Archive | 2012 Republican nomination

A.  this is certainly one clear indication.

The one and only car race I ever attended, at Texas Motor Speedway, ended up being a total cluster-eff.

Apparently the race officials lost track of the number of laps run. As a result, the driver who thought he’d won drove into the winner’s circle, only to be followed by the next driver across the finish line whose crew had tabulated laps independently of race officials and thought he’d won instead, due to the fact that the first guy across the finish line had apparently been lapped hours before by the second guy. That’s when the two drivers promptly got into a fistfight, which of course to me was the most entertaining part of the race. Race officials had to consult whatever such race officials consult, then were forced to admit they’d checker flagged the wrong car, and declared a different winner.

That situation may be a close parallel to reporting the results of tonight’s Republican Presidential primary tonight, with returns coming in from Arizona and Michigan – and perhaps more importantly, how national media score the results.

In fact, despite everything you’ve heard to the contrary, Mitt Romney has probably already won the night handily, unless he confounds pollsters and fails to win in Arizona. But the Presidential campaigns are so sure that Romney has won Arizona that all those campaigns broke camp and left the state forever as soon as last week’s debate in Mesa was over.

But the fact is, if everybody’s right and Romney wins Arizona as expected, but narrowly loses Michigan which is a toss-up, Romney is still a huge winner tonight by the measure that really counts: delegates.

The possible disconnect: I wonder if it will be reported that way by national news organizations, who tend toward the more interesting, and more squishy measure: momentum.

Here’s the deal: Arizona, with 29 delegates, is a winner-take-all state. Michigan, with only one more delegate, will allocate its 30 delegates proportionally, based on the winner in each congressional district.

Here’s the math: Assume Romney carries Arizona. Over in Michigan, whether he wins or loses, in a closely-divided (by congressional district) outcome, he’ll split that state’s delegates. So even if Romney has a “bad” night and “loses” Michigan, he’ll net 40-43ish delegates to Santorum’s net 16-19ish delegates tonight, even as Santorum is claiming “victory.”

For Santorum to have a real victory, he must confound all the pollsters and beat Romney in Arizona, which would reverse the above delegate math to Santorum’s advantage. It would certainly surprise Arizona Republicans, however.

Will the national media accurately characterize the results that way – that Romney wins the night, despite a narrow loss in Michigan? Or will they ignore the delegate math, play the expectations game, and talk about “Santorum’s surprising momentum?”

The media characterization may well be more important than the actual results tonight, because tonight’s results will be the run-up to next Tuesday’s big show, in which ten states will weigh in. Those states include Gingrich’s home state of Georgia with 76 delegates, the battleground of Ohio with 66 delegates, and Tennessee and Virginia with 58 and 50 delegates, respectively.

Throat-clearing season is over, folks; the real discussion has begun. We’ll find out tonight which driver the national media steers into the winner’s circle.

While onlookers await next week’s contests in Michigan and Arizona to see who the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President will be, let’s also keep in mind the longer view beyond. When you look at the math, it looks downright depressing for Republicans.

The Republican election calendar and delegate selection rules are set up assuming that somebody will start running away with it relatively early in the process. But nobody has. Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum have all won states. All three, plus Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, have amassed delegates.

But the devil is in those delegate counts, and when you look at the election calendar, it appears that it may be a very long time until the Republicans are able to stop bickering among themselves, and instead turn their attentions to President Obama.

Here’s why:

The winning number of delegates at the Republican National Convention is 1,144. Currently, Romney has an estimated 111, Santorum 44, Gingrich 30, and Paul 15. A growing number of states’ Republican nominating process rules are not winner-take-all (although upcoming Arizona is), so as long as Romney can’t shake Santorum or Gingrich, his delegate count is unlikely to grow as fast as he would like. And if Santorum wins either Michigan or Arizona next week, then Romney is in real trouble, but then Santorum moves into the delegate math hell himself.

The key to the lack of closure in the race is as much about what isn’t happening as what is: big key states not playing ’til late.

