Posted on 02/28/2012 7:48:25 PM PST by Red Steel
DETROIT, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Mitt Romney was a double winner Tuesday, capturing the Michigan and Arizona Republican presidential primaries, results showed.
The Detroit Free Press declared Romney the victor over his GOP rivals in Michigan.
With about 74 percent of the precincts counted, Romney had 317,258 votes (41 percent) to Rick Santorum's 286,530 (37 percent), results posted by the Free Press showed. Ron Paul was third with 88,521 votes (12 percent) and Newt Gingrich followed with 50,726 votes (7 percent). Another 2 percent voted "uncommitted" and a handful of votes went to several other Republicans who are no longer contenders.
CNN called Romney the winner in Arizona. With 71 percent of the vote counted, Romney had 191,182 votes (48 percent) to Santorum's 101,232 votes (25 percent). Gingrich was third with 65,182 votes (16 percent), with Paul bringing up the rear with 33,505 votes (8 percent).
Exit polls in the two states Tuesday had indicated electability was the top priority among Republican primary voters.
Thirty-three percent of Michigan voters said beating President Obama is the top priority when selecting a GOP nominee, while 38 percent of voters in Arizona said the same, CBS News exit polls indicated.
Romney and Santorum slashed at each other ahead of the Michigan primary, which was too close to call. The contest in his home state is seen as crucial to Romney and his claim of the front-runner's mantle.
Despite the closeness of the Michigan race, the Post said Romney was expected to win about three times as many convention delegates as Santorum Tuesday. Arizona is a winner-take-all primary. Michigan's 30 delegates are allotted proportionately to the primary winner in each of the state's 14 congressional districts. Arizona's winner picks up all of its 29 delegates.
The Washington Post said Romney was expected to garner 45 delegates from both contests, with Santorum picking up about 15.
Gingrich and Paul were not expected to win any delegates, and did not seriously campaign in the two states.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, have been shooting fireballs at each other in recent days.
Romney blasted Santorum's use of robocalls urging Democrats, who can vote GOP in Michigan, to vote for Santorum.
"I know why [President] Obama doesn't want me to face him but I just think it's outrageous and a terrible dirty trick at the last hour, by the way, late in the afternoon on the day before the election, maybe hoping no one would notice, they start sending out calls to Democrats, union members telling them to go into the Republican primary and vote against Mitt Romney," Romney told Fox News.
"This is a new low for his campaign and that's saying something," he added.
Santorum told Fox News Monday night he's just trying to attract the Democratic voters he'll need in November.
"When he runs a robocall of my voice from four years ago saying good things about him, that's not a low moment, and when I run a call basically saying, calling Democrats that are eligible to vote here, to vote for us, that's a low?" he said.
ilgipper said, “Unless something goes horribly against Mitt, he’ll sew it up on super tuesday.”
Romney is going to hit a brick wall in the South. The dirty little secret is only ONE of the 21 most conservative states according to Gallup rankings below has voted TO DATE (most of them southern states). 885 of the delegates remaining come from those conservative states (the other 989 from the other states). After tonight, Romney only has 137 of the 1,144 delegates needed to win.
The path to at least stop Romney from winning the nomination outright is to keep Romney in third place throughout the southern states (or if one of the two has a blowout win like in SC). This thing is NOT over yet by a longshot. But the only likely real path to the nomination for either Newt or Rick is to earn enough delegates to beat Romney and Paul’s combined total and then find a way to merge them at the convention.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/152459/Mississippi-Conservative-State-Liberal.aspx
TOTAL DELEGATES BY STATE (1144 needed to win):
CON 909 (884 to go)
MOD 661 (420 to go)
LIB 605 (569 to go)
??? 32
CON Mississippi (primary) - 40
CON Utah (primary) - 40 (WTA)
CON Wyoming (caucus) - 29
CON Alabama (primary) - 50 (WTA)
CON Louisiana (primary) - 46
CON Arkansas (primary) - 36
CON Oklahoma (primary) - 43 (WTA)
CON Nebraska (primary) - 35
CON Idaho (caucus) - 32
CON Tennessee (primary) - 58 (WTA)
*VOTED* CON South Carolina (primary) – 25 [GINGRICH]
CON North Dakota (caucus) - 28
CON South Dakota (primary) - 28
CON Kansas (caucus) - 40
CON Texas (primary) - 155
CON Georgia (primary) - 76
CON Indiana (primary) - 46
CON West Virginia (primary) - 31
CON Montana (primary) - 26
CON Missouri (GOP caucus) – 52
CON Kentucky (primary) - 45
MOD North Carolina (primary) - 55
