Monthly Archives: February 2012

Will Maine Make Plain Romney’s Lead Is On the Wane?

Probably not.

Tomorrow Maine holds its nonbinding presidential preference vote, which comes at the end of a week-long series of caucuses held state wide that is the first step in choosing the 24 delegates that will represent Maine at the national convention. Ten of those delegates are chosen statewide, six are allocated (three apiece) to the state’s two congressional districts, and there are three unpledged party delegates and five bonus delegates. But the actual delegates will not be chosen until district meetings and the state convention are held in May.

Although this is a rather small number of delegates, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are not taking Maine for granted. Mitt flew there tonight and and just concluded his speech at his first event. Paul, meanwhile, has been actively organizing in the state, in the hope that he can secure his first “victory” in tomorrow’s straw poll. Remember, Romney easily “won” Maine in 2008, and Paul finished a distant third. This time, however, there’s more pressure on both of them to do well because of the added media scrutiny following Romney’s disastrous performance in the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses last Tuesday, and Paul’s generally lackluster caucus performances in the race to date.

Neither Gingrich nor Santorum are actively contesting Maine, although it will be interesting to see whether the positive coverage Santorum has received because of Tuesday’s victories will generate some positive feedback in the straw poll.

Although Maine is next door to two states – New Hampshire and Maine – that have strongly supported Romney, its people tend to be a bit more iconoclastic, particularly those in the less populated 2^nd congressional district that stretches to the Canadian border. It’s possible that Paul’s libertarian message will strike a chord here among the lakes, pines and moose. Remember, Maine’s Governor Paul LePage is a Republican affiliated with the Tea Party. Although he hasn’t endorsed anyone, his election reflects the strength of the state’s populist conservative movement. Paul is going to try to mobilize those voters. Although news accounts suggest he is well organized in Maine, this is the same refrain I’ve heard in several caucus states, and yet the promise has never been matched by the results. I’m beginning to think the media is simply guessing that he’s well organized, but without any real independent evidence to support the claim. Maybe they think he’s organized because of all the emails and blogs comments his supporters make.

Romney will likely do better in the state’s more southerly 1st congressional district which contains more traditional Republicans. In his speech this evening he stressed a few broad themes designed to appeal to them: attacking Obama and teachers’ unions, promising to expand the Navy (that plays well in Maine) and defending his off-shore accounts against hecklers.

Note that the straw poll is taken among the state’s roughly 4,000 Republican caucus delegates, so winning 50% of the vote means getting about 2,000 votes. Keep this in mind when you see Wolf Blitzer start using the “upset” word tomorrow night. In this vein, a victory here for either Paul or Romney will have more symbolic meaning than substantive value. But at this point, symbolism matters if it helps shape media coverage and changes the narrative in a way the benefits either Paul or Romney. Both CNN and MSNBC are covering this tomorrow as if it does matter. So we will too. I’ll try to be on sometime early in the evening to do a postscript on the straw poll.

I’ve been on something of a prediction roll and, because it’s tradition, I’ll go ahead and call this one for Romney to beat Paul 55%-35%. But frankly, given the small numbers and lack of any polling, that’s little more than a guess and should be treated as such.

In the meantime, I thought it might be interesting to give you a flavor of what life in Maine’s northern woods is really like. Here’s one of Maine’s fabled guides practicing his “moose call”. It’s pretty effective:

Just some real Maine humor there. Seriously, this next clip will give you some insight into the average Maine voter in that neck of the woods:

Those two are Paul voters, for sure.