Texas, whose primaries are now delayed until at least May 29th because of redistricting uncertainties, allocates 155 delegates. California, which allocates 172, isn’t until June. Those two states alone account for about 25 percent of the delegates needed to win the nomination.

Add to that Pennsylvania, Santorum’s home state. Their primary date was originally scheduled for April 24th, but since they’re in a similar redistricting situation to Texas at the moment, many believe their primary will be rescheduled until a later date as well. They allocate 72 delegates.

These three states alone account for 35 percent of the delegates needed to win at the Republican convention. Yikes.

It’s tempting for Republicans to dismiss the perils of a protracted primary season, since four years ago we Democrats had one ourselves, and it obviously didn’t hinder our ability to win the general election. But there is a key difference: four years ago, Democratic primary voters had trouble making up their minds between Obama and Clinton because each were candidates who Democratic primary voters widely adored, or at least respected. This time, the Republicans see each of their four remaining choices as fundamentally flawed damaged goods, and they’re struggling to decide which is the least of their evils.

The longer the Republicans take to settle on a nominee, the longer they will continue to hammer on each other, and the longer they’ll continue to debate issues considered long-settled by general election voters, but which excite the extreme wing of the Republican base. That’s what the silly birth control debate is about. It may help a candidate get the edge with primary voters, but there’s no doubt it’s hurting them in November.

Ironically, Newt Gingrich, the guy nobody’s talking about at the moment, may hold the key. Gingrich’s continued candidacy is the main reason Santorum isn’t running away with the nomination these days, since he’s helping to split the “Not Romney” vote. In that light, it wouldn’t surprise me if Romney calls Gingrich every night, promising him the VP slot if he stays in, and Santorum calls Gingrich every night, promising the same slot if he withdraws.

If there’s anything Gingrich understands, it’s how to leverage the cards he’s dealt. No matter who wins Michigan and Arizona next week – Romney or Santorum – look for all eyes in the Republican establishment to look toward Gingrich after the results come in.

And the longer the Republican primary season trudges on, the more the Republican establishment groans in despair, and the wider the smiles in the White House will become.

Interesting intramural discussion going on at the moment among Republican candidates for President. They are so locked into their primary battles that they’ve forgotten all about mainstream general election voters.

They’re fighting over birth control – as in keeping women separated from it – which is a stinker of an issue for an overwhelming majority of general election voters. They’re pretending to support the Catholic Church, which long ago lost the support of even their own members on the issue. What they’re really doing is trying desperately to find something bad to say about the President’s move to ensure that birth control is covered under health insurance policies.

What the Republicans running for President are accomplishing, however, is alienating a wide swath of voters, in the process of sucking up to the only narrow segment they’re each battling over at the moment: Republican activists. It’s one key reason why, the longer the Republican nomination is in question, the better position President Obama will be.

Scott Braddock and I discussed this on News92FM this morning. Give it a listen.

And while we’re on the subject, if you live in the Houston area and haven’t given News92 FM a try yet, you’re really missing out. Check them out. What a concept, Houston: an actual news station on Houston radio that isn’t drowned out by right-wing wacko content and nationally syndicated audio junk food.

I know this may sound a bit odd coming from a Texan, especially after the other 49 states’ impression of Texas has now been altered to mean “25 million yahoos just like Rick Perry,” but Florida is totally weird. And that’s precisely why Florida is absolutely key to the Republican nomination for President.

It’s why you see Newt Gingrich talking about building a moon base – it’s to help gain support in space-crazed Florida by pandering to voters there. If Gingrich doubles down and also promises to move to the moon base, he’ll gain even more support among Florida Republicans.

It’s why you see Romney talking about Fidel Castro croaking. Extra credit for anybody who explains in the comments section what Mormons think happens to people after they croak, because Romney is hinting that it could be bad for Fidel.

And it’s why Santorum and Paul matter not one bit.

Florida Republicans apparently love breaking rules. They moved their primary date up in the batting order, which broke one RNC rule. As a result it has cost them half their delegation to the Republican National Convention. So they will presumably get 50 delegates instead of 99 delegates.