MOD Ohio (primary) - 66
MOD Virginia (primary) - 49
*VOTED* MOD Arizona (primary) - 29 (WTA) [ROMNEY]
*VOTED* MOD Florida (primary) - 50 (WTA) [ROMNEY]
*VOTED* MOD Iowa (caucus) – 28 [SANTORUM]
*VOTED* MOD Michigan (primary) - 30 [ROMNEY]
MOD New Mexico (primary) - 23
MOD Pennsylvania (primary) - 72
MOD Wisconsin (primary) - 42
*VOTED* MOD Colorado (caucus) - 36 [SANTORUM]
*VOTED* MOD Minnesota (caucus) - 40 [SANTORUM]
MOD Delaware (primary) - 17 (WTA)
*VOTED* MOD Nevada (caucus) - 28 [ROMNEY]
MOD Illinois (primary) - 69
MOD Alaska (caucus) - 27
LIB Maryland (primary) - 37
*VOTED* LIB Maine (caucus) - 24 [ROMNEY]
LIB Vermont (primary) - 17
LIB Connecticut (primary) - 28
*VOTED* LIB New Hampshire (primary) – 12 [ROMNEY]
LIB Rhode Island (primary) - 19
LIB New Jersey (primary) - 50 (WTA)
LIB California (primary) - 172
LIB Hawaii (caucus) - 20
LIB New York (primary) - 95
LIB Washington (caucus) - 43
LIB Oregon (primary) - 28
LIB Massachusetts (primary) - 41
LIB District of Columbia (primary) - 19 (WTA)
??? U.S. Virgin Islands (caucus) - 9
??? Puerto Rico (primary) - 23
“Romney’s choices for SCOTUS would be every bit as bad as Obozo’s.”
Bingo. Socialists of a feather.....
I think Romney would go lib in less obvious ways than Supreme Court picks...stuff like his minimum wage hike, or a “tweaking” of Obamacare. Remember how a revolt happened against Bush when he was going to nominate that female judge to the Supreme Court? It’s hard to believe the same thing wouldn’t happen to Romney if he put up a bad nominee. It’s the squishier stuff where there just wouldn’t be enough energy by a longshot in the conservative movement to stop him, especially if he ends up with a Democrat Congress like Bush had in 2006.
JediJones wrote:
<<
Santorum is a laughable, pathetic, clumsy, awkward, wholly unpresidential candidate.
Newt is a powerhouse, a force of nature, a breathtakingly charismatic speaker, a brilliant thinker, the best and most qualified candidate the party has had on the ballot since Ronald Reagan.
Anyone still hoping for Santorum to win anything is stabbing a knife into the heart of the conservative movement whether they realize it or not. They make it incredibly more likely that either a moderate who DESPISES conservatives wins the presidency or that Obama wins the presidency and most likely takes the nation off a cliff that it will never recover from short of a collapse on the scale of the Soviet Union.
>>
************************************************************
Any chance you could turn your apparent hatred of Rick Santorum down a couple of notches already? Geez, the first sentence of your post mirrors something I’d expect to read on the Democratic Underground website. Not to mention, the incessant name-calling is unflattering and I highly doubt you’re winning any new converts with it.
Look, I would be very happy to see Gingrich rise from the ash heap once again and become a formidable contender in this race. I love his take-no-prisoners fighting spirit and his quick-witted intellect. But let’s face reality here... He’s only won ONE state primary out of the 10 primaries/caucuses held so far, even after all the debate coverage and the generous financial backing he’s received from billionaires and SuperPACs. So is that the fault of conservatives, or is it Newt’s own fault for his checkered past and not capitalizing on his opportunities while he had them???
[quote]
But the only likely real path to the nomination for either Newt or Rick is to earn enough delegates to beat Romney and Paul’s combined total and then find a way to merge them at the convention.
[/quote]
So the only way for Newt to win is with a brokered convention?
That’s a telling concession.
Santorum can win outright with his delegates.
I don’t even see a path for Romney to winning a majority of delegates. Romney would have to win 100% of the delegates in all but one of the remaining 23 non-conservative states/territories to win a majority of delegates assuming he won 0% from the 21 conservative states. With all the proportional delegates it can never come out that way, but that’s as good a ballpark count as anything, and it doesn’t add up for Romney. With all 4 of these guys staying in the race, this is going to be decided at the convention. Just look at how few states so far Romney has won with over 50% of the vote...only Nevada with exactly 50%. There aren’t enough WTA states going his way to make up for that. No one has a path to winning this nomination outright, unless perhaps Newt or Rick drops out.
Rick earned the scorn with his boneheadedly stupid comments about “throwing up” over JFK and then calling Obama a snob. That is rhetoric that will poison him in a general election. It is also HIGHLY UNPRESIDENTIAL and is more fitting for an MTV reality show. I would feel cheated if I had given money to him. He’s basically just about completely thrown away his viability as a candidate with his classless comments.
