{"id":26723,"date":"2012-03-06T23:56:20","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T05:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=26723"},"modified":"2012-03-07T06:27:44","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T12:27:44","slug":"draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=26723","title":{"rendered":"Draw"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/amvoice.3cdn.net\/d74c656848360fa213_evm6bntfj.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"301\" height=\"240\" \/>The GOP primary becomes a M\u00f6bius strip.<\/p>\n<p>Give conventional wisdom its due &#8211; sometimes it&#8217;s right. \u00a0The political meme entering tonight cast the GOP contest with Mitt Romney as the tenuous front-runner, Rick Santorum as the undisciplined and underfunded challenger, Newt Gingrich as the long-shot and Ron Paul as the wacky neighbor next door. \u00a010 states and 400+ delegates later?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0312\/73690.html\">It&#8217;s exactly the same<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So what can we take away as Super Tuesday becomes Groggy Wednesday Morning?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Song Remains the Same<\/strong>: \u00a0Nothing seemingly can break the GOP deadlock as Romney remains a front-runner who has to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/8301-503544_162-57391887-503544\/santorum-cries-foul-over-romneys-ohio-spending\/\">outspend his competition 6-to-1<\/a> in order to eek out a victory and loses when &#8220;only&#8221; outspending his rivals by <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.knoxnews.com\/humphrey\/2012\/02\/super-pacs-turning-to-tennesse.html\">smaller margins<\/a>. \u00a0Not that Santorum or Gingrich ought to be bragging. \u00a0The Icarus primary of the Not-Romneys has seen both candidate&#8217;s wings melt under the media spotlight and while Santorum looks to have at least 3 wins and a &#8220;draw&#8221; in his Ohio loss, he did nothing on Tuesday to claim the mantle of front-runner. \u00a0Ohio&#8217;s margin might make it harder for Romney to raise money, but his purse strings stretch far further than Santorum or Gingrich despite an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0212\/73091.html\">uptick post Feb 7th<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hare Apparent<\/strong>: \u00a0Newt Gingrich might consider himself the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0312\/73708.html\"> &#8220;tortoise&#8221; <\/a>of the primary race, but as we pass the 550 mark in delegates, all the candidates need to start running like bunnies. \u00a0Say what you will of Romney&#8217;s inability to close out the nomination, his delegate accumulation has been far more tortoise-like, making it <a href=\"http:\/\/race42012.com\/2012\/03\/06\/santorum-cannot-realistically-get-to-1144-delegates\/\">almost statistically impossible for Santorum to win enough delegates<\/a> (to say nothing of Newt). \u00a0And what exactly is going to change that?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Southbound &amp; Down<\/strong>: \u00a0The primary calender might &#8211; <em>might<\/em> &#8211; change things. \u00a0From March 10th to the 17th, the race goes into territory that should be less friendly to Romney. \u00a0Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi and Missouri all vote in that 7 day timespan and represent perhaps Rick Santorum&#8217;s last best gasp to alter the trajectory of the campaign. \u00a0The problem is that Gingrich remains in the race and is pursuing a southern strategy while Romney is carpetbombing airwaves and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/blogs\/burns-haberman\/2012\/03\/more-romney-mail-in-alabama-116397.html\">mailboxes<\/a>. \u00a0With a still-divided field, Romney doesn&#8217;t need to win most of these states. \u00a0Instead, he can focus his resources on one or two and hope that Hawaii, voting during this period as well, will keep him racking up just enough delegates and primary wins to look the part of a front-runner. \u00a0That element of the contest looks the most likely. \u00a0Why?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dear God, Let It End<\/strong>: \u00a0The media &amp; the punditry <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2012\/feb\/23\/inside-the-beltway-42587399\/?page=all\">have become bored<\/a>. \u00a0And frankly, more than a few voters too. \u00a0After 20 debates (with one more, in theory, on March 19th) and countless hours of navel-gazing political spin, there simply isn&#8217;t much left to say about any of the remaining candidates. \u00a0Barring a completely undiscovered past comment or present gaffe, there isn&#8217;t anything likely to arise to change most voters impressions of the field. \u00a0And if nothing changes, Mitt Romney becomes the GOP nominee probably around April 24th as 231 delegates will be up for grabs in winner-take-all East coast states. \u00a0Not even Gingrich throwing his pledged delegates behind Santorum now necessarily stops that. \u00a0So, at least in the minds of the punditry, why wait another month-and-a-half to declare a winner?<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Animatronics Need Further Testing<\/strong>: \u00a0Romney&#8217;s robotic Boston speech tonight represented the former Governor at his awkward, halting worst. \u00a0Romney stays on message, like a T-1000 with a target in its sights, but still hasn&#8217;t had that &#8220;I now know why humans cry&#8221; moment in relating to the electorate. \u00a0Romney will never be able to fully relate to average voters, but then again his general election opponent isn&#8217;t exactly a beer and waffles man himself (despite attempts at photo ops to the contrary). \u00a0Romney can&#8217;t afford to have many more George Bush Sr. &#8220;price of milk&#8221; moments (although that moment was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/history\/american\/bushscan.asp\">strongly overhyped<\/a> as a sign that Bush was out of touch). \u00a0And if the price of a stronger nominee is several more months of media boredom &#8211; snooze away.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The GOP primary becomes a M\u00f6bius strip. Give conventional wisdom its due &#8211; sometimes it&#8217;s right. \u00a0The political meme entering tonight cast the GOP contest with Mitt Romney as the tenuous front-runner, Rick Santorum as the undisciplined and underfunded challenger, Newt Gingrich as the long-shot and Ron Paul as the wacky neighbor next door. \u00a010 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26723","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=26723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26726,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26723\/revisions\/26726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}