Thoughts From Last Night's Primary
The numerical results really show us something many have suspected: Mitt Romney will have a hard time in the South. Is it because he's Mormon? Is it because he finds it hard to relate to "the Common Man?" Who knows? Bottom line is he spent a whole bunch of money only to come in third. Social conservatives just aren't into him.
I hear that the calls for Newt Gingrich to quit will get louder, so Rick Santorum can make it an official two-man race. Why? Gingrich makes a good point that Santorum is not the perfect conservative candidate. In truth, none of them are. Romney represents the establishment and wealthy components of the GOP. Santorum represents the social conservatives. Gingrich represents the intellectual punditry and fiscal conservative crowd (and that mainly comes from the fact that the budget was balanced under his Speakership; whether he was directly responsible for that is another matter). And Ron Paul represents the (mostly young) Republicans who don't always identify with those other camps. When you break it down, Gingrich has as much reason to stay as Santorum; his only real drawback is that his history is more public.
Ron Paul's strategy does not seem to be working. He hasn't won any delegate states yet, and I doubt he will be able to make caucus states change their mind. No one in the press is giving him a platform. No prominent Republican is endorsing him. On paper, he represents the type of outsider that the Tea Party would want; so why aren't they backing him?
Then there's Rick Santorum. The dirty little secret is that despite what Lawrence O'Donnell says, the GOP does not want an ideological showdown of 2012 conservatism vs. Obama's pragmatic-yet-optimistic centrism (Obama is not a liberal). For all of their claims that the US is majority conservative, the GOP knows better, and they know that unless polls show a landslide for the GOP challenger having anyone who could be reasonably considered a conservative lose on the national stage would spell doom for their base. While I'm sure some GOP member would invite that (it would allow them to reach out to conservative-minded minorities and moderate Republicans that have been all but shunned out of the party) they certainly don't want to waste a presidential election to do it. And trust me, it may have been acceptable to paint George W. Bush as a faux conservative in his waning days in office, but there's no way in hell Fox News will get away saying, "Rick Santorum lost because he wasn't conservative enough." So in order to protect their core -and more importantly, the belief that modern-day American conservatism is infallible- expect some anti-Santorum stories to start popping up. He's the physical manifestation of the purification the GOP has undergone since their butt-whuppings of 2006 and 2008; Santorum represents the true face of the GOP-Tea Party base as much as Romney represents the 1%. Unfortunately for them, their party's leadership does not want them in charge (as far as they're concerned, they did their job by winning the House for the GOP).
All in all, last night also showed us something else: this primary will be longer than any of the candidates would like it to be.
I hear that the calls for Newt Gingrich to quit will get louder, so Rick Santorum can make it an official two-man race. Why? Gingrich makes a good point that Santorum is not the perfect conservative candidate. In truth, none of them are. Romney represents the establishment and wealthy components of the GOP. Santorum represents the social conservatives. Gingrich represents the intellectual punditry and fiscal conservative crowd (and that mainly comes from the fact that the budget was balanced under his Speakership; whether he was directly responsible for that is another matter). And Ron Paul represents the (mostly young) Republicans who don't always identify with those other camps. When you break it down, Gingrich has as much reason to stay as Santorum; his only real drawback is that his history is more public.
Ron Paul's strategy does not seem to be working. He hasn't won any delegate states yet, and I doubt he will be able to make caucus states change their mind. No one in the press is giving him a platform. No prominent Republican is endorsing him. On paper, he represents the type of outsider that the Tea Party would want; so why aren't they backing him?
Then there's Rick Santorum. The dirty little secret is that despite what Lawrence O'Donnell says, the GOP does not want an ideological showdown of 2012 conservatism vs. Obama's pragmatic-yet-optimistic centrism (Obama is not a liberal). For all of their claims that the US is majority conservative, the GOP knows better, and they know that unless polls show a landslide for the GOP challenger having anyone who could be reasonably considered a conservative lose on the national stage would spell doom for their base. While I'm sure some GOP member would invite that (it would allow them to reach out to conservative-minded minorities and moderate Republicans that have been all but shunned out of the party) they certainly don't want to waste a presidential election to do it. And trust me, it may have been acceptable to paint George W. Bush as a faux conservative in his waning days in office, but there's no way in hell Fox News will get away saying, "Rick Santorum lost because he wasn't conservative enough." So in order to protect their core -and more importantly, the belief that modern-day American conservatism is infallible- expect some anti-Santorum stories to start popping up. He's the physical manifestation of the purification the GOP has undergone since their butt-whuppings of 2006 and 2008; Santorum represents the true face of the GOP-Tea Party base as much as Romney represents the 1%. Unfortunately for them, their party's leadership does not want them in charge (as far as they're concerned, they did their job by winning the House for the GOP).
All in all, last night also showed us something else: this primary will be longer than any of the candidates would like it to be.
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