Monday Morning Politics - But a New Game on Thursday

After Nevada. The headlines after Nevada were Romney wins Nevada, Gingrich vows to stay in the race. After it was all said and done, Romney had 48 percent of the vote, Newt Gingrich had 23 percent, Ron Paul had 19 percent and Rick Santorum had 11 percent. This is a clear cut victory for Romney, but it means more that Gingrich and Santorum are runing out of money, than it does that Romney has won 3 out of 5 states as of Monday.

Many more states to go, and the safe bet is on Romney to eventually be the Republican nominee,...maybe after 2 more states or it may take 6 more. But he certainly has the momentum, the organization and the money to come out on top.

Then comes Wednesday night with Santorum winning Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado,...three out of three states. Is this a game changer? I think what will change for sure is the main target of attacks for next two weeks. Hope Rick Santorum is prepared for this.

One more thing for sure,...Santorum now has the wins and the numbers to call on Newt to get out of the race as Gingrich did to him after Newt's South Carolina. That would certainly give Santorum a bump going into the next set of states.

Oh and Ron Paul? He said the results from last night "mixed things up" in the Republican primary. Really? Ron Paul has not won a state and his highest finish is second place,..usually fourth place.

Minnesota results:

Rick Santorum 45%
Ron Paul 27%
Mitt Romney 17%
Newt Gingrich 11%

Missouri results:

Rick Santorum 55%
Mitt Romney 25%
Ron Paul 12%
Newt Gingrich was not on the

Colorado results:

Rick Santorum 40%
Mitt Romney 35%
Newt Gingrich 13%
Ron Paul 12%

From Comes From South Carolina

Nobody can saw they weren't suprised by New Gingrich's big victory in Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary. As it turned out Newt had almost a 14% margin over everyone's front runner Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum decivisely came in third over Ron Paul. The final vote percentages:

Newt Gingrich
40.4%

Mitt Romney
27.9%

Rick Santorum
17.0%

Ron Paul
13.0%

Herman Cain
1.1%

So what does this mean in the grand scheme of selecting a Republican to run against President Obama?

Well, a couple facts are:

After three primaries, we have three different winners.

South Carolina was unique because Democrats could, like Iowa, vote for Republicans producing mixed  results.

And again after three primaries, only 2% of the national delegates have been selected. Hardly a reason to declare a winner. It will come down to money. Who has the money to stay in. Romney certainly,...maybe Gingrich,...probably not Santorum,.....and who knows about Paul, surely he knows he is not a viable candidate and only remains in the race either for his ego or to influence the debate and party planks. Which is actually a good thing with his doomsday talk on the economy. Here's a hint,...it really is doomsday, hence the need to change out the Senate and the Executive Office with new employees.

Heading into the Florida primary, where Romney was previously favored, the race is still wide open. There will be calls for Santorum to get out of the race and throw his weight behind Newt, but I don't think he is ready to do that, nor will he do it, just yet anyway.

Another thing that came as a result of Romney's defeat was the issue of his tax returns becoming if not just a distraction, then a cause for voters to back Newt or Santorum. Romney has realized this,..has called it a mistake not to release before now, and will work to get his tax records out to the public. The public should not let tax rates, tax shelters or anything legal in Romeny's tax records influence them one way or another. We have too many pressing issues before us than to hold success and wealth against Romney. Anyone remember Obama's sweet heart real estate deal from Rezco?

And Then There Were Four

Wow! Who watched the CNN hosted debate in South Carolina last night? The headlines are all over the place.

”Perry Drops Out – Support to Newt” probably best for the Texas Governor to join Huntsman on the also ran list, as previous support for him has dwindled from his first announcement a few months back and is already divided between Gingrich and Santorum. However, most of us enjoyed his last couple of debates just to hear his qips.

”Newt fires back in Debate” reference Gingrich’s scolding of the CNN moderator at the very beginning of the debate Regarding Newt’s ex-wife, Marianne’s interview about his “open” marriage and mistress. Newt said it was despicable to open the debate with questions about his former marriage.   The crowd sure agreed. 

