03/11/2012 11:25:37 AM PDT by RitaOK
Now, Romney’s foes are eying a different goal — keeping the front-runner from amassing the 1,144 needed to clinch the nomination by the time the last votes are cast on June 26 in Utah, a winner-take-all state that is all-but-certain to be in Romney’s win column. It’s a play that would, they hope, set up a potential fight at the convention.
HAHA... You and I know they are called smart or their voters smart when liberals are desperate and have decided to stop thinking and give all the keys to their messiah.
Bush II did the same thing when he gave the keys to Putin and Obama, calling one “making sense”, the other “we want you successful”, after making this job offer to MExicans because we are assumed to be like him, an AMerican we will not do it.
... {Bush II is} an AMerican who will not do it {”Mexican” job}
My view is that should Romney come up a bit short on delegates when the convention rolls around I would not rule out the prospect of a Romney/Santorum ticket with Santorum bartering delegates for the VP slot.Although I support Santorum, I am a realist. Santorum is a ambitious politician first and a conservative second. Both Romney and Santorum would serve their personal interests in a marriage of convenience if Romney could not close the delegate gap elsewhere. IMHO.
He’s projected to have about 1,000 delegates by the convention. If that’s the case, it’s difficult to imagine that any back room deal would benefit somebody else but him. The unbound delegates will line up behind him. Unless either Newt or Rick withdraw, Mitt will win.
When I try to estimate how many delegates Romney will get very roughly and amateurly based on past similar states to the upcoming ones, I get over 1100 but not up to 1144. Probably close enough for the party to find a way to push him over the top. A game-change has to happen where Romney stops doing as well in any specific type of state as he had before.
Having Rick or Newt drop out might do it, by causing the remaining guy to do better in winner-take-all states.
What people may not realize is that IL, PA and WV are “direct elections” of delegates, but that results in those functioning like winner-take-all states by county, like in SC. And that’s with NO required threshold like needing 50% of the vote to become WTA. So it is possible for Romney to have a blowout win like Gingrich did in SC if Rick and Newt split the vote in those IL, PA and WV counties, say, by 7-31-31-32 with Romney being the winner. If that was the vote in every county, Romney would get 100% of the delegates. Likewise, if Newt or Rick dropped out and the vote was 33-33-34 in all counties, the guy who got 34 would win all of the delegates.
In addition, WTA primaries include Puerto Rico, Wisconsin, Maryland, D.C., Delaware, California, New Jersey, Utah. Other states seem to have partial or conditional WTA like Texas, Indiana, Connecticut, New York and Alabama (but it’s too late to pull out for that one).
So overall that’s 15 out of 26 primaries after Tuesday where the conservative could possibly benefit heavily if one of them drops out. If I redo my math based on a 3-man race, I come up with closer to 1000 for Romney, so maybe losing 100-150 delegates. That still puts him close to the top, but maybe far down enough that the others might have a shot. I could be really wrong with my estimates but I think it’s very clear that either Newt or Rick pulling out would deny Romney a number of delegates based on the WTA rules.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/republican_delegate_count.html
Funny how the article says ““Mitt Romney wins Saturday delegate count,” read a memo from his campaign on Saturday” and Drudge’s headline has been “MITT WINS THE DAY...”
More signs that Drudge is simply paraphrasing Romney press releases for his headlines.
Last night I was listenting to Hugh Hewitt (big Romney backer) on late-night taped rerun, and he was talking to some silky-voiced RiNO dripping exclusivity and Connecticut connections telling us all that, well, you know, there's no path to the nomination any longer for anyone but Romney, so all the other candidates ought to drop out, embrace defeat, recognize reality and unite to work lustily for Mittens -- after all, Obama is the only "real" opponent, and all these objections to Mittens are just so much inconsequential particularism and strategic underbrush.
Get with the program. Be assimilated; resistance is futile.
I'll let you guess my reaction to that steaming load.
According to one article I’ve read, Newt has scheduled himself for two days of campaigning in Illinois right after Alabama and Mississippi.
Newt should get all over this Santorum the “economy is better” thing.
Santo echoing the GOP-E memo against Gingrich:
“Sunday, Mar. 11, 2012
Modified Sun, Mar 11, 2012 06:46 PM
Santorum says Gingrich should step aside”
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2012/03/11/2710859/santorum-says-gingrich-should.html
Gingrich is not about to go anywhere Ricky says.
They meet up here. A possible place to hammer Ricky with it.