The Delegate Race: Where the Candidates Stand

Although we are only seven contests into the Republican nomination process, eyes are already focusing on the all-important delegate count. As most of you know, to win the Republican nomination, a candidate must accumulate 1,144 delegates. So where do the candidates stand? It’s understandable if you answer “I’m not sure.” Consider the delegate counts presented by four different sources: NPR, the Washington Post, CNN and RealClearPolitics. I’ve listed their online delegate counts in the following table:

Candidate	CNN	WAPO	NPR	RCP
Romney	115	112	73	90
Gingrich	35	32	29	32
Santorum	34	72	8	44
Paul	20	9	3	13

Why the different totals? Aren’t they watching the same contests? In fact, they are. However, there are two major sources of discrepancies. One issue is whether to count the so-called un-pledged delegates. These are the 123 Republican Party members who are automatically selected as delegates, but who are not necessarily pledged to any particular candidate. Some of those delegates have endorsed a candidate already and, in these cases, some sources count the endorsements in their tally, but others do not. Should we count those endorsements? The Democratic race in 2008 may provide some guidance. You will recall that early in the race many party leaders backed Hillary Clinton. But when it became clear that Obama was ahead of Clinton in the delegate race, they switched their support to him. It’s not hard to believe that a similar process may take place in this election cycle. So, it’s quite likely that endorsements today may change down the road.

A bigger source of discrepancy, however, comes from decisions regarding how to appraise the caucus results. To date, of the seven Republican contests, four have been caucuses: Iowa, Nevada, Minnesota and Colorado. Not coincidentally, Rick Santorum has won three of the four. However, formally speaking, no delegates have been awarded in any of them. Instead, in all four states only the first of a three-step process has taken place; an initial slate of delegates has been selected at the precinct level, but they will in turn attend county-level meetings, which in turn will select representatives to the state-level convention. The actual delegates who will attend the Republican convention are chosen in that final state-level step.

Some sources, such as NPR, have decided not to award the “winners” of the caucus states any delegates. There are sound reasons for exercising such caution. Consider Nevada. In 2008, Mitt Romney won an overwhelming victory in the first stage of the Nevada caucus. However, before the second step – the county-level meetings – took place, Romney had dropped out of the race. When the precinct-level delegates attended the county meetings, Ron Paul supporters flooded the county-level meetings in an effort to win over Romney’s delegates. (In some cases, the Romney delegates didn’t show up). Party leaders who supported McCain, who by this time had clearly won the Republican nomination, were forced to reschedule the county-level meetings in an effort to prevent the Paulistas from claiming Nevada’s delegates.

It’s not hard to see how something similar might happen in this election cycle. If Santorum drops out before the county-level meetings take place in Iowa, Minnesota or Colorado, his precinct-level delegates may opt to back another candidate. Given this possibility, it’s understandable why NPR is not willing to give Santorum any delegates for his caucus victories. On the other hand, his “victories” in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado, aren’t entirely meaningless; they position him to claim the bulk of these state delegates if he stays in the race and his precinct-level delegates remain committed through the county and state conventions.

So, which source is “right”? They all are – as long as you understand the criteria on which the delegate calculation is based. My preference is to take the conservative route and exclude the caucus results from delegate calculations. But there are valid reasons to include the caucus results in the delegate calculations.

No matter which route you take, however, there is a long way to go before the Republican nomination will be decided. And, as I’ll discuss in a future post – it’s not clear that the nominee will be decided before the Republican convention.

Rick VestWearer Battles Mitt Vader and the Romney Empire: The State of the Race Today

Longtime readers have heard me harp on Mitt Romney’s weaknesses as a candidate for several weeks now, so last night’s results, in which Rick Santorum beat the Mittster in the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses, and in the largely meaningless primary in Missouri, likely did not surprise you. (Well, Colorado surprised me – but not too much). Keep in mind, however, that because the punditocracy has been peddling the Romney-inevitability narrative for so long, Romney’s losses are a surprise to them. (Remember CNN’s Will Cain prattling on about Romney’s “breakthrough” among conservatives in Nevada? Some breakthrough!) And that means they will inevitably overreact to the Rickster’s victory by proclaiming that we now face a new electoral landscape, with Mitt suddenly vulnerable.

