As of today, Rick Santorum officially has no more delegates than he had yesterday. That said, as CNN is just now this moment calling Colorado for Santorum in a stunning upset, his clean sweep of the states who voted/caucused today is a stunning rebuke to both Romney’s purported march through February and Newt Gingrich’s position as the favored not-Romney candidate.
Santorum’s performance was impressive in each state, vastly outperforming his position in the polls, which had him losing by 9 points in Colorado (he won by 5) and winning by only 9 in Minnesota (he won by 18). It is hard to tell who got clobbered worse – Romney, who fell all the way to third in Minnesota, or Gingrich, who finished well behind the flailing Romney in every state. Newt Gingrich didn’t even bother to give a speech tonight, which was probably a good idea if Romney’s shell-shocked and confused concession was any indication of what we could have expected. Although Santorum didn’t get any official delegates tonight, he certainly has bought himself one heck of a news cycle, and has in one day sucked the oxygen out of virtually every other campaign with the stunning results tonight.
For about the 9th or 10th time during this news cycle, the race has fundamentally changed its structure.
It’s a very impressive showing. I’m curious whether he’s actually built himself a powerful get-out-the-vote operation, or is relying on solid grassroots (evangelicals, churches) to do the work in each state. If it’s the former, he has a shot at the nomination… if it’s the latter I still don’t see him winning enough states to make it.
Anyway, a brokered convention is looking more likely. Romney was supposed to have this great organization, but given that he failed to get out his vote in any of NV, CO, or MN, I’m thinking that was fiction, and he was relying on shock-and-awe after his win in FL to give him some kind of unstoppable momentum. He still leads in national polling, but by such an anemic margin (he has only about 30%) that anyone with an energetic base and some organization can threaten him in the caucus states he was allegedly going to dominate.
By comparison McCain at this point in the last election cycle had jumped up to 44% or so in national polling and never went back down.
Overall though… Obama has to be smiling. Whoever wins the Republican nomination is probably going to be penniless and wounded.
Kudos to Santorum, but can you really imagine him in the general. He has no executive experience. We already have that. He has had no leadership experience. Ditto. What are his tax policies? What is his foreign policy? Will he cut or expand government? What is his plan for governance? Outlaw gay marriage? At some point, Rick has to stop telling what he has done and indicate what he plans to do.
And put another notch on the barrel for the anti-Romney voters…. yippee. Oh yes… Colorado, where Romney was so confident and took about 65% in 2008? Turnout waaaaaay down.
It’s a horse race, and Romney has been informally advised that his coronation has been postponed.
Actually, Santorum picked up 17 delegates in Colorado and 6 in Minnesota yesterday. He is two shy of the total of Gingrich delegates and this adds a new twist to the “Romney inevitable/Not-Mitt” aspect of the race. And even if one candidate sweeps all the races between now and when the votes are tallied after Super Tuesday, it is impossible for any candidate to take enough delegates, 1,144, to take the nomination by the end of Super Tuesday.
Missouri was the first Bible Belt state to hold a primary/caucus and with the absolute sweep by Santorum yesterday in Missouri (he took EVERY county), Newt’s chances of gaining traction there in 10 days at the caucus is slim to none. Grab the popcorn, this thing could go to a brokered convention.
Retiro 5 I have Santorum 4 behind Gingrich. (34 to Newt’s 38)
This is the totals I’m using:
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/primaries/scorecard/statebystate/r
Either way, the one thing all his big win states have in common is the large evangelical voter population.
One can hope there is momentum just the same.
I like SANTORUM, as a matter of fact exactly because of your doubts and questions;
IS HE UP TO IT? I say yes because he won’t be alone and will name experts heads for supplying the expertise needed, for whatever he is not sure to have the whole stories, unlike OBAMA
WHO PICK THOSE WHO GIVE HIM MONEY, AND WEAK ADVICE WHICH GOT THE DESTRUCTION
THE WORSE ONE OF THE HISTORY OF THIS AMERICA, HE GIVE MORE JOBS TO UNIONS WHO GAVE HIM MILLIONS FOR HIS CAMPAIGN, that’s where the jobs goes now,
but SANTORUM WILL WORK FOR ALL AMERICANS OF GOOD WILL, so don’t worry, if he is nominated he will be far better
than what you have there, because he has the core of AMERICA IN HIS HEART AND SOUL, AND AMERICA HAVE SEEN IT AND WHERE WAITING FOR HIM. AND THE WORLD WILL RESPECT HIM AS A REAL AMERICAN, WITH HIS STAND OF
WHAT HE BELIEVE IN, THAT IS THE CONSTITUTION
AND LAWS OF THE LAND GIVEN BY THE WISE MEN AND ENDURE FOR CENTURY
I think it’s possible the Obama administration introduced HCR (Health Care Reform), to influence the (R) nomination process. They want a long campaign which writes their negative ads for them, and that yields a damaged candidate,
HCR is the kind of thing that excites the Bag(R) base to get out and vote against (R)z inevitable choice, thus prolonging the (R) nomination process… and Santorum did out perform the polls in his victories, after all. Santorum’s victory does prolong the nomination process.