But here’s the other rule they broke, and it’s why nobody matters except Romney and Gingrich: it’s a winner-take-all state, not proportional. Nobody gets any delegates unless they come in first. So unless somebody goes to court and wins on that point, one of the leading candidates is about to go way ahead, with more delegates than all the previous states combined.

Ron Paul’s campaign recognizes that, and it’s why he’s not even competing in Florida, instead looking ahead to Nevada, Colorado, and Minnesota. Santorum is the odd man out — too serious a candidate to ignore such a major state, and not serious enough to reap any delegate benefit from it.

Add to that the fact that Florida is a big huge expensive complicated place, with expensive media markets, and you’ll see why the stakes are so high for Gingrich and Romney – it is not without considerable investment and organization that somebody is about to go down big.

Keep and eye on the Florida primary – it’s a big deal.

Doesn’t it seem like just yesterday when there were six major Republican candidates leaving New Hampshire heading full-steam to South Carolina, despite a near-universal feeling of inevitability of a Mitt Romney nomination?

Fast forward to today, voting day in South Carolina. Suddenly there are only four candidates instead of six. By all recent measures, Romney (AKA “Cayman Islands Tax Shelter Lay’er Off’er Dude”) is collapsing, and the guy with all the momentum is Gingrich (AKA “The Vagina Whisperer”).

Don’t get me to explaining Republican primary voters in South Carolina. But if you look at the history of Republican presidential primaries in South Carolina, it is clear that the state is where Republican candidates’ hopes and dreams go to die.

It appears that revelations of Mitt Romney’s tax shelter scheme have stopped his momentum, which really doesn’t surprise me. It probably doesn’t surprise many Texans who remember the 1990 Governor’s race here, in which Republican Clayton Williams was in the lead a few days out from the election, when he suddenly admitted that he hadn’t paid any taxes recently. In a related story, odds are that unless you’re reading this in Texas, you’ve never heard of Clayton Williams, and there’s a reason for that: he lost the election. Bet you’ve heard of the woman who beat him: Ann Richards. Voters don’t like rich guys who don’t fork over their fair share.

More surprising is the likelihood that evangelical voters in South Carolina are simply shrugging off revelations that Gingrich apparently told his second ex-wife that he wanted an open marriage. This, according to his second ex-wife, who before she was his second ex-wife, was his second wife, and before that, she was his first home-wrecker. She was replaced by his second home-wrecker, who is now his third wife Callista, and who will in all likelihood someday be known as his third ex-wife, to be traded for a third home wrecker to be named later, perhaps as a first round draft pick of future Newt staffers. Take notes and keep up, this is confusing.

Explanations for conservative evangelicals not caring about this sordid soap opera? Beats me. Maybe more people than I thought have second ex-wife problems. Maybe they believe Rush Limbaugh when he says Newt is the real victim here. Maybe Mittens’ tax issue is so pervasive that voters don’t care what Newt’s ex-wife says. Maybe Republican primary voters are more worried about the Second Amendment than the Seventh Commandment.

The news could not be better for President Obama’s campaign. The longer this Republican clown car process is in question, the better off Obama’s reelection efforts look.

No matter the results tonight in South Carolina, I still think Tax Shelter Dude has the edge over The Vagina Whisperer. Up next in the batting order of primary states is Florida, which for the geopolitically impaired, is a really big expensive complicated state. Gingrich has, so far, been unencumbered with such trifles as raising money and building a campaign infrastructure, which is a lot easier to get away with in smaller states with inexpensive media markets. Mittens should arrive in Florida with an advantage, if campaign mechanics mean anything in the Republican clown car show.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul (AKA “Dr. Wackadoodle”) hasn’t really caught on in South Carolina (but might still come in ahead of “Santorum The Hapless”) and is skipping Florida and looking ahead to early February, to Nevada, Colorado, and Minnesota.

Get more popcorn. The show’s not over yet. And the longer it drags on, the better the nicknames will get.