This is nonsense, of course. Romney remains what he has always been: a flawed front-runner – but the front-runner nonetheless. This is not saying he can’t be beat. Nevada notwithstanding, he has never demonstrated to me that he can expand his base much beyond the numbers he pulled in 2008 and I trust I have cited enough data to have persuaded you of this even before yesterday’s results. Again, his root problem is the authenticity issue, and we saw that on display last night, in his concession speech, where he introduced a new theme: his father’s humble roots, and once again trotted out that “I’m not part of Washington” line. Neither really works for him. His father may have been from humble roots, but Mitt assuredly is not. And the reason he is not a career politician is not for lack of trying; he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1994, served a term as Massachusetts governor, and has been running for president for five years. Against this backdrop his “I’m a man of the people” claim rings slightly hollow.

But let’s not over react and suddenly anoint Santorum as the new frontrunner. To begin, the low turnout in yesterday’s caucuses suggest that Rick did not exactly energize the base. In Colorado, turnout dropped from about 70,000 in 2008 to roughly 65,000 yesterday, and it was also down in Minnesota (I don’t have final turnout figures there as yet, but with 95% of precincts in, about 48,000 votes were counted, compared to 62,000 in 2008.) So it’s not as if Santorum’s wins were the product of exciting voters the way that Gingrich did in South Carolina. The Missouri vote, as I noted last night, is very misleading because of a) the exceedingly low turnout one would expect in a beauty contest with no delegates at stake and b) Gingrich was not on the ballot. In short, as you might expect of a social conservative, Santorum has done best in low turnout caucus states that tend to be dominated by activists, but he has not done well in the bigger primaries that attract the less committed voters. Until he demonstrates broader appeal, I’m not going to turn in my Tom Brady Patriots jersey for a sweater vest quite yet.

So where does the race stand? Just where it was before yesterday: Mitt is the weak frontrunner who faces an extended battle for the nomination, but who will remain the frontrunner if the Republican base doesn’t rally around a single alternative. Note that we can’t be sure of the delegate count until the final votes are tallied in Minnesota, but no matter what happens Romney will remain in the delegate lead. It may be more instructive at this point, however, to look at the popular vote totals. To date Romney has won about 1.1 million votes, compared to about .8 for Gingrich and only 430,000 for the Rickster. Paul trails the field with 305,000 votes. I think that’s probably a relatively accurate barometer of their strengths as candidates right now.

The race now heads to Maine, which concludes its caucus this Saturday. I expect Romney to hold on there, but it will be interesting to see how much support Paul receives. The underplayed story of the race so far, I think, is how poorly Paul has performed in the caucus states. He finished third in Iowa, third in Nevada, second in Minnesota and – at this point – will finish last in Colorado. He has vowed to take the race to the convention, and he still may do so – but the idea that he is going to arrive there with a huge chunk of delegates accumulated in the caucus states now looks increasingly farfetched.

Gingrich, meanwhile, is right where we expected him to be: treading water during the month of February while he waits for the campaign to move to more favorable locales. The punditocracy is speculating that Rick has replaced Newt as the non-Mitt but the data as yet don’t support that conclusion. In national polls, Santorum remains in third place behind Gingrich, although he may get a boost in the national standings, which remain relatively fluid, from yesterday’s results. The Rickster may also benefit from the Obama administration’s recent ruling that health insurance plans must cover birth control and from a backlash among social conservatives responding to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals 2-1 decision overturning California’s ban on gay marriage. In the long run, however, this is still an election that will turn on the economy more than social issues.

After Saturday, the road ahead leads on February 28 to Arizona and Michigan, both states in which Romney is expected to do well. (Mitt won Michigan in 2008 and finished second to McCain in Arizona). While Arizona is a winner-take-all state, Michigan allocates its delegates in more proportional fashion, using a combination of winner-take-all at the congressional district level and proportional allocation statewide. Given these differences, look for Rick to ignore Arizona and instead try to steal some delegates in Michigan from Mitt by making his populist economic pitch. In the interim, however, Romney will load up the big SuperPac gun and take dead aim at Rick who, by virtue of his two terms as Senator, has a long and inviting voting record to attack.

