And then there were four (five if you count the entertainment juggernaut that is Herman Cain/Stephen Colbert… or whatever you want to call it). The GOP primary has finally become interesting. We’re down to Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. Obviously, with this reduction, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry finally dropped out of the race, endorsing Romney and Gingrich, respectively.
We also know that the Iowa results are now in doubt and seem to have gone back on declaring Romney the winner by a 0.01% margin and it’s possible that Santorum really won. Romney’s New Hampshire victory is not in doubt. This weekend, we move to South Carolina for an open primary in which non-Republicans can vote. It’s hard to gauge who the open primary nature benefits, thus making it very difficult to predict one candidate winning over the others.
There will be two types voting here – ones who are picking the GOP candidate they like best (GOP and some Independents) and ones who are picking the GOP candidate that they think presents the easiest opponent for Obama (Democrats and some Independents). In a bit, I’ll make the cases for choosing each GOP candidate to both kinds of voters.
I think Romney was really hoping Perry would stay in the race through this weekend to weaken Paul, Gingrich, and Santorum. Now that Perry’s out, the anti-Romney camp is starting to consolidate. Paul is his own entity rather than anti-Romney per se, so it really comes down to Santorum and Gingrich. I think there’s really only room for one of those two in the race at this point as the anti-Romney. I don’t see South Carolina driving either Romney or Paul from the race and I could see it driving either Gingrich or Santorum from the race, but not both. It will depend on how the two do against each other. If they perform comparably, I’d expect both to stick around, but if one outdoes the other, I think we’ll see a departure.
Many seem to believe that any Romney win in South Carolina effectively ends the race, but I disagree. As far as I’ll go is to say that I think a decisive win by Romney or the race remaining a four-way makes it his race to lose. I’m more interested to see how Gingrich and Santorum do against each other. If the race gets down to three (Romney, Paul, and Gingrich/Santorum) following South Carolina, Romney could still lose because the anti-Romney crowd would finally coalesce around one candidate between Santorum or Gingrich.
That’s really all I’ll say on South Carolina, and now onto the candidates. All this is meant to be is a quick look at why both types of voters might consider each candidate.
Romney is generally viewed as the most electable, presidential, and moderate of the remaining GOP nominees, plus he has a very solid body of experience in both the private and public sectors. I think Romney can pick up a lot of the UMMAI voters (Undecided, Moderate, Marginally Attached, and Independent; yes, I added another ‘M’ into my previous acronym). That said, he has a lot of trouble relating to average Americans and it’s hard to figure out what Romney really believes. He reminds me a lot of John Kerry – both are from Massachusetts, wealthy, somewhat awkward interacting with people, and appear to have a tendency to change views on issues for political expediency rather than conviction. Personally, if I was a Team Obama strategist, there are others in the field that I’d rather face than Romney, but a match with Romney is still winnable.
Paul is one of the intellectual founders of the Tea Party and very consistent in his views. You definitely know what you’re getting with him. Really, Paul is a Libertarian rather than a Republican. He has a small yet energetic and devoted, almost fanatical, following. I don’t think Paul has the ability to expand much beyond his TP/Libertarian base because I see his positions as too extreme for most of the UMMAI crowd. I also believe Paul’s key issues, namely monetary policy, the Federal Reserve, and the gold standard, are a bit too complex, I guess I could say, for the election. Paul doesn’t come across as very presidential or electable to me, either. I would view Paul as Obama’s ideal opponent if I was in the Obama camp and evaluating from a strictly politically strategic perspective.
Santorum is another known-entity. He has strong blue-collar roots and, though he isn’t quite as moderate as Romney due to his social conservatism, he is noticeably more moderate than Paul or Gingrich on non-social issues. Santorum’s biggest problems, in my view, are his social conservatism and lack of personality and presidential aura. He’s very reminiscent of Tim Pawlenty to me on demeanor. Santorum’s social conservatism scores points within the GOP base while it weakens his ability to draw UMMAIs. Despite the social conservatism, I think he has broader appeal than either Gingrich or Paul because his blue-collar roots would help him pick up so-called Reagan Democrats (I think the roots help him more than the social conservatism hurts him here). Like Romney, Santorum wouldn’t be my first pick as an Obama operative, but still winnable.
You know what you’re getting with Gingrich, too. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing depends on how you view his record and his character. He’s still a popular guy within the GOP ranks (including the endorsement of Chuck Norris), but like Paul, I question how well he would appeal to UMMAIs. Gingrich has character issues and he has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth. On a side note, here’s an interesting read about Gingrich’s character issues. Also, like Paul, he doesn’t come across as very presidential and is a bit on the abrasive side. If I was on Team Obama, I would not mind facing Gingrich and would see it as very achievable.
Cain/Colbert are great entertainment and genius, pure and simple. The satire of it all is brilliant and it’s funny stuff. I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
So, there you have it. That’s South Carolina and the GOP final four (or five if you count Cain/Colbert).
UPDATE: Shortly after posting this, it was confirmed that Santorum was the real winner in Iowa, not Romney.
UPDATE: Shortly after posting this, it was confirmed that Santorum was the real winner in Iowa, not Romney.
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