Posted on 03/11/2012 7:50:17 PM PDT by Steelfish
March 11, 2012 As Rivals Divide, Romney Gains
[Subscriber Content Preview] BY PATRICK O'CONNOR AND JANET HOOK
TUPELO, Miss.—The split among conservatives over which Republican to back for president is bolstering the one candidate many of them don't want: Mitt Romney.
The former Massachusetts governor finds himself in striking distance of improbable wins in both Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday, thanks largely to the divided loyalties of conservatives in the Deep South.
The divided support between Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich has prevented either from becoming a permanent heir to the Not-Mitt mantle. As long as both are in the race, neither can likely amass enough delegates to overtake Mr. Romney.
"It's going to be really tight," said ...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Well, the Romney camp says that they will reach the 1,144 needed Delegates faster if they just have one opponent. Here’s why I believe they’re right:
From what I’ve read, all of the “drop-out” candidate’s supporters will NOT necessarily vote for the remaining candidate. SOME WILL NOT VOTE AT ALL if their man is not in the race. And, believe it or not, some will actually vote for Romney because the don’t like Santorum, who will lose 35 States to Obama because he can’t help himself; he’s just gotta talk about condoms. And, some Santorum supporters figure that the Dems have video on both Romney and Newt favoring Individual Mandates on Universal Health Care, so why not just go with Romney.
Sadly from the start the only question for conservatives was which of their candidates would self-destruct in a vain bid to be the second-place candidate. In July 2011, not many would have thought Santorum and Gingrich would be the defeated semi-finalists, as Mittens coasts to the nomination. It was all so inevitable with conservative divisions. Conservatives are just too dumb to develop a winning strategy.
The non-Romney front runner’s path to nomination:
Delegates won so far by Santorum = 212
More delegates needed to win nomination = 932
Delegates remaining in future primaries = 1499
Santorum needs to win 932/1499 = 62.2% of all remaining delegates.
Most coming primaries are proportional. Winner take all are:
UT, NJ, CA, DE, DC none of which are Santorum’s strongholds.
We can all agree on that. Bachman, Cain, and Perry and they all dropped out. Now the question is whether or not Gingrich and Santorum will divide the vote to give Romney the nomination. Perhaps, it’s already too late.
CA is not winner take all exactly. It is WTA by CD. There’s at least 15 CD’s Santorum would be favored in.
When did the Romney camp say that? The strategy from the GOP-E RINO Romney camp has consistently been to build up either Newt or Rick when one is falling back, then bash him, then build up the other one, etc. Romney’s winning strategy is divide and conquer, plain and simple.
The majority of states in April and beyond will be some form of winner-take-all. That means if Romney wins with a small plurality, he can win big. The rules also sometimes mean that if a candidate can win big with 50% as Rick managed too in Kansas, he can shut out anyone else from delegates.
Bottom line is there is NO way to stop Romney from ultimately getting the nomination if both Rick and Newt stay in, if all the voter preferences continue falling in line the way they have been. There is a POSSIBILITY they can beat him if one drops out and the other gets roughly 75% of the other’s voters. That would help deny Romney maybe a couple hundred delegates in various WTA states, and give Rick and Newt possibly a combined majority of delegates together, or close enough to it to pull off a win at the convention.
Alabama is a missed opportunity already, because a 50% winner there shuts out the other candidates. Illinois next week is the first direct delegate election state, which means Romney can win 100% of a district’s delegates with only 26% of the vote, if the other candidates are 25-25-24.
If Santorum and Gingrich can deny Romney a majority, is there the possibility of one of them yielding his delegates to the other, thereby gaining a majority?
It’s ridiculous. Makes you wonder if BOTH candidates aren’t doing this to keep Romney in!!
Come ON. Looking to me like Santorum could not win it if Newt dropped.
On the other hand ...
You are correct about CA....that congressional districts vary in whom they prefer. However do you agree with my main point that the task ahead is daunting for Santorum?
Zhang, at current rates at which all the demographics are voting for the candidates, every realistic projection has Romney ending with maybe 1050-1200 delegates. To win at the convention he’d need 1,144. He can get enough from Ron Paul or GOP elite arm-twisting to hit that limit.
Because of Ron Paul, Newt and Rick will likely not have enough delegates between them to combine and get over the 1,144 even if Romney falls short. And it’s very clear that Ron Paul will give his support to Romney, not the other two guys.
The only path to victory I can see is for Rick or Newt to drop out, strongly campaign for the other one and perhaps announce a V.P. team-up. Then it is almost certain the remaining one can get a plurality in most of the increasing number of winner-take-all states, and sometimes 50%. Both of those help them get disproportionate shares of delegates (which Romney has done so far in states like FL and AZ, which is why with only 40% of the vote he has over 50% of the delegates so far).
The task ahead is to get 1144 delegates between the combination of Gingrich and Santorum.
That’s the task ahead.
“The task ahead is to get 1144 delegates between the combination of Gingrich and Santorum.”
That looks doable to me. They could just flip a coin and surrender the delegates to the other.
Ron Paul's people went to McCain's side in 2008, but only after he'd gotten a majority. Without a majority, Romney may not get those delegates, especially if Gingrich and Santorum are still in the game. Romneycare has to be a major sticking point for the libertarians who support Paul.
Newt, on the other hand, has 107 delegates. With 1144 needed to secure the nomination, he only needs to win (1144-107)/1459 or 71.1% of all remaining delegates.
And Romney? He has 454. So, using the same math (1144-454)/1459 = 47.3% of all remaining delegates.
Ron Paul? He has 47. So he needs (1144-47)/1459 = 75.2% of all remaining delegates.
When did the Romney camp say that?
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Here’s the quote followed by the link to the article: “Romney could simply get to the 1,144 needed to clinch the nomination with greater ease, since Santorum would be far from guaranteed winning all of Gingrich’s support.
With a two-person race ‘we will get to to 1,144 …a lot faster,’ Romney political director Rich Beeson told POLITICO.”
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/03/mitt-romneys-delegate-math-begins-add
Why are you making me work so hard?
Conservatives are just too dumb to develop a winning strategy.
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Ain’t that the effin’ truth? We’ll end up with another John McCain / Bob Dole Establisment Moderate and Obama in the White House for four more years.
The mistake some of the analysts make is not realizing that the WTA by district and "direct delegate elections" in PA, IL and WV (analysts are WAY behind on figuring those three out) behave almost just like full-on WTA states. Those states are not likely to produce much of a split decision since most of the districts will vote similarly. The full WTA states look good for Romney, but the district-level ones look much better for the conservative. Which means the conservatives splitting their vote, as they are DEFINITELY doing in Alabama right now, with a 31-30-29 split in tonight's PPP poll favoring Romney, simply hands Romney massive, undeserved wins.
“That’s certainly the hope,” said John Brabender, Santorum’s chief strategist, although he was emphatic that there is a chance to overtake Romney if circumstances begin to change. “We really think if we go one-on-one with Romney we could catch fire.
“Ain’t that the effin’ truth? We’ll end up with another John McCain / Bob Dole Establisment Moderate”
“and Obama in the White House for four more years.”
Right on first part, could be wrong on the 2nd part. Even if they fudge the unemployment numbers down to 7%, jobs will still be scarce in fall 2012, food & gas prices will keep increasing at 8%, and another $1500 Billion will be added to national debt. There is no chance Obama wins in 2012....unless we are in a shooting war in November 2012.
Any article requiring two authors is automatically crap
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