Super Tuesday Thread (First Polls Closing at 7 p.m. Eastern Time)

NY Times map link ^ | 6 March 2012 | We the Freepers

[reasonisfaith]

I would agree with your comment. Ridicule is sometimes difficult to overcome because it comes from a more primitive level than truthful (intellectual) dialogue.

To Alinsky and to Stewart I would say look—don’t you understand that your use of ridicule diminishes your intellectual standing in a general sense and specifically it exposes the fact that the point you’re trying to make is so weak it can’t be stated openly and honestly.

Ridicule is the same thing as putting lipstick and a fancy dress on Cinderella’s homely stepsister.

[b9]

Jim pretty clearly knows exactly why Newt is our strongest choice.

"I have no idea why you’re ragging on me. I have no real problems with Santorum, just prefer Gingrich because I think he’s a more experienced, more accomplished conservative and I especially like what he accomplished as Speaker and his more aggressive plans to Newter our out of control federal government. You can rag on me until hell freezes over, but I’m not changing. And I couldn’t care less about who supports him." ~ Jim Robinson

[AnTiw1]

" I will not vote for romney under any circumstances. "

i am an ex-mormon and will not live in a country under a mormon president

another four years under the dark lord doesnt sound so appealing either

time to cruise

[LibLieSlayer]

For whatever reason one has... and there are many... voting for romney is a bad decision.

LLS

[CharlesWayneCT]

I don't believe that is the case.

50% didn't mean anything statewide. Every candidate with more than 20% would get proportional delegates.

50% did matter in the district races. On the other hand, from a conservative perspective (rather than a Gingrich-only perspective), the only thing that mattered was Romney not getting delegates. Gingrich got 50% in several districts, and got all 3 delegates.

Here are the current percentages by districts where Gingrich wasn't at 50% (rounded to integers for brevity), and Rick didn't come in 2nd.

For each district, I looked at the simplest way to knock Romney out, and listed the votes needed and from which candidate (Gingrich or Santorum). For example, in district 1, Gingrich would have needed 6794 Santorum votes to hit 50%, but Santorum only needed 4236 Gingrich votes to beat Romney for 2nd, so in that district Gingrich folks should have voted for Santorum.

D  GINGRICH  ROMNEY    SANTORUM VOTES NEEDED 
1  20878/38  17257/31  13021/24 S-4236
2  Gingrich 1, Santorum 2
3  Gingrich 50%
4  Gingrich 50%
5   5213/31   6893/41   2057/12 G-1680 1st(can't make 50%)
6  27413/38  29174/41   9559/13 G-8669 
7  33606/46  22032/30  12054/16 G-2895
8  Gingrich 1, Santorum 2
9  Gingrich 50%
10 Gingrich 50%
11 42138/47  25654/28  15222/17 G-7369
12 Gingrich 1, Santorum 2
13 Gingrich 50%
14 Gingrich 50%

As you can see, Gingrich needed considerably more than 10,000 extra votes to get to 50% in all the districts (about 31,000 to be exact). In the 5th, he didn't need many votes, but he DID need the votes from EVERY other candidate, not just Santorum, in order to hit 50%.

Now, here's another number. If just 4236 Gingrich voters has switched to Santorum, in ONLY the 1st district, here's how it would have changed the delegates:

 
    Newt Mitt Rick
SW    20   11   0
DST   33    6   3
Tot:  53   17   3
---------------------
SW    15    9   7
DST   33    5   4
Tot:  48   14  11

As you see, a 4200-vote swing would cost Mitt 3 delegates. On the other hand, If instead 4200 additional votes had shown up for Rick in district 1 (not taking from Newt, it looks even better:

    Newt Mitt Rick
SW    16   8   7
DST   33   5   4
Tot:  49  13  11

A small additional vote for Rick, maybe by not Robocalling to suppress his turnout, could have denied Romney 4 delegates, just by allowing Santorum to hit the 20% threshold.

BTW, if just the Perry and Bachmann voters had switched to Santorum, the same would have happened, with only a swap of 1000 gingrich votes. Santorum getting over 20% was the best way to steal Romney delegates, and he missed by 0.4%.

Sadly, if the candidates who had dropped out had simply NOT been on the ballot, and their voters had stayed home, the same would be true, Santorum would have hit 20%. Voters just showing up and casting votes for Huntsman, Johnson, Roemer, Bachmann, and Perry cost Santorum 7 delegates, and gave Romney 4 delegates.

[CharlesWayneCT]

If FR had a lot of “influence”, as opposed to having a lot of use which it certainly does, Romney wouldn’t be in the race, and Gingrich would have swept Super Tuesday.

I wouldn’t count on FR being able to actually coalesce the broader conservative movement around one candidate, and it should be clear that nothing more could be done to stop Romney than is already being tried (my personal opinion is that there WOULD be a way for the site to better stop Romney, or at least there WAS, but that the approach taken was not the optimal one. That’s water under the bridge, and pure speculation on my part since I can’t see the future or alternate realities).

[Kevmo]

A brokered convention is not likely.

***If you really are convinced of that, put your money down and you’re right, you can make 5X your money on Intrade. There are very few other opportunities like this in the world as far as I can see.

[Fledermaus]

The Germantown people probably went for Santorum or Romney. The Dems didn’t have anything to vote for in Shelby.