Terry Mitchell

Analysis of the February 7th GOP Contests



Posted: Wednesday, February 08, 2012

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

If Rick Santorum goes on to win the GOP presidential nomination or makes a serious run at it, last night will be seen as the point where the race was reset. Santorum needed to make something happen to justify the continuation of his candidacy, and did it in a much bigger way than anyone would ever have imagined. Most pundits figured he might be able to scrape by in Missouri and possibly Minnesota, but would certainly lose to Mitt Romney by a solid margin in Colorado. Instead, he scored blowout victories in both Missouri and Minnesota, and beat Romney in Colorado, a state where Romney got more than 60% of the vote in 2008 and held a 10-point lead in the polls coming in this year. To say this was a game changer would be an understatement. Santorum could now actually argue that he should be considered the frontrunner, as he has now won four states to Romney’s three. Even you don’t count the non-binding Missouri primary, that would still leave him tied with Romney at three victories each. Fortunately for Santorum, there is a three week gap before the next wave of big contests begins, giving him time to reap the much-needed financial benefits that will certainly come from his stunning performance last night. On the down side, however, three weeks is plenty of time for his momentum to subside and for Romney to beat him to a pulp with negative ads.

Mitt Romney had to be very disappointed with his performance, which included a distant third place finish in Minnesota and a shocking loss in Colorado, and it showed on his face and the faces of his supporters during his speech last night. He certainly took a major hit. He remains the frontrunner in the eyes of most pundits and is still likely to win the nomination, but the race has now been turned into more of a free-for-all that probably won’t be decided before April or May. Even though he still has the big advantage in money and organization, and will be on the ballot in every state (there are some states where Santorum and Newt Gingrich won’t be), his path to the nomination now looks a like a long slog rather than the quick wrap-up that he had hoped for. He now has to come out aggressively to re-establish his dominance in the field like he did in Florida following his loss to Gingrich in South Carolina. He will have some time to prepare for the Michigan and Arizona primaries, which are three weeks away. He had been a heavy favorite in both and was counting on them as his next firewall, but with the battering he just took and considering Santorum’s new-found momentum, those contests may now be up for grabs. For Romney, a loss in one of them would be highly problematic – a loss in both would be disastrous.

Ron Paul had his best night since the New Hampshire primary, finishing a surprising, but distant, second in Minnesota, although he brought up the rear in Missouri and Colorado. Paul will collect quite a few delegates for his efforts and then look forward to seeing the results from the Maine caucuses on Saturday. He claims he will get some good news there, perhaps even winning or coming in a competitive second. However, Paul’s position in the race is unlikely to change very much. He will be in for duration to continue to collect delegates, but with little or no chance to capture the nomination.

Although Newt Gingrich put little effort into this round of contests, he really needed something to hang his hat on before the 17-day lull between the completion of Maine’s caucuses on Saturday and the Michigan and Arizona primaries on February 28th. He didn’t get it. Instead, he had a dismal night, with his only consolation being that Romney also had a bad night.  Gingrich wasn’t on the Missouri primary ballot, and he finished last and third in Minnesota’s and Colorado’s caucuses, respectively. And the fact that Santorum performed so well probably (at least temporarily) boots him out of his self-proclaimed position as the conservative alternative to Romney. It may also signal the beginning of Gingrich's fading into the peripheries of this race. Gingrich is still staking his hopes on the contests that occur on Super Tuesday and shortly thereafter to get him back into contention. Ironically, though, had Santorum and Romney flipped positions last night, Gingrich would probably be finished right now. But with the race now being so much more up in the air than it was when the day began, Gingrich has every reason to want to keep hanging around, and little motivation to get out any time soon.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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