Tag Archives: 2012 Republican nomination

Mitt’s Campaign: Heading to the Cadillac Ranch?

Charlie Cook became the latest prognosticator to acknowledge what I have been telling you for some time: that Mitt Romney is an exceedingly weak Republican frontrunner.  Noting Romney’s declining support among independents, Cook concludes his assessment of the Republican race this way:  “My assumption was that Romney would be the nominee and would make a good run. Now, I have begun to doubt both propositions. His odds of winning the nomination are growing longer. And even if he does, he has twisted and turned himself into a human pretzel. I’m not sure how electable he is. The alternatives, however, seem even less so.”

Events these past few days drive home Cook’s point. During Wednesday’s Arizona debate, we saw all the reasons why Romney must be considered the Republican frontrunner.   Judging by the applause, the audience seemed dominated by pro-Romney supporters – a likely sign of Romney’s superior organization as well as a strong Mormon turnout.  During the debate Romney proceeded to use his superior opposition research to focus attention on Santorum’s  Senate voting record – a strategy that kept the Rickster on the defensive most of the night as he tried to defend some of his votes that he acknowledged were either mistakes or against his principles.  The more time Santorum delved into the Senate weeds by, for example,  debating the merits of earmarks and Title X, the less he was able to attack Romney.  In the end, this was not a good performance for Rick, something borne out by the first two post-debate polls in Michigan which both show Romney edging ahead of Santorum by margins of 3% and 6%.

But while Romney was effective on Wednesday in driving down Santorum’s poll numbers, much as he did with Gingrich during the pre-Florida debates – it’s not clear to me that the debate strengthened Romney’s own case to be the nominee.  Although he effectively put Rick on the defensive, he also came across again as the rich boy used to getting his way, as when defending his right not to answer CNN moderator John King’s final question regarding misconceptions about each candidate.  It was the same blustering response we’ve seen from Romney in previous debates and it reinforce the impression that he’s not very likeable.

Today, in what was billed as a major economic speech at Ford Field in Michigan, Romney tried to build on any momentum he may have gained coming out of the CNN debate.  Leading up to the speech, however, critics seemed more concerned with the Romney camp’s tactics for downplaying the fact that he was going to speak to an audience of about 1,000 in a stadium that seats about 65,000 people. (The speech, hosted by the Detroit Economic Club, was moved to Ford Field after sponsors concluded that the sold out event was too large for the hotel conference room it had been slated for.)  With the Michigan primary just four days away, Romney used the speech to flesh out his economic plan for cutting government spending and taxes, and for protecting entitlement programs.  Most notably, he proposed an overhaul of the U.S. tax system to create a “flatter, fairer, simpler tax system,” cutting all tax rates by 20% and limiting deductions for the wealthy.

Once again, however, the often politically tone deaf Romney likely stepped on his own lead. This time it came during an effort to show his personal support for the automotive industry. Near the end of the speech, after noting that he has owned several Detroit-built automobiles, including a Mustang [a Ford product] and a Chevy, Mitt – always seeking ways to demonstrate the common touch – let this slip out: “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually” before he completed the Big Three automotive trifecta by noting he also once owned a Dodge pickup.

Two Cadillacs?  Really? One isn’t enough?  I don’t want to overstate the significance of this throwaway comment.  Indeed, it’s not clear to me how much airplay, if any, it will get.  But I do think it is but the latest in a series of remarks by Mitt that collectively reinforce the point that he lacks that Reagan-like ability to empathize with Joe and Jane Sixpack.  And that failure shows in his campaign support; exit polls from the nominating contests consistently show that his support falls in linear fashion as one moves down the income ladder.

Let’s be clear. Mitt may yet pull out a victory in Michigan, to go along with a win that same day in Arizona.  But if he barely squeaks by Santorum in Mitt’s “home” state, this is not going to provide much boost, if any, heading into Super Tuesday on March 6.  And it may lead others to the same conclusion Cook voiced yesterday: that Mitt can’t close the deal with many Republican voters.

Mitt may own two Cadillacs, but it won’t do him much good if his campaign ends up at the Cadillac Ranch.

7:55 p.m. UPDATE:  Well, it didn’t take long.  The Hillin its coverage of the Romney speech, reacts to the Cadillac comment this way:  “But his claim might hurt him by reinforcing the image, being pushed by Democrats, of Romney as elitist and out of touch with average Americans. ”  You think?  Politico, meanwhile,  headlines its coverage of the Romney speech as follows:  “Mitt Romney’s Cadillac Flub One of Many”.  And the wags were out in force in the Twitterverse regarding Mitt’s automobiles.

He can’t help himself.