Bottom line? I expect Mitt Vader and the Romney Empire To Strike Back with all the force the Dark Side can muster against Young Rick VestWearer. The next two weeks won’t be pretty.

And then comes March 6. May the Political Force Be With You.

Live Blogging Caucus Tuesday

7:55 We are on, watching the CNN feed and scouring the internets. Keep in mind that there are no entrance polls tonight, but I will be doing some analysis of the few polls that have been in the field while waiting for precinct results to come in. I laid out some of the background earlier tonight. Note that Michele Bachmann was on earlier tonight and claimed that the Minnesota caucus was too close to call. That means we may be in for a long night – but of course, Nevada was easy to call but we still were in for a long night. Colorado, on the other hand, shouldn’t be as close – if it is, that means it will likely be a long night for Mitt. Meanwhile, the Missouri polls shouldn’t close until 9 p.m. eastern time, if I remember correctly.

Note that in 2008 Romney won Minnesota easily, with 41% of the vote, compared to McCain’s 22% and Huckabee’s 20%. At that time, however, Romney was positioning himself to the Right of McCain. This time he’s viewed as the most moderate candidate, so it’s not clear that he can reprise that performance in a caucus that historically has been dominated by conservative activists. One thing to eye tonight is turnout – in 2008 about 60,000 people attended the Republican caucus. So far, Romney’s victories have not occurred with high turnout.

CORRECTION: Missouri’s polls closed at 8 p.m. eastern time, not 9 p.m. as I indicated above. Remember, however, there’s no exit polls tonight, so it may be some time before results are reported. Also, Gingrich is not on the ballot in Missouri.

Meanwhile, Romney has set up headquarters tonight in Colorado, where he expects to do better. In 2008, he swept to a convincing victory in Colorado, winning 61% of the vote, easily besting McCain who finished a distant second with 18% of the vote, while Huckabee drew 13%. Mitt is hoping to reprise that performance tonight. Again, turnout is of interest – about 70,000 voters turned out in 2008.

The CNN feed is slightly behind what the Missouri Secretary of State’s office is reporting – it has Rick up with almost 50% of the vote, with a whopping .04 of the precincts reporting. One total to look at in Missouri is the “uncommitted” vote, which may be a stand-in for Gingrich’s support. Interestingly, in 2008 McCain barely won Missouri, with 33% of the vote, only 1% more than Huckabee’s 32% and 4% more than Romney 29%. Turnout was high, with over half a million participants.

I haven’t said much about Ron Paul as yet, but in some respects he has more at stake tonight than anyone. He’s boasted that his superior organization will begin to pay dividends in the caucus states, but he really underperformed in Nevada. In her interview with CNN earlier tonight, Bachmann claimed that Paul was very well organized in Minnesota, but I have no way of verifying her claim.

I’ve noted earlier that we don’t have entrance polls tonight. We also don’t have much in the way of polling data. Keep in mind that given the very low turnout in caucus proceedings, it is much harder for polling companies to find a credible sample of likely voters. PPP did poll all three states that are holding events tonight and, with the caveat that these are polls, the result may be instructive. In Missouri, PPP had Santorum up with 45% to 32% for Mitt Romney and 19% for Paul. He also leads in Minnesota, but in a much closer race, according to PPP; Santorum has 33%, Romney 24%, Gingrich 22% and Paul 20%. In Colorado, Romney is at 37%, Santorum at 27%, Gingrich at 21%, and Paul at 13%.

Interestingly Paul is the only one of the four candidates who has a negative favorable/unfavorable ratio in Colorado. In Minnesota, all four candidates are viewed favorably (according to the PPP poll), but Santorum is viewed as the most favorable, with 74% viewing him favorably. He’s winning 37% among the 33% of those who consider themselves supporters of the Tea Party, and 41% among the 49% who describe themselves evangelicals. Gignrich is second in both categories. This represents a reversal of what we saw in the southern states, where Gingrich beat Santorum among Tea Partiers and Evangelicals. This suggests that there may be a regional difference in Santorum’s and Gingrich’s support among these two groups.

