After Alabama and Mississippi: Will the GOP Convention Be a Battleground?

Is it time to take the Republican convention seriously as a potential battleground?

Republicans should know better by now. Their still-putative nominee, Mitt Romney, lacks the conservative support to capture the kind of expectations-exceeding primary win necessary to capsize underfunded but motivated rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

Romney didn’t do it in South Carolina, Colorado, or Tennessee. He proved unable once again on Tuesday to claim victory in a state, Mississippi, that seemed tantalizingly within reach.

The months-long trend makes it clear that Romney will have to win the GOP nomination with math, not acclamation, steadily accumulating enough delegates in friendly contests until he reaches the nomination-clinching number of 1,144. But that path is fraught with risk. There is always the chance that he’ll fall just short of the magic number, which raises the possibility of a contested August convention in Tampa.

Many mocked the notion a month ago, but it now seems increasingly likely. “After last night, you have to start think it’s possible,'” said political consultant Curt Anderson, a former political director of the Republican National Committee who advised Rick Perry before he quit the race. “It seems more possible than before, that’s for sure.”

The Santorum and Gingrich campaigns are each eagerly embracing that very scenario. In a memo released this week, the Santorum team argued that some delegates ostensibly pledged to Romney would switch to the onetime senator if Romney fails to win on the first ballot at the convention. Combined with a difficult schedule remaining for Romney, that dynamic ensures that the front-runner won’t acquire enough delegates, the Santorum campaign contends

People seem to miss this point. The establishment will still have the upper hand.

It would, most likely, be a bruising fight which would ultimately increase the chance of re-electing BO.

No, you miss the point: if Romney is the nominee, it is a guaranteed loss.

He has to be defeated or the GOP will suffer catastrophic losses.

Once Obama and his minions in the MSM start using his record against him, it's all over. Romney will drop like a rock in the polls leading up to the election and will never recover.

Romney's record:

1. Supported Gay Adoption.
2. Implemented and supported Gay Marriage while Governor of MA.
3. Supported Abortion
4. Believes in Global Warming.
5. Supported a state level Cap-and-Trade system while Governor of MA.
6. Supported the Brady Bill.
7. Implemented an "Assault" Weapons Ban while Governor of MA EVEN after the Federal level AWB was allowed to elapse.
8. Supported TARP
9. Implemented a Socialistic HealthCare program called RomneyCare that includes $50 Abortions and an Individual Mandate.

They need to start attacking 0 and 0’care. And Yes it is FR POSTED! Not only on this issue but on the guts to the Military, Medicare. There won’t be a doctor to take granny come 2014 if we do not get this monster repealed. Yes cuts need to be made, BUT NOT GUTTING Medicare as 0 has done.

$1 GENOCIDE OF THE UNBORN

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/03/12/obama-admin-finalizes-rules-1-abortions-in-obamacare/

Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Obamacare act — that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government — approved insurance or pay a penalty — is an “abortion premium mandate.” This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion. As a result, many pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.

“The point is that Romney is not much different than BO”

That’s what everyone said about BO versus McCain.

Do you really think that McCain would have appointed a loser like Sotomayor to the SC? Would he have initiated gov’t healthcare and all the other lib stuff BO has done?

Sure Romney is not that conservative, but to say that he is not that different from BO is not true. He is not out to destroy this country on the altar of political correctness and fairness.

He wouldn’t be a good, conservative president but to say that he would pursue the same type of stuff that BO has pursued is ludicrous.

I don’t see how Santorum puts that much of a dent in Mitt unless Newt drops out or suddenly drops to less than 5% in the 14 or so variations on winner-take-all states from here on out. The math seems to show Romney getting very close to 1,144 at the current trajectory, enough that any contest at the convention would be a foregone conclusion, because you have over 100 unpledged RNC delegates who can vote for whoever they want even on the first ballot plus Ron Paul’s delegates opening up on the second ballot.

Newt will be acting as Rick’s Ross Perot in the many numerous winner-take-all states and districts coming up (far more than in the primary’s first half).

Illinois is a case in point. It has direct delegate election by district, which means whichever candidate’s delegates get the most votes in that district, win the whole district. Romney is polling 35-31-12-7 right now in Illinois. Newt is taking enough votes away from Rick to give him second place. If that vote spread held across every district, Mitt would win ALL 69 delegates in Illinois. If Newt dropped out and Rick got 75% of his votes (even if Mitt got the other 25%) then Rick would win those instead.

Upcoming are 622 delegates from “conditional” or by-district winner-take-all states, all ones “moderate” enough to give Mitt the win out of a split vote, just like Ohio and Michigan did:

Illinois
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
California
New York
Texas
Connecticut (a mix)

The fully statewide winner-take-all contests are perhaps less likely to be lost by Mitt in any type of race. Although I’m not sure what the character of Republicans is in all these states and if Santorum could win any, except of course Wisconsin. 228 delegates from these.

Puerto Rico
Maryland
Washington D.C.
Wisconsin
Delaware
New Jersey
Utah

439 delegates remain from proportional contests. The problem with these is while most of them favor the conservatives, Romney is going to be able to accumulate delegates from them anyway. Since they’re not WTA, we can’t shut Romney out of delegates in the states where we’re likely to be the winner.

Louisiana
Rhode Island
North Carolina
Oregon
Arkansas
Kentucky
New Mexico
South Dakota
Nebraska
Indiana
Montana
Missouri

If Romney gets 150 from the proportional, 186 from the statewide winner-take-all (subtracting Wisconsin), he’s up to 831. He’d only need HALF of the delegates from those seven “conditional” winner-take-all states to hit his magic number. When you consider he’ll get maybe 150 from Ron Paul and the RNC combined, he only needs about 150 from the 622 in those states to get to a “safe” zone.

The ONLY strategy is to make it a 2-man race and then BLOW Romney out of the water in as many winner-take-all states and districts as possible. The status quo has Romney sailing pretty comfortably to the nomination. We have to deny him VIRTUALLY EVERY DELEGATE in Illinois, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Texas and maybe half of the California and New York ones. To do that we need to have a candidate that wins THE MOST VOTES in almost every district. That will not happen when we have one candidate siphoning off votes from the other.

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