Posted on 03/14/2012 8:40:27 AM PDT by Iron Munro
Despite his losses in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries, Mitt Romney appears to have expanded his delegate lead on Tuesday.
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.)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It is up to the states to a large extent. We need to influence our states to allocate delegates in certain ways by taking control of the party infrastructure.
The national GOP could only play a certain role by trying to establish rules about when states can go. It might be a good idea to give stiffer penalties to states that break the rules. The Dems show no mercy and if a state breaks the rules, they lose all of their delegates. Ironically, I think that is probably more conservative than the way the GOP has it where it greatly advantaged Florida to go winner-take-all with half of its delegates over proportional with a full complement.
So if Newt throws his support for Santorum since Santorum is so much further ahead of him, what are the chances that will prevent Romney from getting the nomination?
I think Hunter is head and shoulders over all of them and I don’t believe he would have burned out. He’s a Reagan Republican who walks the walk (military service, supported REagan in 1976, no adultery problems) whose philosophy has remained stable for 30 years. None of the others have that going for them, but alas, bad timing on his part.
Slim; but if Newt persists, as I think he will, it's "none".
Is it possible Newt needs to stay in legally, so he can blow his remaining campaing funds on negative ads attacking Romney? If he publically drops out, he becomes like an advocacy organization, and might then see the FEC start sniffing around to see if he meets their various requirements.
To me, his campaign’s statement sounds like he wants his voters to do whatever they can to stop Romney from reaching 1140 (by voting for Santorum in the winner take alls), while he keeps a toe in the water so he can legally keep running anti-Romney advertisements, dragging him down.
I’m thinking Newt wants to win, and wants to hurt Romney. The best way to do both is to drop out and let Santorum take enough delegates to send it to the floor. But he isn’t doing that, making me think he may be looking at some legal requirement to be running an active campaign in order to run ads against Romney.
Newt’s a genius level IQ at this. Either he’s helping the establishment crown Romney (highly unlikely) or he has some devious plan which he thinks will work better to trigger a convention battle than simply dropping out. I hope he’s right, whatever his plan.
CW - I don’t think he’s scamming. If I could hand the nomination to Newt today personally, I would, to stop Romney.
The bottom line is both Newt and Santorum are finished in the battle for an uncontested nomination. Neither can pull it out, numerically, if we trust the numbers we are seeing. I don’t know who is voting for Romney, or who “organization” can count for so much, but he is getting enough traction that he will get the nomination clean as it stands today.
If Newt’s and Santorum’s people both unite, and vote for just one of those two, that person won’t win the nomination, but they will keep Mitt low enough on delegates that it will go to the floor of the convention. Newt has a much greater chance there than Santorum, and I think Romney would be much more likley to lose than Santorum.
That is our choice, and if you read between the lines of Newt’s campaign’s statement, it is what they are saying. Keep Romney below 1100 delegates above all else, and then send it to the convention.
If you oppose Romney, it is the only option, and if you stick to only playing the winner take all contests, it doesn’t cost your candidate.
Slim; but if Newt persists, as I think he will, it's "none".
I agree although I might put it at a higher chance than slim. It's at least a 50/50 chance to throw it to a floor fight if Rick says Newt's his V.P. and Newt continues campaigining for Rick aggressively. This might have to happen before Illinois next week...69 delegates which will all go to Romney if the current poll numbers hold across all districts. I don't think we can afford to lose that many from one of the states we have a solid chance in.
Newt’s a genius level IQ at this.
