And the Nomination Race Begins!

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For one, you can tell by hearing him speak and reading his writings that he indeed has a brain in his head and can think for himself, unlike his elder brother. Another is that he doesn't have a reputation for pandering to the baser elements of his party. And yet another is that he recently made waves when he said the following:

I may not agree with all of his positions, but he is clearly a pragmatic, thoughtful man. Two qualities that simultaneously make the Republican base distrust him and the rest of the country at ease with him. It speaks volumes about the state of the party that these recent remarks were met with outrage and accusations of betrayal from much of the right. But that's how deeply into madness and unreality the GOP activist base has descended.

 

I saw Christie interviewed a while back -- he was saying he wasn't gonna try to get the Republican nomination. I thought he came across really well -- not a blowhard or a psycho. Like Romney, he came across like someone who had been a successful Governor and would bring that skill set to other offices. I'd support him before I'd support rabid psychos like Santorum or Gingrich.

 

If there actually is a brokered convention, it's not just possible, but likely that they'll pick someone who isn't among the current candidates. If they want to pick one of them, they'll orchestrate it ahead of time - not unlike how Hillary did it 2008 - when Obama was nominated through proclamation.

(To be fair, Obama did have a majority of delegates at the time of the convention, but not a super-majority as is usual. Hillary won enough states to garner nearly 40% of the delegate votes, and parties like to have their candidate look like the "unanimous" - for lack of a better term - choice. They want to at least give the appearance that the party is solidly behind the candidate.)

I honestly don't think it matters who runs in 2012. While it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for Obama since he took office, the economy is improving at the exact time he needs it to. If we keep adding jobs to the economy like we have over the past few months, it won't matter who the Republicans nominate.

Then factor in the incumbent advantage. One of the benefits to Obama of the Republican nomination dragging on for a long time is that it costs a lot of money to campaign. By wrapping up the nomination early, you can continue fund raising, and save up for the general election. Obama is fund raising right now as well, but he isn't spending anything yet. He'll have a war chest by the time the general election campaign ramps up.

Here's some numbers to put this in perspective. Of Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich, none have more than $8 million in cash on hand. They've been fund raising like crazy, but they've also been spending a lot of it on advertising, staffers, and campaign offices in various states. Public law requires all candidates to present the amount of money they have raised at least monthly. That's why we know of these figures, and Obama is required to release his figures as well. Obama has already raised $97 million - and he won't be spending any of that any time soon. This is not at all uncommon though - if we look back to the last time we had an incumbent running for re-election (W in 2004), Bush's number at a comparable point in the campaign was $103 million.

He has to say that at this point. It's too late in the process for him to get on the ballot in many states. In fact, he can't get on the ballot for any state voting on Super Tuesday. Even if he campaigned hard, his odds would be very long trying to win as a write-in candidate. Plus, it still remains unclear whether or not Romney or Santorum won't finish with a majority of the delegates. In such a case, it would be unprecedented for him to be nominated at the convention. For now, his only option is to bide his time and see what happens. (Personally, I don't know why he'd throw his hat into the ring at this point. His chances look more favorable in 2016.)

 

If he can, it will certainly help, but so far I'm not sure the US is on solid ground either. Unemployment was decreasing for a while, but the same thing happened on and off for a while before, as per this graph. On the other hand, it's usually winters that are hard and then things pick up during the spring.

If unemployment falls at least 1% in the year before the elections, Obama will have a huge advantage (afaik a similar thing happened in 1984). On the other hand, if things go bad just before the election, and there isn't an obvious reason why it has nothing to do with his policies, he might have it hard. I imagine he's keeping his fingers crossed that things stay calm on our end of the Atlantic.

 

I doubt it will drop that much. The economic predictions for this year are good, but they're not that good. Still as long as the economy is in decent shape - as in no worse than it is currently - Obama should be fine. Joe Biden was recently asked about the election year and the campaigning to start soon and what he thought about it. He quipped: "Osama is dead, and GM isn't."

 

@ LKD,

Christie isn't so much the typical Rush Limbaugh / Donald Trump kind of blowhard. Blowhard may not even be the right word. He's more of a lose one's temper and chew somebody a new a-hole at a news conference kind of blowhard. As he's done on several occasions. It's this kind of "straight talk, no bs, screw political correctness, no more Mr. Nice Guy" kind of schtick that endears him to conservatives so much, and he's clearly smart and capable. But he doesn't have the kind of temperance required to be an effective chief executive. He's not the most popular guy in his own state, either, so there's that. I generally like Christie, though - I just don't see him in the oval office. I don't think he does either, despite the pressure he's getting.

@ Aldeth

Agreed.

 

The interview with Christie I saw was several months ago, maybe even a year.

I guess I am a stereotypical Con, then, because I like the idea of straight, no PC talk.

 

BS...er, I mean...Straight talk? Right...that's it.

He just believes his own brand of BS with conviction and doesn't like to be disagreed with much. He has no patiece for debate.