9:10 With 10% of the precincts reported in Missouri, (we are ahead of the CNN site), Santorum is winning 50% of the meaningless vote, compared to Romney’s 27%. Wolf is hyping this as an “upset” but on what basis I have no idea. It appears, however, that CNN is going to report these results as if they really matter – which means they may in fact end up mattering in terms of perceptions.

I’d like to give you a sense of what the early returns mean in Minnesota, but I don’t have enough knowledge about the various regions to hazard a guess. Meanwhile, the Missouri vote is coming in pretty quickly – with over 13% of the precincts reporting, Santorum is holding steady at 50%. The uncommitted (Gingrich?) vote, meanwhile, is down at about 5.6%. Wolf continues to hype the “upset” in the making – is this how other cable stations are playing this? Keep in mind that because the Missouri vote is a beauty contest today, turnout will be nowhere near what it was in 2008, when the primary results were used to select the 58 Republican state delegates.

Wolf insists that Missouri is a huge “upset” for Santorum. Between that, and his insistence on forcing his correspondents to actually get the results from a precinct that, by itself, is one of a thousand such precincts, really speaks to how desperate they are to hype the coverage. And to top it off, Wolf notes that people are “dying in Syria” because they don’t have a caucus. I think there’s a serious point there, but it isn’t coming across.

I’m amazed how much attention the CNN pundits are paying to Missouri.

Don’t look now, but with about 3% of the Colorado vote in, Santorum is leading. If he wins there, that will be newsworthy.

By the way, the reason why Missouri’s primary is meaningless this year is because state law requires the state to hold a primary on Feb. 7, but this violates the rules of the Republican National Committee, which limits which states can have primaries before March. To resolve the conflict between party and state law, Missouri decided to hold the meaningless primary, but schedule a caucus later to actually choose the delegates. This hasn’t stopped CNN from hyping tonight’s “upset”.

Meanwhile, in other news, the Celtics are poised to win their fifth straight victory, and Paul Pierce has passed the legendary Larry Bird for second place on the all-time Celtic scoring list.

Not that it matters, but NBC is projecting that Santorum will win the Missouri primary.

Meanwhile, in real news, the Celtics have now won 9 of the last 10. Who said they were too old?

Gergen is amazed that Romney isn’t running the board. Who could have predicted this, he asks? Sigh. He doesn’t read this blog, does he?

In comparing the 2008 Minnesota map with today’s, it appears that Santorum – based on very early returns – is winning areas that Romney took in 2008. Still, I stress that it is early – only 12% of the vote is in, but Santorum is getting 44%, compared to Paul who is in second with 27%. If these results hold, the media will undoubtedly hype that Romney finished behind both Santorum and Paul.

Looking at Romney getting trounced in Missouri, and trailing in Minnesota, I am reminded of poor Will Cain going on last week regarding Romney’s “breakthrough” among Tea Partiers and evangelicals in Nevada. Some breakthrough!

So far Paul seems to be hanging in second place in Minnesota – not what he wanted, but better than the alternative. Not unexpectedly, Gingrich is not doing well in Santorum territory. I expect that pundits will suggest that he’s become the Tea Party and Evangelical frontrunner, but I’m not convinced that he’s demonstrated he can win outside the midwest, just as Gingrich hasn’t demonstrated he can win outside the south among these groups.

John King is trying to make the case that Romney’s stumbles can be compared to McCain’s in 2008. But the difference is McCain had a bigger cushion by virtue of the winner-take-all system in place four years ago. Romney can’t count on that to put his opponents away.