Newt has absolutely torn Obama apart and dismantled him WITHOUT resorting to cheap, childish name-calling. That is the classy, presidential way to debate an opponent and the way to win converts.
What I’ve done with my insulting remarks to Santorum is demonstrated what HE did. Would I be winning any converts if I said Santorum was a snob who made me want to throw up? According to you, I would not, and you’re right. So how in the heck can you defend Santorum for what you just criticized me for and said was a bad strategy for winning converts?
It is just silly to count STATES instead of counting popular vote. So Santorum wins a few tiny states while coming in dead last in big, important states. Newt wins a key state that every presidential nominee in history has won, and also comes in 2nd in many important states. Bottom line is, overall popular vote is what to look at, where Newt remains ahead. I can make up 100 states with only 2 people in them...if Santorum won them, you could brag about how many states he won, but it’s less meaningful when they have so few people.
I hope someday we don’t look back on true conservatives not rallying around Gingrich. I’m tired of the country given to us by God and our fathers going to waste because of 0.
“Whom his father admired is irrelevant to this thread.”
No, you are wrong.
Romney’s father’s admiration of Saul Alinsky is emphatically relevant to this trojan horse candidate in any discussion of him as a candidate.
Well said.
Har!
Good one.
Romney’s path vs Newt isn’t that difficult.
VS NEWT:
ME + NH + VT + NY + NJ + MD + PA + OH + IN + VA + MA + CT + RI + MT + ID + WY + NV + AZ + NM + CA + WA + OR + HI + SD + ND + KA + NE + FL + AK
and a landslide nomination. He could even score KY + WV vs Newt for the blowout.
VS Santorum:
PA + OH + IN + WA + SD + ND + KA + MT + ID + NE + OR + AK all come off. That’s a 12 state swing. Not to mention the 3 states that Santorum already has.
Here’s Santorum’s path to the nomination:
MN + CO + IA + MO (already)
KY + WV + OH + PA + IN (he’s on the ballot now),
SD + ND + KA + MT + ID + NE + OR + AK + WA +
TX + TN + NC + OK + AR + LA. That’s enough.
That 15 state swing between Newt and Santorum is why Newt can’t win, but Santorum can.
Newt’s maximum that he’s looking at with Santorum at 4, is Newt 14 Santorum 4 Romney 32, and the nomination outright. That’s best case scenario. More likely he scores maybe 6 states at best:
GA, AL, MS for sure and maybe LA + AR. That brings newt up to 6.
Unfortunately, popular votes don’t win the candidacy. It’s all about the electoral votes in the general election. I believe it was MA that passed a law that all their electoral votes would go to the candidate who won the popular vote. These people are still MAD that Al Gore didn’t win in 2000. Lord, they sure do hold grudges, don’t they? Thank God IGore wasn’t president on 9/11.
A brokered convention that benefits is unlikely because a Santorum strong enough to take states off Romney is strong enought to take even more off Newt.
You’d have to see something like this:
Santorum (18)
MN, IA, MO, CO
KY, IN, OH, PA
WA, ID, MT, ND
SD, KA, NE, OK
TX, WV
Newt (8)
GA, SC, AL, MS, LA, AR, TN, NC
Even here- Newt doesn’t have enough to swing the brokered convention in his favor vs Santorum. To do this, Newt would need to win states like TX + OK + WV + KY (bringing him up to 12), and Santorum down to 14.
If Santorum doesn’t do as well in the North, not only does Newt fail to force a brokered convention - Romney wins the nomination outright.
Seems to me from the AZ & FL results that a majority of the retiree GOP crowd is into Romney. My relatives in their 70s say he was a businessman and looks presidential - they’re not interested in further discussion. Come to think of it, I have relatives in their 40s who say the same. Too susceptible to Romney’s barrage of negative ads. The worst part is that Romney has already spewed the GOP line about not attacking Obama. We know how that loser strategy worked in 2008.
It seems to me, that for better or worse, we have our set of candidates. If a good guy was out there and were to jump in, I’d love it. The problem is, we’re not going to get a solid guy to jump in. We’ll get some other RINOs foisted off on us, but I’m not buying what they’d be selling anyway.
Either the Santorum and Gingrich folks call a truce and go after Romney together, or Romney will be the nominee.
SCOTUS has been destroying this country since FDR. We are one vote away from making the destruction irreversible. (I will never forgive the Souter pick). I can’t give that to Obama.
I don’t want Obama again either, but a Romney term in office would essentially be the last nail the Conservative coffin.
We simply cannot afford to have another Leftist wear the Conservative mantle for another four or eight years.
Nobody believes we mean what we say as Conservatives as it is.
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