 

Why This Republican Race Has Been Different

It was about a month ago, just after the New Hampshire primary, that New York Times columnist Nate Silver estimated that Mitt Romney had a 98% chance of winning the 2012 Republican nomination. Today, in light of national polls showing Romney trailing Rick Santorum, and with Santorum also leading Romney in the latter’s “home” state of Michigan heading into the Feb. 28 primary there, I suspect no one would give Romney such favorable odds. (It is questionable whether Romney deserved those odds a month ago, but that is another story.)  To be sure, one might be tempted to dismiss Silver’s estimate on the grounds that he’s no political (as opposed to statistical) expert, but in truth most of my political science colleagues who do specialize in presidential elections were quite bullish on Romney’s prospects even before he won in New Hampshire, although none to my knowledge were so confident as to put the odds quite that high.  (In Silver’s defense, he openly acknowledged that his estimate was based on a very small sample size, and thus was subject to a good deal of [unspecified] uncertainty.)

Today, of course, it would be equally foolish to claim that Romney has no chance to win the nomination – indeed, he is probably still the frontrunner.  However, it is clear that those forecasting a rather easy road to the nomination for Romney were overly optimistic. Instead, analysts are now bracing for a rather extended nomination fight and some are even considering the possibility – however remote – of a brokered convention.

At this point I should probably acknowledge what you already know – that I never bought into the Romney inevitability narrative.  Nor, for that matter, am I as surprised as others that Newt Gingrich is still in the race, and that he may yet be the stronger candidate than Santorum.  Before you anoint me the Pundit King, however, note that I never believed Santorum would also still be in this race.  (Truth be told, I’m not sure he is in the race, but that’s for another post.)  Moreover, as my students will no doubt remind me, I thought Rick Perry was likely a stronger candidate than Mitt.  How’s that for forecasting expertise?

In some respects, of course, all nominating contests are sui generis.  But many pundits are arguing that this nominating race has been exceptionally volatile with Republican voters “shredding the rule book.”  During past Republican nominating contests, they argue, a candidate with a national organization who raised far more money than his opponents, and who received by far the most endorsements from party leaders, and who easily outpaced the field in securing both delegates and votes in the early contests, was destined to win the nomination in convincing fashion.  In fact, history suggests such a candidate would get stronger as the field was winnowed – not weaker.

Why hasn’t this race followed the historical precedent?  Pundits have suggested a couple of factors. One is the increase in the number of debates – 19 by my count – compared to previous years.  I’ve touched on this in a previous post. While I think debates clearly provided a platform that most benefitted Newt Gingrich, some pundits believe they also exposed those Romney qualities – remember the $10,000 bet? – that led many Republican voters to dislike him in 2008. A second factor has been the rise of SuperPacs; some analysts argue that Santorum and Gingrich have survived in large part due to the “sugar daddies” – think Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess – who have taken advantage of the Citizen United ruling to personally bankroll their favored candidate. Without their financial backing, the argument goes, Romney would have closed this race out.

Without totally discounting these factors, I think there are at least two other reasons why this race has unfolded in somewhat unexpected fashion.  The first are the rules changes to the Republican nominating process.  Most political scientists, following Josh Putnam’s careful analysis, have tended to downplay the impact of the changes in how delegates are apportioned in the primaries held prior to April 1; they argue that a careful reading of the rules suggest that despite provisions designed to increase the number of delegates allocated in proportional fashion, in fact many of these primaries will play out much like winner-take-all states, particularly in a two-person race.  This is because some states still award delegates in a winner-take-all fashion by congressional district, and some also award all the statewide delegates to anyone winning more than 50% of the statewide vote.  In short, there’s no reason to expect the delegates to be split among several candidates, even under the new rules, as long as a front-runner like Romney emerges early.

The problem with this analysis is that it underplays the impact of the rule changes on candidate strategy.  The fact is that under the 2008 rules, it would have been less likely that either Santorum or Gingrich would have gambled that they could survive in an extended race, so they would likely have folded their tents much earlier. Under the revised rules, however, they can envision a scenario by which they will pick up delegates even while suffering losses in many states. By altering candidates’ calculations to make it less likely that some would drop out, then, I would argue that the new rules have mattered.

The final reason why this race has proved so volatile, however, is perhaps the simplest: compared to previous Republican frontrunners, Mitt Romney is not a particularly strong candidate.  And this is a reminder that, when it comes to nominations in the modern era, the Party Establishment does not decide – it ratifies.  We saw this in 2008, when party leaders initially embraced Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, but gradually switched over to backing Barack Obama when it became clear he was the favorite among party activists.  I expect that we will see a similar dynamic in the Republican race if Romney continues to underperform – party leaders will begin pulling back endorsements.