Problem is he said a couple things this week that were not correct. He indicated Ron Paul's delegates might join with him, which most people following this race closely don't think is true. He also specifically said it won't hurt Rick if he stays in the race because these contests are proportional. But going forward, 2 out of every 3 delegates are in some form of winner-take-all contests (granted a few of those stay proportional if the winner doesn't get 50%). I've seen a lot of people, even the experts claim the winner-take-all-by-district states are "proportional" which is highly misleading if not flat out incorrect. I've seen people as expert as Dick Morris get on TV and flub which states are proportional or winner-take-all. I've seen no one explain why the rules in PA, IL and WV make those contests essentially winner-take-all-by-district. So there's a lot of confusion about these races. No doubt Newt is relying on advisors and analysts to analyze them, and they may be giving him bad or incomplete advice. Would most staffers ever advise their candidate they should drop out?
If a wake-up call is going to come, it could happen in Illinois next week, where Romney is currently leading with a plurality in Clinton/Bush/Perot fashion. But it could be too late by then if Romney sweeps all the Illinois delegates that way. If the analysis shows that Newt + Rick's votes combined would have taken all those delegates from Romney, then it might become pretty clear that these guys are definitely splitting the vote with negative consequences.
Sure, but the Republican Party must be punished in that manner, if Romney was selected for the Republic Party.
we need to
Make the primaries closed.
Get rid of the caucus
Outcomes need to be proportional to the votes.
No superdelegates.
Newt should just withdraw from certain states, maybe Texas, California, and New York...three big states or the maybe in the winner-take-all states. He could still stay in the race just not in all the states and thus stay vocal and heard until the convention. I think a brokered convention would be outstanding. More free publicity for the Right and make the dem convention look dead.
“Romney cannot win in “the South”. Period.”
But you believe that BO will carry many southern states against any GOP nominee? i think the evangelicals just might hold their nose and vote Romney against the Democratic pseudo Christian.
“I do vote my faith....and it isn’t mittens nor barry, one of a kind.”
do you actually believe that Romney and BO have the same faith; or is it that neither have the faith of yours?
“I will certainly refuse to vote for either of those anti-American...”
please provide references for calling Romney anti-American? he may be a lot of things, but i’ve never heard him called anti-American before.
Go Newt!
“Heck, I’d vote for Donald Duck over Obama.”
Amen.
If it could be executed and he picked the right states, it would work. But we already saw him in OH and MI still pull enough votes away from Rick to make Mitt the winner even though he wasn’t actively competing.
I want a contested convention too and the numbers seem to indicate it won’t happen unless we change from a 3-man to a 2-man race. It’s difficult to predict without having a poll for every single district in the states where allocation is at the district level, but my quick run through the numbers said with Newt and Rick’s votes consolidated under one candidate, they could move 100-250 delegates from Romney to them. Projections in the current race have Mitt hitting around 1,100 delegates, which Newt said would be enough to make him the nominee. Newt said on Greta this week that if Romney is only 30-50 delegates short of 1,144, then Romney will be the nomniee.
“I dont intend to hire him ...”
then just hire BO again if Romney is the nominee, and see how that works out for America. prayers for enlightenment.
America was founded on the principles of life and liberty. Romney governed as a pro-abortion and pro-socialized medicine governor. Therefore Romney is anti-American. Those fees he hiked to increase state revenues also put a major dent in the "pursuit of happiness."
Folks, it’s gonna be Romney or Obama. Make your choice. Please, no blathering about there being no difference between Romney and Obama - there is quite a lot of difference. Saying there isn’t is just a cheap and easy way of avoiding looking at the issues.
With Obama we know what we get: more government, more business killing regulations, more Solindras, more unions, more deficits, more religion bashing (except the Moslems), more Obama crony deals, more MSM worship, more Obamacare, more anti-family programs, more indoctrination of our school children, more windmills and less common sense energy programs, more lies on top of lies...it just goes on and on.
With Romney, much of the above, and a lot of stuff I didn’t mention will be a lot better, certainly better than 4 more years of The One.
Grouse all you want but do the right thing on election day, please.
I FEAR:
BROKERED CONVENTION = OBAMA REELECTION
Now you all have got me sounding like Jesse Jackson.Ugh.
ABO. No MSM convention drama please!
Romney Nomination = Obama Re-Election
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