After Mitt Romney scored impressive wins in Florida and Nevada last week, it looked as though the race for the Republican presidential nomination had finally come into focus. The former Massachusetts governor was not only the clear frontrunner, but he was the presumptive nominee. Talk of Romney's "inevitability" was ubiquitous.
And then last night happened.
Rick Santorum, a non-factor in the race since his narrow win in Iowa a month ago, pulled off an unexpected hat trick yesterday, picking up impressive wins in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri. The caveats certainly matter -- as Tricia noted earlier, these contests were not important when it came to awarding delegates -- but that doesn't mean the results should be dismissed out of hand.
As Nate Silver explained mid-day yesterday, long before we'd seen any results, these three races "will provide an important test of how robust Mitt Romney's coalition is on less favorable terrain ... and they could potentially revitalize the campaign of one of Mr. Romney's opponents, Rick Santorum."
When the dust cleared last night, Romney had failed this "important test" and Santorum could credibly claim that he, not Newt Gingrich, is the GOP frontrunner's principal rival going forward.
In Minnesota, Santorum won with an impressive 44.8% of the vote, while Romney, despite the enthusiastic support of Minnesotans like Tim Pawlenty and Norm Coleman, finished third. Remember, four years ago, Romney cruised to a 19-point win in Minnesota.
In Colorado, Santorum's margin was closer, beating Romney 40.2% to 34.9%, but this was a state Romney was supposed to win with relative ease. In 2008, the former governor crushed the competition in Colorado, winning with 42,218 votes, which was over 60% of the total. Yesterday, Romney's support was cut roughly in half.
And in Missouri, Santorum beat Romney by a whopping 30 points, despite the fact that Gingrich wasn't even on the ballot.
The Romney camp will very likely spin the results as a momentary setback, little more than a speed bump on the road to Tampa. That may even prove to be true. But given Santorum's clean sweep yesterday, Romney will now be forced to confront something he'd desperately hoped to avoid: doubt.
Romney's been able to convince party officials and activists to overlook his weaknesses as a candidate -- his flip-flops, his layoff-driven riches, his out-of-touch gaffes -- because he was their inevitable nominee. But after Santorum's hat trick, Republicans are likely to pause and consider just how strong a candidate Romney really is. Those aren't the kind of questions the former governor wanted to hear at this stage in the process, and he may not like the answers.
The road to the GOP nomination just got a little longer.
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In New Hampshire, Mittens was expected to win. How much of his win in New Hampshire was because of 'bounce' from his 'victory' in Iowa???
Anything that lengthens the repuknican intra-party battles and causes Mittens' Super-Pacs to expend large amounts early is very, very good.
The best thing is the headlines:
"Romney in danger from a Santorum surge."
"Santorum sticking to Romney's heels."
I do have some comments about Church Doctrine and their educational system, because I do come from a Catholic Family and do know the effects of the wrong religious influences pushed onto people. And I can say I totally agree with President Obama on this issue. Think about this situation, a couple forced to stay married under a church dogma and that are not suited for each other. That is a living hell for the couple, especially when they do not get along and the affects upon the children are tragic. Because these children are directly affected by this so wrong marriage and on top of it forced to follow a policy of the church’s birth control just adds more tragedy to this family. And than in their educational system, they continue to push this dogma onto the children, making that child feel like they have to follow this doctrine or they will go to hell, that is wrong to do. And the worst thing of it all is when you even bring it to the attention of a Priest, what are you told “Well you have to respect your parents” and the abuse continues. I am a Christian and under our Constitution will follow my religious principles or values without some Church trying to shove it down my throat. Also, I would prefer to look to see what is the real problems in this world and find the right solutions for those problems.
I always want to say Hello ! Catholics ! The 14th century called and they want their religion back.
Really ? no married priests , no birth control, no divorce.
The whole thing behind no birth control...more little Catholics running around.
Lets not forget too that it is big business
How else to get altar boys?
But...but...Santorum? Really? I guess that's what can happen when the Republican establishment and the other candidates can't be arsed to campaign against a guy like Santorum. Bet the knives start coming out now.
Ha. Well, MM...none of the 3 caucuses/campaigns assigned any delegates, so Santorum didn't really win anything.
MO: passed a bill putting their primary early, then got sanctioned by RNC, then decided they'd caucus later so they wouldn't lose half their delegates but never repealed their primary bill. SO, in addition to costing the public $7 million to put on a meaningless election, ONLY the anti-Mitt fanatics showed up, right? The ground organization for the caucus to really assign the delegates wouldn't have borthered.
MN: also a meaningless caucus. The delegates are assigned at a State GOP Convention, held later. Only the radicals showed up at the caucuses. The establishment folks who will assign the delegates at the convention didn't bother. Although, MN does have a weird streak - they did elect Jesse Ventura as gov.
I have NO idea what was going on in Colorado but their caucus wasn't binding, either.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/05/31-rick-santorum-quotes-that-prove-he-would-be-a-destructive-president/
Handily enough, one can watch the first video segment to find out more!