 

Romney won easily in Arizona - as expected (in fact he out-performed his polling numbers) - and narrowly in Michigan - and I suppose that's as expected too, as the polls were incredibly tight in the days leading up to the contest. Polls had Romney up 2% in the days preceding the primary - within the margin of error, so "too close to call" - and he ended up winning by 3%.

That said, Michigan is one of the states that isn't a "winner take all" system. The way it works in Michigan is that there are 30 delegates at stake. Michigan is divided into 14 Congressional Districts. You get two delegates for each Congressional District you win, and then the winner of the entire state gets two more. (So in theory, it is possible to "win" the state as a whole, and still come out with fewer delegates - not that this happened in this case.)

Romney won eight districts, and Santorum won six. So Romney gets two delegates for each district, and the bonus two for winning the state overall, for a total of 18 delegates. Santorum walks away with 12. Tuesday is "Super Tuesday". There's a big slate of states that hold their primary that day, and we'll know a lot more then. The polling has been relatively light in those states up until now, but here's the breakdown, of states that have had at least two polls so far.

Virginia - Romney is a lock to win here. Neither Gingrich or Santorum qualified for the ballot there. So the only names you can pick from - unless you so chose to write them in - are Romney and Paul. Virginia requires you to collect 10,000 signatures to appear on the ballot by November 1st - that's a heck of a lot more and a heck of a lot earlier than most other states. Looks to me like the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns dropped the ball on this one.

Georgia - Gingrich is still ahead by a mile. He's got a 12% lead over Santorum, and a 20% lead over Romney, but that's the only state Gingrich is likely to win next week.

Oklahoma - Santorum is ahead by over 20% to both Gingrich and Romney - he looks very safe there.

Tennessee - Santorum is ahead by 17% on Romney, and no one else is even in double digits - it's not a lock, but things look very good for Santorum here too. Tennessee isn't winner take all unless one candidate gets over 50%, which looks unlikely at the moment, so Romney is likely to get some delegates.

Ohio - for a while this one was essentially a 3-way tie, but more recent polling places Santorum about 8% ahead of Romney, with both of them way ahead of Gingrich. Obviously, more people who hopped off the Newt bandwagon went to Santorum. Every recent poll in Ohio has had Santorum ahead, and beyond to poll's margin of error, so he should win, but like Michigan, Ohio isn't "winner take all", so Romney will likely walk away with a portion of the delegates.

The other states to vote on Super Tuesday, but for which no reliable polling data is available:

Alaska - winner take all - I'm guessing Santorum has an advantage here
Idaho - winner take all - I'm guessing Santorum again
Massachusetts - not winner take all, but Romney should clean up anyway
North Dakota - winner take all - simply based on demographics, this looks like an easy win for Santorum
Vermont - not winner take all, but Romney should perform very well
Washington - winner take all (they actually vote Saturday) - other than knowing Romney polls well on the west coast, I don't know which way the Republican electorate leans here, so I guess I'd give Romney the advantage.

 

Idaho has a huge Mormon vote. Romney.

 

A point that I had not previously considered. (Mostly because I didn't realize the Mormon population of Idaho was particularly large.)

I've done some research on it since your post, and I wanted to find out comparatively, how large the Mormon vote is in Idaho. For example, the number of voters identifying themselves as Mormon is about the same in California as it is in Utah - in both cases there's about half a million. However, since the overall population in Utah is much smaller than California - 2.8 million versus 37.7 million - the impact of the Mormon vote is much larger in Utah. If anything, the half a million probably understates the impact of the Utah voting block. Not everyone in that 2.8 million people is eligible to vote, and Mormons as a group are more politically active, being more likely to vote than the typical voter.

Since about 77% if Mormons vote Republican nationwide, this can have a large impact on elections. More so in states like Utah, where they form a significant portion of the electorate. Less so in states like California - as a whole there isn't enough of them to swing an election unless it was going to be a very close vote to begin with.

So the question - and I haven't been able to find an answer to this - is Idaho more like Utah in which the Mormons represent a significant percentage of the electorate, and therefore can dominate an election if they line up behind a particular candidate, or is it more like California where they can influence an election, but not decide it unless it's close? I imagine the answer lies somewhere in the middle, but knowing where it's closer to would help. And I still haven't seen any polls from Idaho either.

 

I would say Idaho has a higher Mormon population by percentage.

 

Idaho has pooploads of Mormons in terms of percentages, but to my knowledge it isn't a populous State to begin with. A win there won't do much for anyone in terms of delegate numbers. It might do something minor in terms of optics.

One of the guys I served my mission with was from Idaho. He was a first class douchebag, but that's not really relevant here. He told me that Idaho has more millionaires per capita than any other state. Not sure if that still holds true or if it ever was true, but if millionaires tend to vote for other financially successful people, then that might be a boost for Mitt.

