Romney wins ugly - again
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, greets supporters at his election night party in Boston, March 6, 2012.
/ AP
This post originally appeared on Slate.
Who says Mitt Romney isn't exciting? He's making the Republican presidential campaign really exciting. Every time he seems within reach of locking down his gains and retaking his place as the inevitable nominee, his campaign hits a rocky patch.
Romney won the Ohio primary by a prosciutto-thin margin, given that he out spent his rival Rick Santorum by 4-to-1. The victory in the most coveted Super Tuesday contest was the story of disaster narrowly averted. Santorum could tell a story of defying the odds and marvel at how far he'd come. He won three of the 10 races--with victories in Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Tennessee--and nearly claimed the big prize with a campaign operation held together by bailing wire and sturdy boards found at the roadside.
The Republican presidential campaign is now a battle between a movement and mathematics. Santorum has the energy and support of the noisy part of the party--the Tea Party stalwarts and evangelicals for whom conviction and shared values are everything. Romney's ugly win in Ohio only continues to raise doubts about the soundness of his enterprise: Is he only ahead, eking out these victories, because he has an enormous advantage in money and organization, two things he won't have against Barack Obama?
Super Tuesday sets up long slog to GOP nomination
Romney takes 6 Super Tuesday states, Santorum nets 3
Complete Republican primary results
But let's not get carried away by the cinematic drama of the underdog story on the main stage. Romney won six states and a whole lot of delegates on Super Tuesday. What Romney has going for him is the math and that's what will ultimately determine the nominee. He leads in the delegates - more than twice as many as Santorum - and is likely to keep that lead even if his victory trophies require tweezers to hold them aloft.
Before the Michigan primary last week, Romney said he wasn't willing to light his hair on fire to win the election. But in looking at Tuesday's exit polls, he must at least be ready to pull his hair out. Fifty-four percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue in determining their vote, and they voted for Romney by 41 percent to Santorum's 33 percent. Forty-two percent of voters in Ohio said they wanted a candidate who could beat Barack Obama. That was the top quality they sought in a candidate. Romney won in that group 52 percent to 27 percent. Voters also said they preferred a candidate with business experience over government experience by 64 percent to 27 percent.
All of that would suggest a big Romney win, right? Nope. Voters want something else, too. In Ohio, the other half of the electorate cared about who was the true conservative, and Santorum crushed Romney 51 percent to 13 percent on that score. The 21 percent who cared about moral character likewise went for Santorum by 40 points over Romney, 60 percent to 19 percent. Ohio voters also felt like Santorum shares their concerns more than Romney, a big problem for Romney in a key bellwether state. The state has picked the president since 1964. The Republican candidate will have to beat Obama on that important economic question. That Romney can't convince members of his own party--particularly blue-collar voters he'll need in the general election--is not a good sign.
If Romney couldn't claim roaring support in Ohio, it was hard to do so in the other places where he notched sure victories. He won in Virginia, where Ron Paul was his only competition. In Idaho, Mormons put him over the top. Massachusetts is his hometown and Vermont its neighbor. Good for the math but not momentum. Perhaps that's why Romney sounded more determined than elated Tuesday night. "Tomorrow we wake up and we start again. And the next day we do the same,'' he said. "And so it will go, day by day, step by step, door to door, heart to heart. There will be good days and bad days, always long hours, and never enough time.''
The Romney campaign is now going to start talking about Mitt Romney's favorite topic: numbers. They will argue that, after tonight's contests, the governor will have a lead in delegates too big for his opponents to overcome in future contests. The experts say this too, by the way. As well as Santorum may have performed, he is even more limited than Romney in his ability to reach outside the very conservative base of his support.
Santorum will not be on the ballot in the District of Columbia and won't compete for a full slate of delegates in Illinois. In the future states that are winner-take-all, like Utah, Delaware, and New Jersey, Romney has strong organizations, and the electorates are more favorable to him. Even in states like Tennessee and Georgia where Romney lost, he was able to draw some delegates, making it harder for his opponents to overtake him.
Santorum is going to start feeling the pressure from Republicans who say he should hang it up to keep from damaging Romney too much. The math is inevitable, so all he'll do is weaken Romney in his ultimate contest against Obama. Romney is already suffering from the bruising primary battle. In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Romney's unfavorable rating has grown to 39 percent. His favorable rating is only 28 percent. The longer the battle drags on, the less time Romney will have to raise money and repair the damage done by the primaries.
The Romney campaign never wanted to be seen arguing that Romney was inevitable. Now they're doing just that. It's a version of the argument that the Obama campaign made in 2008 when it tried to get Hillary Clinton to turn around her campaign bus. The key difference is that Barack Obama was filling stadiums of rabid supporters at the time. Mitt Romney is not burdened with this problem.
"That's not a very inspiring message," said Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley of Romney's claim of mathematical certitude. Santorum's aides argued after the close call that if it were a head-to-head contest (i.e., no Newt Gingrich), Santorum would have won in Ohio and would go on to win future states. Regardless of Gingrich's decision, Santorum's aides say he will stay in the race to be a voice for conservatives who they say are still suspicious of Romney. Thirty-eight percent of voters said Romney's positions were not conservative enough, the highest of any of the candidates. (Only 17 percent said that of Santorum.) Forty-one percent of Ohio voters said they had reservations about the candidate they supported. Of that group, 42 percent felt that way about Romney. Of course, Santorum can't go too far with this. Thirty-eight percent of those voters have doubts about him, too.
