{"id":26582,"date":"2012-03-01T14:14:47","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T20:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=26582"},"modified":"2012-03-01T14:14:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T20:14:47","slug":"fat-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=26582","title":{"rendered":"Fat Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Can you feel the Romnentum? \u00a0Me neither.<\/p>\n<p>Following his wins in Michigan, Arizona, Maine &amp; Wyoming, Mitt Romney has at least regained the aura of a front-runner and silenced the punditry&#8217;s Opium dreams of a contested convention, for now. \u00a0But with Tuesday the grandest night of the GOP presidential contest calendar (466 delegates are up for grabs; kinda&#8230;let&#8217;s not talk about unpledged caucuses for a moment), the chance for the race to be changed awaits voters in 10 states.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ohio<\/strong> (primary): \u00a0The center stage of this delegate-rich Mardi Gras night, Ohio is seen not just as the fulcrum on which the outcome of the race pivots, but also the competing narratives of the two major candidates. \u00a0The meme of Mitt Romney&#8217;s aloofness from white working class voters has been certainly been strengthened by the candidate&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freep.com\/article\/20120228\/COL05\/120227046\/Mitt-Romney-Cadillacs-NASCAR-cars-wife-Ann-drives\">repeated gaffes<\/a> on his wealth, yet Romney and Santorum <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2012\/02\/28\/exit-polls-show-romney-won-over-arizona-and-michigan-voters-on-economy\/\">tied among voters without secondary education<\/a>. \u00a0Santorum&#8217;s choosing of Michigan as his challenging ground was due entirely to the supposed demographic resemblance to the blue-collar communities that Santorum successfully rallied to win his congressional and Senate seats. \u00a0Fitting neatly into the Rust Belt, Ohio should be attractive Santorum territory. \u00a0And by RCP averages, it is as Santorum leads there by 8.3%. \u00a0But who needs Ohio more? \u00a0Karl Rove argues that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/blogs\/burns-haberman\/2012\/03\/rove-starts-counting-bodies-116048.html\">Santorum needs the state<\/a> to even survive politically while Romney can afford at least a narrow loss. \u00a0That may be true from a delegate standpoint (all of Santorum&#8217;s wins have been from unpledged delegate states), but determining who truly needs the headlines of a Ohio victory is easier to see by looking around at the rest of the March 6th primary states.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Oklahoma<\/strong> (primary): \u00a0The raging wheat must sure smell sweat to Santorum who holds a <a href=\" http:\/\/www.rasmussenreports.com\/public_content\/politics\/elections\/election_2012\/election_2012_presidential_election\/oklahoma\/2012_oklahoma_republican_primary\">43%-22% lead <\/a>over Gingrich in the state as Romney only manages 18%. \u00a0Santorum&#8217;s team has identified Oklahoma as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsmax.com\/Politics\/Santorum-strategy-super-tuesday\/2012\/02\/29\/id\/430983\">one of his &#8220;must win&#8221; states<\/a> in addition to Ohio and&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tennessee<\/strong> (primary): \u00a0Santorum is poised for a crushing victory here, holding an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/2012\/president\/tn\/tennessee_republican_presidential_primary-2043.html\">RCP average of 19.5%<\/a> over Romney. \u00a0In both cases, even if Santorum&#8217;s numbers drop, he&#8217;s still positioned to win comfortably and dent the meme that he can only win caucus states. \u00a0Does Santorum run the risk of looking too much like a regional candidate (don&#8217;t be surprised for the media to suddenly declare Oklahoma a classic &#8220;southern&#8221; state)? \u00a0Perhaps, if he can&#8217;t win another state on Super Tuesday.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Alaska, North Dakota &amp; Idaho<\/strong> (caucuses): \u00a0Well, so much for that Santorum concern. \u00a0All three are likely to fall into Santorum&#8217;s camp, despite Romney rolling out the<a href=\"http:\/\/aboutmittromney.com\/state\/north.htm\"> lion&#8217;s share of party endorsements<\/a> in North Dakota (because that worked so well in Minnesota). \u00a0There isn&#8217;t reliable polling on any of these three states, and even if there was, caucus polling is one step short of political alchemy. \u00a0The only real concern Santorum should have is whether the media will treat victories in these states as significant. \u00a0Santorum&#8217;s poised to win the most states on Super Tuesday, but not necessarily the most delegates. \u00a0Which becomes the headline Wednesday morning? \u00a0Because Romney isn&#8217;t going home empty-handed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Virginia<\/strong> (primary): \u00a0Yes, Virginia, there is a primary on Super Tuesday. \u00a0It lives in the hearts of all Republican activists, because frankly, there isn&#8217;t much of a contest. \u00a0It&#8217;s Romney versus Paul, and since Paul has about as much of a chance of winning a state as attacking Romney in a debate, Romney&#8217;s winning in a walk. \u00a0Unfortunately for Mitt, that&#8217;s exactly how the press will treat his win.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Massachusetts<\/strong> (primary): \u00a0A contest in Romney&#8217;s actual home state isn&#8217;t going to be as close as Michigan. \u00a0As of the last poll, Romney holds <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freerepublic.com\/focus\/f-bloggers\/2848608\/posts\">63% of the vote<\/a>. \u00a0If his night doesn&#8217;t go well, fully except Team Romney to crow about the margin &#8211; and that the media won&#8217;t care.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vermont<\/strong> (primary): \u00a0At last, a vote Romney is expected to win that isn&#8217;t either A) missing one or more of his opponents or B) a state that he&#8217;s declared residency in at some point. \u00a0Unfortunately, that state is Vermont and even more unfortunately, Romney only <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/2012\/president\/vt\/vermont_republican_presidential_primary-2862.html\">holds a 7% lead<\/a>. \u00a0That was at the height of Santorumania and Rick isn&#8217;t making a serious bid here, meaning Romney is likely to win by more.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Georgia<\/strong> (primary): \u00a0Somewhat oddly, the biggest delegate prize of the night (76 in all) has among the least amount of attention of the larger Super Tuesday states. \u00a0That&#8217;s of course because most pundits have assumed that Newt Gingrich will win despite his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/2012\/president\/ga\/georgia_republican_presidential_primary-1602.html\">RCP average of 9%<\/a> (created by two polls that show him with double-digit leads against two that show a neck-and-neck race). \u00a0The night could very well end with Gingrich holding the second-most pledged delegates while being discussed as an afterthought. \u00a0Gingrich has hinged his campaign on a southern strategy, despite his relative lack of southern cultural cues. \u00a0Newt won&#8217;t driven out of the race if he only wins Georgia, believing that victories in upcoming Alabama and Mississippi are not only possible, but will change the trajectory of the race. \u00a0Instead, he&#8217;ll likely cost Santorum several states he could have won post Tuesday, muddling the non-Romney waters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So who needs Ohio more? \u00a0The answer would seem to be Romney. \u00a0Losing 6 of 10 states on Super Tuesday isn&#8217;t the performance of a front-runner. \u00a0Losing 7 of 10, including a major November bellweather, isn&#8217;t even the campaign of a significant challenger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can you feel the Romnentum? \u00a0Me neither. Following his wins in Michigan, Arizona, Maine &amp; Wyoming, Mitt Romney has at least regained the aura of a front-runner and silenced the punditry&#8217;s Opium dreams of a contested convention, for now. \u00a0But with Tuesday the grandest night of the GOP presidential contest calendar (466 delegates are up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,16,105,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-conservatism","category-first-ringer","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26585,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26582\/revisions\/26585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}