Posted on 03/14/2012 11:49:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The first hint that the night might not go Mitt Romney's way was his decision not to have a victory party at all, which I first heard on the Hugh Hewitt show. As I said at the time, that's an odd decision, considering the free media coverage one gets from the inevitable candidate speech. Perhaps that should have tipped us off that the early exit polls had missed the mark, and that the Romney campaign knew full well they would come in third in both Mississippi and Alabama.
However, despite the disappointing results in the two southern states, Romney ended up winning the night anyway — at least in delegates. Aaron Blake counts up the haul, including the delegate allocations from Hawaii and American Samoa:
The most recent projections from AP show Rick Santorum took 31 delegates from Alabama and Mississippi, while Newt Gingrich took 24 delegates and Romney got 23.
But this morning, Romney was projected to win all nine delegates from American Samoa’s caucuses, and he also won the Hawaii caucuses by a large margin.
AP projections show Romney beat Santorum 18 delegates to four in those jurisdictions.
So, as of this morning, Romney has won 41 delegates from Tuesday’s contests, compared to 35 for Santorum, thereby expanding Romney’s delegate lead. (Gingrich is projected to have won 24 delegates.)
According to the WaPo count after last night’s results, Romney leads in delegates over Santorum, 494-251, with Gingrich trailing badly at 131. It doesn’t extend the delegate lead by much, but it kept either Gingrich or Santorum from catching up to Romney, too.
Rich Lowry questions the conventional wisdom from last night’s spot analysis that the night was especially bad for Romney even apart from the actual delegate haul:
There’s a lot of chatter about how the Romney campaign needs a shake up. But did anyone expect him to do any better than somewhere around 30 percent in Alabama and Mississippi? The states are chock-full of the kind of voters he just isn’t going to reach in these primaries, and the only way he was going to win was if he got lucky and the anti-Romney vote broke exactly the right way. I’ve been underwhelmed by Romney victories and in this case, I’m underwhelmed by Romney defeats.
The chatter comes from two points. First, polls had him doing better than he eventually did in both states, especially Mississippi, and that makes it look like Romney can’t close the deal with conservative-state voters. Second, the expectation was that Santorum and Gingrich would have equal strength in these two states, which could have allowed Romney to take Mississippi. That didn’t happen, which means that Santorum has eclipsed Gingrich as the conservative alternative. That’s not good news for Romney or Gingrich.
The night wasn’t all bad news for Romney, by any means, but it’s overstating the case to call last night a Romney victory.
Romney is the LOSER who lost to the LOSER McLame, who LOST TO OBAMA!!
Why on earth would we want to run the 2nd place guy from last time, when the first place guy from last time couldn't beat Obama
Obama is like a little girl playing president.
Wrong.
Doesn’t matter. If Newt and Rick stay in then Romney is still only placing and this thing goes to the floor.
Me too Antonius.
No nose holding anymore. This is about principle and integrity. I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I compromised my core Conservative values by voting for this despicable man.
and if Rom were to be the nominee(which I don’t think he will), it won’t be because of us(like my Elite GOP friend said).
It’ll be due to the stupid, out of touch GOP-E trying to force a candidate like Mittens down our throats...and the stupid sheeple who vote for him as a result.
If I hear one more pundit say that we Conservatives will “come around”.... Not this Conservative. Thanks anyway!
Zactly!!
That’s what I keep trying to splain. At convention Newt and Rick’s delegates will outnumber Mutt’s.
Hosepipe, you just hosed yourself and you’re all wet.
“With three in the race, mittens gets 1/3 of remaining delegates.
With two in the race, mittens gets 1/2 of remaining delegates.
... just sayin’...”
Plus Mittens (and his buddy Obama) gets to focus their fire on Santorum only if Newt gets out.
This is exactly what the GOP insiders want in a candidate. It's why they keep cramming losers like Romney and McCain down our throats, the idea being that in the general, the red states will fall in line (where else are they going to go?) and the moderate guy could maybe turn a few blues.
Of course, it never works out, given a choice between two liberals, the blue states always pick the one the MSM says isn't a meanie. You can't win in a "our lib is better than their lib" competition. We need to draw distinctions like "liberalism is the problem, conservatism is the solution and our guy is conservative" and let the voters decide. But subtle shades between the candidates ALWAYS favors the incumbent and it's why Romney is very unlikely to beat Obama IMHO.
Easy, He is not Mitt.
Well, since you said it, I guess that settles it. Glad to finally meet the man that knows everything.
I disagree. I think 75% of newt's go to mittens.
This foulness came from the left regarding Palin and Trig. He isn't using his little girl. She was a fact way before he ran, so was Trig.
You should be ashamed and it certainly hasn't won any brownie points for your candidate.
Santorum's victories are big. Newt has got to be depressed.
And those are places where Obama will crush Romney.
RE: Santorum’s victories are big. Newt has got to be depressed.
It is pretty clear now that Newt is REDEFINING victory as stopping Romney from getting 1,144 delegates, not winning the delegate count himself.
[ You should be ashamed and it certainly hasn’t won any brownie points for your candidate. ]
WHY?.. Santo hasn’t got anything else.. except for human interest storys..
Santo is owned by the UNIONS.. as is Willard and Zero..
ONLY Newt has a plan.. WIllard and Santo are merely composed of platitudes..]
ONLY Newt will disassemble the federal gov’t... not just Washington D.C...
It Will take mean wiley courageous SOB to fix America at this stage..
Santo and WIllard are just plain old family men.. probably RINGERS.. Shills.. Kabuki actors..
No Newt.... NO WIN...
[ Hosepipe, you just hosed yourself and you’re all wet. ]
Santo and Willard are indeed OWNED BY THE UNIONS....
WHO came out against Walker in Wisconsin?...
It was the Police, Firefighters and the Teachers... and other State funded parasites..
If YOU are a Union member then YOU ARE SUSPECT to being a socialist..
Therefore up to sedition and probably treason.. at least an enabler of it..
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