Posted on 03/12/2012 10:34:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Is this an admission that Rick Santorum can't win the nomination through the primary process, or just a restatement of the belief that we're heading to a brokered convention anyway? BizzFeed's Zeke Miller gets a Santorum campaign strategy memo that outlines their argument that Mitt Romney isn't as far ahead as some believe, and that Santorum will pull together the disaffected conservatives that show up in Tampa:
In a strategy memo pushing back on Mitt Romney's narrative that it will take an "act of God" to deny him the nomination, advisor John Yob argued that they have a strategy to win — at a contested convention.
Majority Needed for Romney, Not for Santorum
Mitt Romney must have a majority on the first ballot in order to win the nomination because he will perform worse on subsequent ballots as grassroots conservative delegates decide to back the more conservative candidate. Subsequently, Santorum only needs to be relatively close on the initial ballot in order to win on a later ballot as Romney’s support erodes.The memo, to be distributed today, indicates that the Santorum campaign seems more concerned with arguing that Romney will not win a majority of delegates to the Republican National Convention, rather than making the case for why he will. Indeed, the over-2,000-word memo only addresses the possibility of Santorum reaching a majority in its final paragraph, and only as a throw-away.
Central to Santorum’s strategy are county and state conventions, which select delegates to the convention in caucus states. Santorum’s campaign asserts that they will outperform their caucus-night delegate shares because convention-goers are by-and-large more conservative than the average Republican voter. But they are making the (weak) assumption that Ron Paul’s libertarian army won’t try the same thing.
In fact, that’s been the assumption all along about the delegate allocation from non-binding primaries. Ron Paul’s campaign has worked hard to get its own people into the county and state conventions in order to swing the actual delegate allocations to Paul, and they have significant organizations in these states to push that strategy. Paul needs that not to win the nomination at a brokered convention — no one thinks Paul can get the nod after having won no states — but to push for his platform and to get a significant speaking slot, either for himself or his son, or both. Santorum’s memo, embedded below, never mentions how his campaign will out-organize both Romney and Paul to gain a higher allocation of delegates than the vote counts indicated in those caucus states — just that he will.
That’s not the only fuzzy thinking, either. Part of the argument is that Santorum can force a proportional allocation onto Florida and Arizona at the Republican convention, which would be a neat trick, considering that the RNC has no legal authority to dictate allocation to any state. It can only restrict the number of delegates seated at the convention and some of their benefits. The memo also includes this curious paragraph:
June 5th – California, New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico The candidate who wins the most delegates on June 5th will lead the public delegate count going into the national convention. Rick Santorum will also lead the Real Count by this point.
Both California and New Jersey are winner-take-all, and neither is likely to vote for Santorum — not California, surely, and Chris Christie has backed Romney for months in New Jersey. Between the two, that accounts for 222 delegates, so even if Santorum gets all of the delegates from New Mexico and South Dakota (which are proportional primaries) and Montana (a non-binding primary) on June 5th, the delegate count on that date is very likely to be no better than 222-77 for Romney. To the extent that this paragraph is accurate, it’s more of an argument against Santorum’s chances.
What this memo says is that Santorum wants to stay in the race just in case Romney’s candidacy implodes for some reason. That’s not a bad idea, and it won’t hurt to have an alternative with a functioning campaign if that happens. The same argument can be made for Newt Gingrich, too.
Update: I should have said that a Romney implosion was unlikely, which it is; he’s been campaigning for five years now, and he hasn’t had an implosion yet. Also, people on Twitter challenged me on the assumption that Romney will win California, as it does have a fairly active conservative base. However, that base tends more toward fiscal rather than social conservatism, which might benefit Gingrich more if he’s still around. RCP notes three CA polls in February when Santorum rose to the top tier, and all three show Romney leading Santorum — the last two by six points. Unless Santorum really turns around the momentum nationally, Romney is likely to build strength in California, or at least not likely to lose strength.READ:
True that! Oh... and Herman Cain.