"Newt participates in the Alabama Republican Presidential Forum
March 12, 2012 – 5:30pm – 7:30pm CT
Alabama Theater
1817 3rd Avenue North
Birmingham, AL, 35203 "
I fail to see why Rick Santorum would sit down to make a deal with Romney.
Think about it ~ the issue is the future of America ~ not "I gotta be President.
Much more likely for Santorum and Gingrich to make a deal with Newt on first! If he does a good job Santorum would have a much better than equal chance to be the next one up.
He got 10%.
Serious analysts know what that means ~ that the broad masses of the party rank and file DO NOT SUPPORT ROMNEY, DO NOT WANT TO SUPPORT ROMNEY, and WILL NOT SUPPORT ROMNEY.
He might as well drop out now.
It's not that people are upset by Romney, or that they don't like him ~ rather, he's simply not somebody we want to have preaching at us ~ kind of like the Hildabeast ~ she was TERRIBLE.
Romney needs to take a good hard look at the Virginia primary. He didn't campaign here. That's who showed up ~ NOBODY.
Interesting thing about the IL, PA and WV primaries, you can split your vote among delegates and your presidential pick. The pick is totally non-binding, just a straw poll. So I saw one sample ballot where you could vote for 3 delegates out of 12, with 3 delegates each marked as supporting one of the candidates. You could vote for 1 delegate for each candidate if you wanted. Or you could vote for Santorum as your presidential pick, but select 3 Newt delegates. So if theoretically everyone voted Santorum as their presidential pick, but everyone voted for the 3 Newt delegates, Santorum would be declared the winner of the “straw poll” if you will, but Newt would get all the delegates.
The issue remains though that in IL, PA and WV, Romney can win all the delegates just with a plurality of the vote for his delegates. So in theory with 4 candidates in the race, Romney’s delegates could get 26% of the vote and still win each county if the other guys get 25-25-24. So it’s essentially winner-take-all by county with no percentage threshold (the same thing FL was except that was statewide, not by county).
Unfortunately, all this tells us is that Romney is a weak candidate, but not that he is going to lose the primary. For him to lose the nomination, two things have to happen...a major game-changing event or strategy in the primary AND some skillful maneuvering by the underdogs in a floor fight at the convention. No other path to defeat for Romney is plausible now.
We're not giving up. If we wanted to run a damned Democrat for President we'd gotten the real thing to do the job ~ there are certainly enough of them that we could get someone.
So why would we want to run a Republican who pretends to be a Leftwingtard.
This guy hasn't been vetted and nobody likes him enough to show up to vote for him.
He's a loser!
Santorum -
..."He took exception with the media reporting Romney as holding a wide lead in delegates won so far, saying "the news agency apportion delegates that have nothing to do with the reality of where the delegates are going to be."
... "These numbers are going to change dramatically and as you also know, a lot of these delegates are uncommitted,"
No, not at all. I just told you what needs to be done to win. Most likely either Newt or Rick needs to drop out to make it possible. The majority of delegates are within striking distance for Romney if the status quo remains as it is throughout the primary. This is based on knowing how he performs in New England, Mormon, and Southern states, etc., knowing Rick will do well in Pennsylvania, etc., and looking at which states are proportional and which are winner-take-all. If some big event shakes the primary up, he can possibly fall short by 100-200. Then it would require dealmaking at the convention that worked out against Romney, even while we know the party will be pulling every string it has to get Romney enough additional delegates to make a majority.
Unfortunately, Newt and Rick talking about trying to get uncommitted delegates underlines a sense of desperation on their part. Romney has just as much ability to go after uncommitted delegates as they do. And Ron Paul seems to be the only one with an actual ground game aimed at getting his people to become delegates whether or not he wins the state or not. It’s a different ballgame at the convention when ALL delegates become unbound if the first vote fails to produce a majority. But they seem to be talking about convincing uncommitted delegates to move to them BEFORE the first vote. If you just look at the uncommitted delegates that come from the state parties, about 117 of them, the last article I saw said about 40 were pledged to Romney and less than 10 each to Newt or Rick, with the rest undecided. Romney has the advantage in getting these party hacks to switch to him and if there’s any insurgency or secret plot for delegates to switch their allegiance, Ron Paul is the only one who seems to have been laying the groundwork to set that up.
Together they keep ALL the conservative votes out of Romney's Mitts. If one drops out Romney will get the "revenge" conservative vote ~ and there's a real risk.
It's better for Romney to drop out now with a shot later on as Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense.
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