”Did Santorum perform well enough to win in S.C?” Rick Santorum gained some support from the character and family values voters, but did he do enough to convince GOP primary voters that he has the experience and mettle to deal with the economy? I think he does.  He gets more and more of my respect and support every time he debates. 

"Romney pressured to release Tax Returns” Santorum and Paul are on record as candidate tax returns not being a big deal. Gingrich had his people post his returns on the internet just as the debate started and Newt is the loudest voice in the contest calling for Romney’s release of tax returns.  Seems kinda out of place to me, asking for records,  when we don’t have any information on President Obama. If I were one of the Republican candidates, I would say that I would release everything,…tax filings, school transcripts, medical reports, travel history,…everything, once Obama did the same. That should quell the debate at least with fair minded people.

It will be interesting to see where the candidates place in South Carolina . It looks like Newt is gaining some ground. I don’t think the ex-wife’s interview will displace any support since the conservative bloc, who runs the character-family values issue as a number one priority, is already supporting Santorum. But still, Newt will end up much closer to Romney than Romney considers comfortable.

This is all good for the country, especially when Gingrich admonished Santorum to get out of the race since he diluting the deep conservative vote and Santorum responded, "Why don’t you get out? I’m the one who won 1 of 2 states so far."  These debates let the voters see who they would prefer.  If most people are like me, I am constantly my favorites - Cain to Gingrich to Santorum,...maybe back to Newt.  The bottom line is that any of them are better for this country than our current President.  

South Carolina - What Can We Expect?

As you can expect, there is a wide variance between polls on the Republican candidates going into the
South Carolina primary.

The latest blended poll numbers has it like this:

Mitt Romney                            29%

Newt Gingrich                          23%

Ron Paul (Mr Potatoe Head)  17%

Rick Santorum                         12%

Rick Perry                                 7 %

Jon Huntsman                           4 %

Well, this is what I think we can expect:

Romney and Santorum will do better than the latest polling data. Romney on the strength of his front runner status (and ad money) and Santorum because he picked up the endorsement of evangelicals in a state where 1 in 2 voters believe faith is very important in character, and character very important for their political
leaders to have.

Gingrich will do slightly worse, as well as Paul. Leaving Perry to pickup a few points and Huntsman to get about what he deserves,...around 3%.

I expect the finishers to be Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, Perry then Huntsman. Perry could surprise us on the strength of his last couple of interviews ashe came off bashing Romney for his Bain experience and generally hasn't said anything outrageous. Anyway, look for Santorum to place second and continue on to Florida, where the Sunshine State probably won't be seeing anymore of Huntsman.

If Gingrich and Perry both get out of the race, look for the vast majority of their support to go to Santorum - that would make the race interesting giving some hope for a non-Romney candidate.

No Surprises in New Hampshire

Results for New Hampshire Republican Primary, January 10th, 2012

Mitt Romney 39.4%
Ron Paul 22.8%
Jon Huntsman 16.8%
Newt Gingrich 9.4%
Rick Santorum 9.3%
Rick Perry 1.2%

Romney did slightly worse than expected but remains the front runner even under attacks from fellow republicans (read Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry). These attacks on Romney's alleged "Corporate Raider" tactics coming from career politicans are out of place and if continued will hurt the overall Republican effort against Obama in the fall.

Ron Paul did slightly better than expected. The exposure of Ron Paul's newsletters, which at best portray him as a bad manager, and at worst as a racist, did not seem to affect support for Paul much. Actually no surprise there as Paul supporters seem to forgive any Paul misstep on the way.

Santorum a point below poll averages. This disappointed me as I think Santorum has a lot to bring to the table with his economic plan. He needs to get that in front of people and add to his reputation or perception that he is only a family values candidate, although he does articulate an exceptional grasp of foreign policy and the threats facing this Country, as opposed to the ostrich Ron Paul who foreign policy is to the left of Donald Duck.

Huntsman much better than predicted on the pre-primary poll average probably because he ignored Iowa in order to campaign in New Hampshire also putting money into New Hampshire, unlike Rick Santorum for instance.

Gingrich was projected to garner about 8% of the votes and he came in at a little over 9%, so it's a wash for him and onto South Carolina and the conservative South where he has the best chance of making up the room between him and Romney.