Santorum tried to give new reasons to be suspicious of the front-runner on Super Tuesday. He highlighted newly discovered videos in which Romney said he supported the individual health care mandate that is the central horrid element for Republicans in Obama's health care plan. Romney has said he never advocated for an individual mandate at the national level. Not once. Not even in a joke alone before bedtime. But the videos suggest otherwise. "We need a candidate who can be honest with the American people," says Santorum. The Pennsylvania senator has long claimed that Romney's support of the individual mandate made him an imperfect messenger in a battle with Barack Obama over his health care plan. Now he's turning up the attack: He's saying Romney is dishonest.
Santorum will press this case all the way to the convention, say aides. The hope is that the senator will be able to win enough contests to deny Romney the 1,144 delegates he needs to win the nomination. If they can make it to the convention, they'll fight it out there, trying to persuade unpledged delegates. The next set of contests in Kansas, Mississippi, and Alabama have lots of socially conservative and evangelical voters who have been cool if not hostile to Romney. Romney will have to endure a stretch where movement conservatives may appear stronger than the party regulars who rally around his mathematical candidacy of inevitability.
On Super Tuesday, Romney won the second hard-fought primary in a row, a first for this Chutes and Ladders campaign where every time a candidate skips his way out of the winner circle, he falls in the next contest. But the games aren't over. And, unfortunately for Romney, neither is the excitement.
More from Slate:
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"Romney's ugly win in Ohio only continues to raise doubts about the soundness of his enterprise: Is he only ahead, eking out these victories, because he has an enormous advantage in money and organization, two things he won't have against Barack Obama?"
Oh, he has an enterprise alright, its name is Romney, Inc dba the Mormon church, a puppet for the pulpit!
Here's what I don't understand...why hasn't anyone picked up the story of just how much exactly the Mormon church is contributing. I would bet anything that Mitt hasn't used a cent of his own money unless it was passed to hands from Mormon hierarchy who are hungry to grasp the power associated with a win.
Did you know that not so long ago they bought part of the downtown area in Salt Lake City, which consequently, was approved by the Mormons on the City Council?
Did you know that as recent as yesterday stories appeared regarding the suit by the Mormons to obtain a large federal Wildlife Preserve that they had been denied?
Come on CBS, let's get digging, I was in broadcast news many years there is many legitimate stories that have be meticulously sourced and edited. And, Mitt coming to the rescue on the 2002 Olympics is a blatant lie. Everything and I mean everything, right down to the security, was in place and ready to go, all Mitt did was show up, hob nob with wealthy celebs and heads of Corporations and enjoy a front row seat to everything and anything that went on. The wealthy head of the Olympic, whom also was Mormon and a close friend of Mitt's...was indicted so he stepped down.
Erm, this confuses me. Even the governor of Idaho endorsed Romney and he's a Catholic, for crying out loud. Only 23% of Idaho's population are Mormons. Romney got over 60% of the caucus votes. Anyone with even remedial math skills should be able to extrapolate that if only Mormons voted for Romney he would have lost in Idaho. If anyone besides registered Republicans had been allowed to vote I'm thinking Ron Paul would have made a much better showing than Santorum.
The fact that he outspends his competition is not a bad thing. To fight Obama you will have to have financial support, and Romney is proving again and again that he is the only GOP Candidate that has the bucks to fight the Goliath spending of Obama. Don't be naive. We need a Romney type pocketbook to slay the behemoth. We need a Romney type background to slay the other Gorilla, the bad economy. We need Romney.
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Plus, we need a liberal in the White House. Go Mitt go!
"Mormons put him over the top"
I'm trying to figure out what the writer meant by this in context. Is he saying that Mormons don't count? Is he saying that Mormons were always going to vote for Romney anyway, just because he's one of them? I'm not sure what he means, but if this election has shown us anything it is the need to be thoughtful in our language and respectful in our thoughts of this large and often over-looked religious minority.
RON PAUL 2012 for America, freedom and peace!
They actually fear Ron Paul, because national polls show that he is the ONLY candidate who can beat Obama, not Romney.
RON PAUL 2012 for America, freedom and peace!
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Just curious, but if Romney is the guy, are you going to vote?
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Well Romney's just proving he won't do whatever it takes.......to entertain us! LOL! : )
Romney's outspending his rivals, referenced ad nauseum in the media, is a direct result of his having more money to spend because of wider support. It isn't his own wealth he's using to "buy the election", it's the campaign contributions of modest folks like myself who believe this country needs a turn-around specialist. I resent the media for robbing him of his well-deserved victories with their dismissive and pessimistic subjective assessment of his very real accomplishments and very real leading support by voters.
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Better check your facts, sparky. 91% of Mitten's contributions have come from large contributors. Let me do the math from you. That means that only 9% come from "...campaign contributions from modest folks like..." you.
Mittens is bought and paid for by the rich. That you support him when he couldn't give a crap about you is truly sad and pathetic!
Even some Repubs deep-down are starting to realize that rich-guy Romney is a fake, a flip-flopper and a fhony.