Snerd
Disappoint-Mitt …
Snerd
The real effect of Santorum winning big yesterday is the effect on Romney. I fully expect Romney to win the liberal states like CA, NY, much of the NE and NW. However, I seriously doubt that he does that well in the South.
What will Romney do now? My guess is negatives against Santorum will increase dramatically, taking away from his ability to do the same vs. Newt. I fully expect a rather equal footing, concerning delegates, come convention time. At that point, we will see if the GOP establishment believes a liberal/center Romney, or a more right leaning Newt, can best take on Obama. I have a feeling which way it will go, and I think that I probably won’t like it very much.
@retire05 (and Nan G): Technically, no one got any delegates yesterday. That happens later in both Minnesota and Colorado; delegates to local conventions were elected in MN (similar to how it works in Iowa), not sure what happens in CO but I do know that delegates were not assigned. In Missouri not even state-level delegates were selected, they have a later caucus.
As for CNN and other sites that presume to give delegate counts, almost all of them prefer to gloss over the complex multistage process that some states have and instead impute delegates proportionally. Though some states also have simple systems so that it’s reasonable to give totals for them.
Watch the Mitt smear machine go after Santorum’s wife who had a rather interesting young adult life before settling down. Mitt is totally gutless as he doesn’t even have the nerve to make the charges himself: he leaves it to his paid character assassins and then has this surprised look on his face as he says “Moi?” Mitt wants desperately to be President, but he can never tell us “why?”
So let’s look at the numbers at moment…
Romney: 115
Gingrich: 38
Santorum: 34
Paul: 20
http://edition.cnn.com/election/2012/primaries/scorecard/statebystate/r
So Santorum wins the most states and he’s still third! And Romeny is way ahead with more delegates than the rest put together. If Santorum is winning in smaller populated states and there’s a split generally between him and Gingrich over conservative votes – then this is the next best thing for Romney beyond him winning outright in those states. And how did Gingrich do in the last 4 states? 2nd, 3rd, 3rd and not even on the ballot. lol. Not very convincing. By no means a coronation for Romney but I guess hope springs eternal for some of you that somehow Gingrich or Santorum will win this.
Gaffa UK
I think that as far as ROMNEY WILL GO NOW,
SANTORUM IS IN FIRE and like the sun, he is shining,
you know why? because he make people happy in his presence,
he has a sense of humor that people need, to be lift up
for the next election
the DONALD TRUMP WAS IN THE WORSE HUMOR EVER AT GRETA, today
@retire05: Actually, he didn’t pick up any delegates in Colorado. No one did. It was a straw poll. Delegates were selected who will go to the county and state assemblies where they will vote to determine who Colorado will support with their delegates in Tampa. It is possible that by April 14th when the State Assembly is scheduled, Colorado may be behind some one else. I know this because I am a District leader as well as a Delegate to the Colorado state convention.
@GaffaUK: As I noted previously, those numbers are somewhat fudged. All other things being equal it would be *reasonable* to assume that the delegates in Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado, and Nevada would end up going roughly in proportion to the popular caucus vote in those states. But all other things aren’t equal and we won’t know until March or later what the real delegate breakdown ends up being for these states.
Randy
HI
I pick out a news that made me think of you as expertise of what you know, which might interest you, unless you read it, but is the latest complete portraits from scientists from CANADA AND COLORADO EXPERTS RESEARCHERS FINDINGS, that is from ELESEMERE ISLAND LUSH RAINFOREST LIKE-ECO -SYSTEM POPULATED by prehistoric creatures like ALLIGATORS , HIPPOS, AND FLYING LEMURS,
THAT PREVAILED 40 MILLIONS YEARS AGO in what is now CANADA NORTHEN MOST LAND MARK
IN the journal; GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA BULLETIN LATEST ONE PRINTED YOU CAN FIND MORE OF IT. of the ancient ARTIC CONTRAST WITH THE BARREN AND BONE CHILLING PLACE OF TODAY ELLESMERE ISLAND RUGGED WINDSWEPT TERRAIN NOW RULED BY MUSKOX ,
was once teeming with a diverse array of plants and animals lives, IN A LONG LOST WORLD THAT’S ONLY RECOGNIZABLE FROM EARTH’S SOUTHERN LATITUDES
THEIR SCIENTIFIC INVENTORY OF THE EOCENE ARTIC PERIOD LASTED FROM 50 TO 38 MILLIONS YEARS AGO THEY SAID was the pretty amazing place at the NORTHEN EXTREME OF THE FUTURE CANADA,
and I did shrink the news as much as I could,
I felt you would like this one on the subject of CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATES
BYE
thanks bees!