One other point to keep in mind – almost no money was spent by any candidates on television advertising in Colorado and Minnesota, but what was spent was expended almost entirely by Romney. And, as the CNN commentators have correctly noted, the overall spending dynamic heavily favors Romney – and yet he still hasn’t put his opponents away.

In the past as prologue symbolism, four years ago tonight Mitt Romney suspended his presidential campaign. Will he do the same tonight? (Of course not….)

For those of you who are tuning in late and who might be watching the CNN feed – contrary to Wolf’s hyperventilated reporting, there’s been no upset anywhere tonight.

Let me preface this by saying I am not familiar with the in-state voting dynamics in Minnesota. Nonetheless, as I compare the 2008 and 2012 maps, Santorum continues to win in areas that Romney took in 2008. Indeed, with about 25% of the vote in, Mitt hasn’t won a single county. He won more than half of them in 2008. This is not shaping up to be a great night for the Mittster.

By my back of the envelope calculations, it doesn’t look like turnout in Minnesota is going to beat the 2008 total by very much, if at all. I stress, however, that this is a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

OK, NBC is projecting that Santorum is going to win Minnesota – now this is big news!

Ok, somewhat late to the party, CNN is also projecting that Rick has won in Minnesota. If Mitt finishes third – as it looks like he will – this will put a real crimp in the Mitrt-as-inevitable nominee theme (and it will make me look darn good.) Keep in mind, Mitt did not pummel his opponents with negative ads here as he did when he crushed Newt in Florida…..

It’s early in Colorado, but if Rick somehow pulls off the trifecta, the punditocracy will be falling all over themselves to proclaim that the race has changed. In truth, as you’ve heard me say repeatedly, Mitt is simply not a strong candidate. But we shouldn’t overreact here and suddenly proclaim Santorum as the main alternative. As Anna can attest, he has real vulnerabilities that will undoubtedly become the focus of Mitt’s negative advertising machine in the next two weeks. Also keep in mind that Mitt is still the frontrunner in Arizona and Michigan, the two states that vote next (after Maine’s caucuses which end next Saturday).

Donna Brazile just blathered on about how turnout in Missouri tonight was dismal, completely ignoring the fact that no delegates were at stake. An absolutely stunningly stupid observation.

As expected, the talking heads are overreacting to the results tonight. Part of this is because they fed us the Romney as inevitable line for so long that this actually seems like a surprise. Part of it is because they always tend to overreact to the latest results, rather than putting them in the context of the overall race.

Ok, Santorum is on to proclaim victory, sans sweater vest! He’s pumped! Good timing here – he’s on during primetime, before the viewing audience drifts off. A nice opening shot at Mitt in Massachusetts, and the obvious move to claim the mantle of the Tea Party, and the evangelicals. And now on to the Obama bashing….this is his bid to show he’s electable.

A subtle jab here at Mitt – Rick cares about the very rich and the very poor.

(Meanwhile, with just over 40% of Minnesota’s vote in, Paul is holding on to second with Mitt still in third.)

I was waiting for the Catholic pitch in reaction to the Obama contraceptive ruling. I am curious how much this helped Santorum in these caucuses. This is serious Rick – a bit too serious, if you ask me. You’d think he’d be a bit more upbeat. (There’s a bit of humor – pledge not your life, but maybe your fortune!) I wonder if the honor is a subtle jab at Newt? He does remind us that with this victory he’s going to pull in some more money.

Colorado results are not even trickling in – shades of Nevada.

Great catch here by CNN – the man behind Rick’s shoulder was his “sugardaddy” Foster Friess, the man who is funding the pro-Santorum Superpac. Remember under campaign finance laws candidates are not supposed to coordinate their spending with their Superpacs. It doesn’t look good to have Friess standing right behind you! How is that not coordination?

Paul is on, trying to make something of another bad night. He’s making the case that it’s all about delegates – which it is, but right now he’s not winning them based on the initial results. Of course, there’s still several steps to go in both Colorado and Minnesota, and he may yet out organize his opponents to steal a few. For now, however, another disappointing night.