But to what end?  Romney’s one remaining trump card is that unlike with the Democrats in 2008, there is as yet no clear Romney alternative.  Until one arises, he remains the frontrunner in name, if not yet in sentiment among the majority of Republican voters. It may be that either Newt or Rick may yet emerge to be the sole Mitt alternative.  If neither does so, however, does that mean Mitt is destined to be the Republican nominee?  Will party leaders hold their noses and back Mitt? Not necessarily.  There is an alternative scenario by which Republican activists can even at this late date come up with a White Knight candidate. I’ll address that in a future post.

Santorum Surges, But Can He Win The Big One?

In the wake of Rick Santorum’s victory in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses, and in the Missouri beauty pageant primary, the punditocracy has gradually begun to accept an argument you’ve heard me make since August: Mitt Romney is a weak frontrunner who has never demonstrated the capacity to win over the non-Mormon Tea Party-sympathizing conservative faction of the Republican Party. Sarah Palin, in her speech to CPAC yesterday, captured that sentiment quite well I thought.

The danger, however, is that pundits will now overreact by endowing Santorum with electoral strength that to date he has not demonstrated.  Keep in mind that Santorum has not won a single state in which participation rates among eligible voters climbed into double digits.   Indeed, as the following table shows, two of his three caucus victories came in events with participation rates under 2% (figures based on Michael McDonald’s election turnout website).  Turnout in Missouri’s largely meaningless primary, meanwhile, was the lowest of any primary state so far (and keep in mind that Gingrich’s name was not on the ballot there.)  In Iowa, the caucus state with the highest turnout, Santorum essentially spent half a year campaigning there.

STATE TYPE VOTES CAST %Eligible Population WINNER
Iowa Caucus 122,255 6.5% Santorum
New Hampshire Primary 249,655 31.1% Romney
South Carolina Primary 603,770 17.6% Gingrich
Florida Primary 1,672,352 12.8% Romney
Nevada Caucus 32,894 1.9% Romney
Minnesota* Caucus 47,696 1.2% Santorum
Colorado Caucus 65,535 1.8% Santorum
Missouri Beauty Pageant Primary 251,868 7.4% Santorum
Maine* Caucus 5,524* .5% Romney

*Denotes Estimates Based on Incomplete Results

It is true that Santorum is surging in the national polls. Indeed, the latest PublicPolicyPolling national poll has Santorum trouncing the Republican field with 38% of the vote to Romney’s 23%, Gingrich’s 17% and 13% for Ron Paul. Other polls indicate he has moved ahead of Gingrich nationally into second place. The RealClearPolitic’s composite polling tracker now shows Santorum’s average climbing to 24%, only 6% behind the leader Romney (Mitt=purple, Gingrich=green, Santorum=brown):

But we shouldn’t overreact to these national polls.  Rather than demonstrating deep-rooted support for Santorum, they are more likely reflecting voters’ current read of the race, as indicated by the prevailing media narrative. That is, respondents are answering the poll in terms of who they think is doing well according to the media coverage – not who they will necessarily support in upcoming events.

And it is those upcoming events that will test just how strong and widespread Santorum’s support is. After primaries in Michigan and Arizona on February 28, Republicans hold seven primaries on “Super Tuesday”, March 6.  Of those, three – Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma can be considered southern or southern-leaning states with large delegate hauls.  (Neither Santorum nor Gingrich qualified to be on the ballot in a fourth Super Tuesday state – Virginia.)   Why does this matter? Because as Mark Halperin notes, those “southern” states contain a high proportion of evangelicals, and – so far, at least – those southern evangelicals have been supporting Gingrich.  Here’s data compiled by Halperin showing the percent of white evangelical Christians vote, based on  2008 exit polls, in those states that will hold primaries in the next month.  Gingrich can be expected to more than hold his own in most of those states.

Two other Super Tuesday states – Massachusetts and Vermont – promise to go heavily for Romney.  This doesn’t leave much room for Santorum to break out of the pack.  Indeed, if voting trends hold among southern evangelicals, Gingrich, and not Santorum, is likely to come out of Super Tuesday with greater momentum as the Mitt-alternative. This despite the fact that the media has – again – largely written Newt out of this race.

This scenario makes it imperative for Santorum to do well in Michigan and, on Super Tuesday, to at least run competitively in Ohio – two rust-belt states in which Santorum’s more populist conservative message may resonate.  (Keep in mind that Romney runs weaker among social conservatives, not necessarily economic conservatives – at least not the higher income ones.) Gingrich, however, has already been barnstorming Ohio in the hope to win some delegates there.  Unless Santorum’s support begins to broaden as a result of last Tuesday’s victories, I still don’t think he’s well positioned to win the nomination.

This is all a long way of reiterating a point I made after Tuesday’s results:  Mitt Romney remains a very weak frontrunner – one who can be beat, but only if conservative Tea Party-supporting Republicans settle on an alternative. At this point, it’s not obvious to me that Santorum is that person.  To convince me otherwise, he needs to win a big-state primary.  He’s got two weeks to make that happen.

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 2nd 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.