Oh now that right there gives me a very big happy thought.
A veep nod isn’t in Santorum’s cards. The magic 8 ball says “no”.
Santorum has bigger problems.
Agree. We don’t need any brokered conventions. There will be blood on the floor and the MSM will go to town with this and Obama will cruise to victory. With only 60 days left after the convention, there won’t be enough time to co-ordinate and launch a major national campaign.
Besides, the weekend contests left Romney with 454 delegates in the AP’s count, more than all his rivals combined. Santorum had 217, while Gingrich had 107 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 47. It’s a Santorum v. Romney match up at this point in time.
The beauty with having a brokered convention is that it will occur after the dem convention and we’ll see what changes, if any the democrats make.
If polling is looking bad for Obama he might add Hillary to the ticket. It would be awkward for him to make the switch if the GOP has a brokered convention and he’s suddenly up against the Palin-West team.
Memo to parksstp. Texas has no control over its primary date. Texas elections are under the control of Federal Judges Orlando Garcia, Xavier Rodrigues, and US Attorneys Holder and Perez. It is (almost) that simple.
ingtar: A brokered convention means that the GOP-E is calling all the shots.
advertising guy; a brokered convention puts Sarah in play and she knows it
LOL...........
Right now the thinking is all over the place. Brokered will be give and take by a lots of folks in order to find an agreeable nominee. We’ll see if it comes to that.
Cain’s slap and tickle stuff was true so ....Cain...not so much.....lol
Saint Rick is dreaming if he believes he can win a brokered convention. He can’t even win his home states.
RE: If polling is looking bad for Obama he might add Hillary to the ticket.
How will dumping Joe Biden make him look like?
money boss....lots of cubby holed money if’n we get a brokered and bet this......it is wild west open if that happens
I don't think the GOPe would have any objection to a Romney/Santorum ticket. My speculation was along the lines that Santorum will have some substantial bargaining power; and that the GOPe would rather Santorum be on the ticket, than Gingrich. That, plus Romney is likely to enter the convention as the front-runner, with close to 1144 delegates. If delegates bleed off to Santorum, then there will be quite an incentive to combine Romney and Santorum.
Hillary is out...she knows the Kenyan is illegal....just ax her pac
RE: I don’t think the GOPe would have any objection to a Romney/Santorum ticket.
How will two Northeasterners play out in the south?
Everybody, check out this article. It explains a little bit about bound and unbound, brokered and open.
At this point, no matter if we have a 2 man race or a 4 man race, neither Santorum or Gingrich will be able to secure the nomination before convention. I say that they all stay in, take as many delegates as they can, keep Mitt from clinching and then make a deal right before the Convention, combine their delegates and decide who takes the lead. Of course, we still have the bound and unbound issue to deal with, as well as the Super Delegates. Question is, just how far is the Establishment willing to go to force Mitt on us?
RE: Romney/Santorum ticket.
Well, in another Rick Santorum thread, I have read REAMS of accusations against Santorum that he has sold out to the pro-life cause by endorsing Romney in 2008 (Romney of course, is the so-called born again pro-life candidate who still defends Romneycare, which among other things, pays for — ABORTION ).
Santorum running as Romney’s VP will only cement the view that he is selling out the pro-life cause of the Republican party.
How’s he going to answer that?
Don’t be putting your money on that. Seriously.
If a truly brokered convention is the result, and none of the four left is the nominee it will not be Jeb Bush.
Does Santorum "take one for the team" and putting Romney over the top in exchange for the VP slot.
I love how when Santorum abandons his stated principles, he's "taking one for the team." Nothing's ever his failing or responsibility, kinda like Obama.
If he does it before the convention he looks like a genius. As if it was all part of the plan...
If he does it after the GOP convention he’ll look weak and desperate.
What problems? I would think Santorum would be THRILLED to be vice president.
This analysis makes sense to me. In other words:
The Romney game plan is to win 1144 delegates before the convention, the Santorum game plan is to keep that from happening.
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