Quick Hit on Republicans

Mitt Romney coasted to victory in Arizona last Tuesday while squeaking out a win in hotly contested Michigan over Rick Santorum.  Had Romney lost Michigan (the state of his birth), it might very well have been curtains for the Romney campaign going into the Super Tuesday primaries next week, when some more conservative leaning states than Michigan go up to bat.  Arizona was a winner take all state, but Michigan split its 30 delegates up proportionally based on congressional districts.  Michigan's 14 congressional districts split evenly 7 and 7 for Romney and Santorum, but Romney was awarded the other 2 delegates thanks to his overall win in the popular vote.  Santorum's campaign is none too thrilled with this development, but election organizers in the state argue that their rules were agreed upon long before the primary to give the overall winner the two extra delegates.  As it stands, Romney right now has an over 80-delegate lead over Santorum going into Super Tuesday next week. 

There are 419 delegates at stake on Tuesday, over 1/3 of the total delegates needed to win the nomination.  Nationally, Romney has a big lead in tracking polls, but as anybody with a decent civics background will tell you, in presidential elections, national polls mean nothing.  It's what you do at the state level that matters.  At the state level, Santorum is much closer than polls would indicate, and in crucial swing states like Ohio (which votes on Tuesday) Santorum even has a measurable lead.  The Republican conservative base is still skeptical about Romney, and would like somebody like a tried-and-true conservative in Santorum to take the party banner into November.  They feel like that clear choice is in Santorum as Romney does not provide that much of a difference over Barack Obama.  I had a nice chat with my Aunt Carol (mother of Rob) who works for the Republican party in Delaware.  She emphasized that Romney has nothing close to a majority of support in the primary season.  If the base really wants a conservative to get the nomination, Santorum has to coalesce with Newt Gingrich.  Ron Paul has his 15% and it's not going anywhere, but if Santorum and Gingrich can convince one another to join forces (for the good of the country of course), that might all but be the end for Mitt Romney.  As it stands, the conservative vote is still very much split, despite the recent surge of Santorum.  Next Tuesday might not put an end to the race, but somebody will most definitely assert themselves as the clear frontrunner after it is done.