On an unrelated note, could Romney and Santorum ever cut a deal and have one be second place on the ticket? It would help unify the party!

 

Is there a reason why they wouldn't? I thought picking a VP from among the other presidential contenders was one of the more usual practices.

 

As has already been stated, it's quite common. Biden ran for president in 2008 before being selected VP. In 2004, Edwards ran for president before becoming the VP nomination. If you want to go back a few years, Reagan picked the first Bush as his VP, and Bush had against him in the primary. Of course, it doesn't always work that way. Dick Cheney never sought the nomination. While Lieberman attempted to run for president AFTER his nomination as Gore's VP, I do not think he ran in 2000. So there is evidence for and against such a theory. It wouldn't be unprecedented.

The other thing that you do is try to go opposite in you VP pick. Since Romney is considered a moderate among the GOP, it would make sense to pick a VP that was more extreme in their views - not unlike McCain picking Palin in 2008. Then again, "going opposite" is the 2nd rule. The first rule is "do no harm" when you pick a VP, and the lesson from 2008 is obvious. So we'll see.

On that note, I'm now looking at Romney's nomination as more or less inevitable. I don't think there's going to be a brokered convention. He has more endorsements, more money, a more organized campaign - and here's the important parts - has won more states and more delegates than any of the other contenders. Super Tuesday is tomorrow, and he did win Washington state yesterday to improve his standing. Unless something totally shocking happens tomorrow, his lead will only expand. Yes, there's 10 states to vote, but because Gingrich and Santorum failed to qualify for the ballot in Virginia, and Massachusetts being up for a vote too, Romney is essentially starting with two wins already.

 

I think Santorum would alienate the moderate vote. A Romney/Santorum ticket would be slightly better than the McCain/Palin ticket (and still lose). Romney needs to pick a well respected, slightly moderate running mate -- a woman or minority would be preferable. But he won't.

 

Oh going back to Idaho for a moment - 538 reports that Idaho's percentage of Mormon voters is 27%. That's the second highest in the nation after Utah.

 

Why not? Who WILL he pick, do you think? Or, put another way, what kind of VP will he pick?

And I should clarify -- I know that it is theoretically possible for a brokerage to occur -- my question was, given the animosity between the two, could they ever reconcile to the point of being on the same ticket?

One thing I don't like about Romney is his heavy use of attack ads. The sad fact is that they work -- stating your own position and focussing on your own strengths doesn't seem to work anymore, more's the pity.

That said, he's gone after his opponents so hard, I wonder if he's inflicting irreparable damage on the GOP.

 

There is no doubt that he's inflicting damage, what's unclear is whether this is a transient change or of the irreparable damage you state. Of special concern in that poll is that 40% of respondents in the poll have a more negative view of the GOP after this drawn out primary, 63% of respondents (including 69% of independents and 56% of Republicans) when asked to describe the primary process in one or two words used negative words like “Unenthusiastic,” “discouraged,” “lesser of two evils,” “painful,” and "disappointed.”

Also troublesome - his favorability/unfavorability splits are worse than almost all recent presidential hopefuls: it’s 28%/39% (and 22%/38% among indies). Obama was 51%/28% and McCain was 47%/27%, per the March 2008 NBC/WSJ poll; Kerry was 42%/30% at this point in ’04; George W. Bush was 43%/32% in 2000; and Bob Dole was 35%/39%. Obama has a net unfavorable right now too - but it's only -2%. Romney's is -11%.

The one point of solace for Romney is that unlike Obama, there are still a lot of people who haven't made a decision on him. Per the latest survey, Obama is 44/46, meaning only 10% of the respondents don't have an established position on him. With Romney at 28/39, nearly 1/3 of all voters haven't made up their minds, so it's possible if he gets a lot of undecideds to break his way this can improve.

I don't think we're on the path to a brokered convention - Romney is on a glide to the nomination. He's going to have at least half the delegates come convention time. In a lucky break for him on Super Tuesday, most of the states he leads in are "winner take all" states, and most of the states he's behind in offer proportional allocation, provided you get at least 20% of the vote. Take Oklahoma for example. Even though Santorum is a sure winner there, he'll likely only get 2/3 of the delegates. You get three delegates for each Congressional district, but these can be divided up 2-1 or even 1-1-1. Then the overall winner gets his proportional share of the other 25 at large delegates.

So Romney gets all of them in states he wins (like Virginia), and he still gets some of them in states he loses (like Tennessee and Oklahoma).

 

I think the top three VP prospects are Rubio, Christie and Santorum. Thune is often discussed as is Ryan along with Haley. I don't know if I'd classify any of these as moderate, but there is some diversity in the group. Although I don't think he can pull enough moderate votes to win with any of these running mates.

I think if you look at where Romney is weak (foreign policy) the choice for VP becomes somewhat obvious -- Rice. But I doubt he'll do that.

I ultimately think Romney will choose someone meeting the "white, male, affluent" criteria. And he'll lose if he does.