At this hour, Mitt Romney is winning the Florida primary with 46 percent of the vote, with 86 percent of precincts reporting.
“Newtrick Peringrichum” may be no more, but if you genetically splice the three remaining Romney rivals into “Newtron Paulingrum,” Romney will have a tough road ahead.
I have a long wrap-up of what we learned in Florida going up tomorrow, as well as a shorter item questioning whether Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are turning into the preseason football of presidential politics: too unreflective of the contests to come to assess a competitor’s particular skill and tenacity.
One other observation for the evening: Among Florida Republican primary voters who describe themselves as “somewhat conservative,” Romney won, 52 percent to 32 percent.
i wonder how Mitt did discounting all the early voting?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe early states are prelims that decide which candidate or two survives to take a shot at the front-runner that the establishment money anoints early on. Unfortunately, they usually knock out the candidate who can best match the front-runner's resources in a national campaign - Perry this time, Thompson, Gramm & Kemp in prior years - Dems do the same thing by dumping guys like Gephardt (2004), Kerrey (1992) or Glenn (1984)). The exception to that was Barack Obama, who actually won Iowa with the 2nd biggest campaign.
Perhaps this time will be different as both Gingrich and Santorum have been national leaders, and Mitt Romney is several classes below most frontrunners.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think you're grasping at straws.
Paul's voters will not go to either Santorum or Gingrich. Most of them will just go home. Likewise, a fair number of either Santorum or Gingrich voters would go to Romney.
Granted Florida is just one state--but apparently Romney very nearly tied Gingrich with evangelicals. If so, then the writing is on the wall. Gingrich seems to be permanently damaged goods now, and he won't get out until there's a clearly better opportunity somewhere else. So Romney will continue to hover in the forties (remember when he was Mr. 25%?) and clinch the nomination, after too much blood spilled, in May or June.
Santorum, from here on out, is the stronger candidate in a one-on-one-with-a-Ron-on-the-side fight with Romney. But he is a far better Republican than Gingrich, and will drop out rather than continue the pointless blood-letting. And Romney will thump Gingrich, again and again.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGingrich is going to have a serious money problem, unless he can find another sugar daddy donor like the guy who gave his campaign $5 million. Nevertheless, I would like him to stay in the race, because he has to keep Romney honest and remind people that they need to MAKE Romney sound a conservative line. Right now, Romney is starting to look like McCain. If Romney is the nominee, he'd better be on the attack mode from the start against Barack the Usurper (Romney could start by adopting my pet nickname for Barry; it would show Mitt has a sense of humor). Otherwise, he will not only look like McCain; he will lose like McCain.
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