Same caveats hold – I don’t know Colorado well – but my read of the returns is that Santorum has a shot at winning it. (Where’s Baumann when you need him?) With 26% of the vote in, Santorum is up by 11%. To be sure, there’s some large population areas around Denver that haven’t reported as yet, so I’m not counting him out.

One thing to remember – in 2008, Romney won Minnesota and Colorado as the conservative alternative to McCain. This cycle he’s the moderate and so it’s not too surprising that he’s doing worse in caucuses dominated by party activists. Still, if he loses Colorado – Wolf can legitimately claim that’s an upset. So far, however, there’ s been no real surprises tonight.

Mitt is on – but where’s Ann? Is she a front-runner wife?

(Colorado – 29% of precincts reporting, and Paul is in last place. Not where he wants to be, given his emphasis on caucuses).

Mitt’s short declarative statements “I’ll be the nominee”, “He has failed. We won’t”, etc., have lost a bit of their impact after hearing it for the umpteenth time.

Did he say America’s soul could be corrupted? I see a Youtube campaign ad coming out soon.

Did I just hear Mitt praise his father’s ability to spit out nails, sharp point facing out? Whenever he starts riffing on his humble roots, the hypocrisy meter goes red.

This is not Mitt’s typical stump speech. It was much heavier on love of America, and more personal anecdotes. I’m guessing the references to his father’s humble roots is an effort to cut into Santorum’s more populist base, but it just doesn’t seem to pass the smell test.

The first crack in the wall: Gergen asks, “Is Mitt Romney still the frontrunner?” Everyone immediately jumps in to say he is, but the fact that the question has been asked suggests that the punditocracy is finally catching on.

Some of the election analysts (who shall remain nameless,but you know who I mean) are using 2008 results to interpret the results coming in now. The problem is that Romney is positioned differently this time around, so you have to be careful making one-to-one county comparisons. It’s really a new world this time around.

Tonight is also a reminder about how difficult it is to poll a caucus state. PPP tried, and while they anticipated a strong night for Santorum, they didn’t quite pick up on how strong it was going to be, and they overestimated Romney’s performance.

It’s the witching hour – time for me to call it a night in order to be prepared for my day job. Remember, if Rick sweeps all three contests tonight, the punditocracy will be flooding the airwaves with cries that everything has been turned upside down. Don’t get caught up in the hype. This has been Santorum’s night, but it doesn’t do much to change the dynamics of this race – as regular readers know, I’ve been harping on Romney’s weaknesses for several weeks now. But this doesn’t mean he’s suddenly not the front runner. He is, but there’s still a long way to go, as you well know.

More in the morning. Thanks for all the participation…. .

Biggest Day Of The Race So Far?

I don’t think it is an overgeneralization to say that most political scientists who study presidential elections downplayed the impact of the rules changes to the nominating process implemented by the Republican Party this year. They did so for two reasons. First, the new rules didn’t really change the delegate selection process in those states holding nominating contests in January and February from what they were in 2008. Second, as Josh Putnam points out, many of the states that hold events later in the process and which adopted a more proportional delegate allocation system, also include a winner-take-all proviso that awards a candidate who wins 50% or more at the state or congressional district level all the delegates in that jurisdiction (state or congressional district). This meant that if the Republican field was winnowed quickly, as it has been in past elections, it was likely that the front runner – say, Mitt Romney – in a two-person race would be positioned to capitalize on the winner-take-all threshold to capture the bulk of delegates and end this nomination race quickly.

There are two problems with this scenario. First, as the Republican field has been winnowed, Mitt Romney has not benefitted as much as many political scientists had predicted. Instead, a sizeable chunk of voters who supported departed candidates has gravitated toward the two remaining conservative candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Second, the race has not devolved into a two-person contest – at least not yet. Ron Paul, who draws a significant portion of his support from voters who would otherwise back Romney, shows no signs of leaving the race. Newt Gingrich has vowed to stay in until at least the first week of March, when he hopes to begin picking up victories and delegates on Super Tuesday. And Rick Santorum, the candidate I have suggested would be the next to step aside, is instead hoping that victories in today’s caucuses and the Missouri primary will steer momentum toward his candidacy. Although polling a caucus state is notoriously difficult, with less than 2% of eligible adults likely to turnout, PPP has commissioned a trio of polls that indicate Santorum is set to do well in all three caucuses (polls courtesy of Pollster.com).

As a sign that Santorum is now seen as a threat, the Romney campaign has trained its biggest guns on him, even as they have begun ratcheting down expectations in today’s contests. Polls suggest Santorum could win Minnesota and Missouri, and finish second in Colorado. If he does, the boost in publicity and, perhaps, fundraising, would make it less likely that he will drop out anytime soon. In a four-person race, it becomes more difficult for Mitt to reach the 50% threshold.

This does not mean, however, that everyone else’s favorite scenario – a brokered convention – is likely to happen. Romney still sits in the driver’s seat. But under the new delegate allocation system, I think it becomes harder for Romney to close the nomination contest out in a four-person race, and easier for his opponents to justify staying in the race in a bid to rack up delegates and hope that the longer the race runs, the more disillusioned Romney supporters become. Of course, the new system also makes it harder to catch Romney – something Hillary Clinton discovered in 2008 when she won a number of high profile big states late in the Democratic nominating race but was unable to erase Obama’s early delegate lead. In short, I think we are in for a long slog where Romney’s best-case scenario is centered on building his winning coalition, one brick at a time. Keep in mind that we are in the very early stages of the delegate allocation process. At this point, even if we include endorsements from Republican Party members who attend the convention as unpledged delegates, Romney only has 101 delegates – less than 10% of the 1,1044 he needs to clinch the nomination. There’s a long way to go yet.

This makes today’s contests some of the most important of the race so far. Although Gingrich is not on the ballot in Missouri’s non-binding primary, that will not stop the media from overreacting to a Santorum victory there as a potential game-changer. Similarly, a Santorum win in the Minnesota caucuses, even though it won’t mean much in terms of delegates, will send the punditocracy into overdrive, with much talk of shifting momentum, etc. So there’s a lot at stake here for Santorum.

But there’s also much on the line for Romney. If he falters, it will contribute to the ongoing media theme that his support is lukewarm, particularly among the conservatives and Tea Party activists who are likely to dominate the Minnesota caucuses.

With that in mind, here’s what’s at stake today.

Colorado: 36 total delegates – 10 chosen at large, and 21 spread among 7 congressional districts. An additional 3 are unpledged party members, and there are 2 bonus delegates. The caucus proceedings are open to Republicans only. Keeping in mind the difficulty of polling caucuses, Romney should do well here based on surveys to date. Remember, this is only the first step in a four-step process culminating in the actual awarding of delegates sometime in April.

Minnesota: 40 total delegates – 10 awarded at large, 24 divvied up across 8 congressional districts, three unpledged party members and three bonus delegates. Again, no actual delegates are awarded today. In contrast to Colorado, this is an open caucus, in which non-Republicans can participate.

Missouri: This is a completely meaningless “beauty pageant” primary; none of Missouri’s 52 delegates will be awarded today. Instead, that process begins with county caucuses in mid-March. Nonetheless, I expect the media to make it a bigger deal than it really is. If Rick wins, get ready for the media narrative to begin predicting a Santorum’s surge.

Make no mistake about it – this is potentially a big day for all four candidates. Mitt wants to blunt any talk that he can’t close the deal. Rick badly needs a victory – preferably two. Newt wants to do well enough to remain viable. Paul has been counting on the caucuses to demonstrate his followers’ loyalty and he wants to rebound from a disappointing third-place finish in Nevada.

I’ll be on later this evening to do some live blogging. As always, feel free to join in.