Actually if you look at Santorum's Iowa speech and hear what he has to say about economics he could have easily won in states where manufacturing has went by the wayside if he had let up on his whole 'end teh gays and teh abortion' thing. Santorum's plan is to drastically change the way trade and taxation is done specifically on manufacturing industries so that they will get the best benefit of world competition. It would be a complete change from the way we've been doing things since at least NAFTA if not longer than that. I was really surprised when he gave his speech because if he wasn't such an idiot he'd realize that could have a lot of appeal to Republicans- like lunch pail Republicans- and to moderates. But his desire to go to the right blinded him from recognizing the one portion of his candidacy that had at least some tread on it. As a political adviser I'd be screaming my head off right about now.
Santorum may not have won delegates, but he still won. That gets him credibility at least. And he took wind out of Romney's sails. Both things translate into money and momentum. If Santorum had lost all three races, he'd still have the same number of delegates as he does not, but he'd also still be the same loser he was who only sort of 'won' Iowa, which means he would probably have dropped out of the race before the next round. But having won, he's gotten the boost he needed to keep going and maybe win more meaningful races later on.
On the Morning Maddow post below this one, it says that Santorum gets zero delegates. I understand that Missouri doesn't count. But why not for the two caucuses. Don't they select delegates that are committed to Santorum? This sounds eerily like the HRC argument early in the 2008 campaign, but of course all that really meant was that if it is obvious one candidate is going to win, the other delegates might switch at the behest of their candidate for the sake of party unity. Am I wrong here?
(Rubs hands together, Monty Burns-style.)
Excellent!
(not a Republican)
Steve, how did turnout in the three states compare with 2008? Did the overall trend of fewer Republicans voting or participating in caucuses continue last night?
Since none of these count towards awarding delegates, they're pretty much useless as a measure of voter enthusiasm.
I just don't get why people voted for Rick Santorum. I mean, the guy doesn't even want to build a Moon Base! And if North North Dakota (or, N2D, as we admiring lunatics call it) is never built, how do we end up on the timeline that leads to the United Federation of Planets and Captain Janeway? Can anyone tell me that???
"Mommy! Mommy! The Emperor has no clothes!"
"Shush, dear. The Media needs a horse race."
The Emperor also has no horse.
Romney is in prime position to be dealt one final, soul-crushing blow. Santorum has just blown the GOP race wide open and left serious doubts about Mitt's ability to attract conservative voters. This has just sealed the deal for a race all the way to the convention. Santorum is far from dead yet, with deep red Tea Party states coming up and Romney prone to make a gaffe a week during the most important stretch of his campaign. Conservatives have the ability to change this race if they coalesce around a single challenger, which it appears they have after Tuesday.. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Perhaps Romney cruised to a 19-point win in Minnesota in 2008 because he was the "non-McCain." Sounds like Minnesotans are just contrary.
I think it's funny as hell.
The longer this mess goes on the more I miss the sanity of Jon Huntsman
and not 1 mention of Ron Paul
And in other news, popcorn futures were up sharply.
Might I note that fewer than 6 percent of eligible voters turned out in Missouri yesterday, and some of those (like me) were taking Democratic ballots? As I understand it, turnout in the other states wasn't much better. Santorum really needs to stop congratulating himself.
Here's hoping for a Neut fest in the south to muddy things up even more... I think this shows how fractured everything is at the moment.
The decision in 1878 regarding the religious practice of polygamy seems to me to wholly justify Mr. Obama's decision regarding equal treatment of workers in ancillary Catholic institutions such as hospitals.
From Wikipedia comes "The LDS Church believed that their religiously-based practice of plural marriage was protected by the United States Constitution, however, the unanimous 1878 Supreme Court decision Reynolds v. United States declared that polygamy was not protected by the Constitution, based on the longstanding legal principle that "laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.""
I did a bit more digging to substantiate the quote and found it accurate. The case is online at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=98&invol=145
The finding that is relevant is fascinating. "So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? [98 U.S. 145, 167] To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances."
...and the practice of birth control?
Gingrich, Romney, or Santorum? Life is good if you are a Republican. It like having a choice of voting for Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, or Emperor Hirohito. Wow, times are great for Fascists, Religious looneys who want to napalm Planned Parenthood and everyone who goes there, genetically sycophantic talk radio ditto heads, the Mafia, KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, the Taliban and others democracy haters, religious organizations bleeding our public school system of needed revenues, anti-feminists, anti-gays, anti-blacks, anti-Latinos, etc. Conservatives want to build walls around rich neighborhood at public expense and charge "ordinary" citizens a toll to enter after being checked with metals detectors, like they do in Carmel, California.
"in Missouri, Santorum beat Romney by a whopping 30 points, despite the fact that Gingrich wasn't even on the ballot." Wouldn't this be better written that in Missouri, Santorum beat Romney by a whopping 30 points, because Gingrich wasn't even on the ballot"?
And doesn't that have interesting implications for Gingrich's backer(s), the Adelson family? When they stop giving, Gingrich goes back to being an irrelevan clown. And if they start giving to Santorum, Romney starts having nightmares . . .
Those low voting numbers PROVE all that 'Abstinence' stuff from a few years ago has had an unexpected effect on the GOP base
The majority of those non-voting but registered folks are saving their vote for the inevitable marriage of Church and State.
Having won three key nomination contests yesterday in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, things are starting to Come up roses for Rick Santorum. Certain people are even starting to entertain twisted fantasies of him as the GOP nominee. That would be the answer to my prayers! Of course it ain't gonna happen. My luck has NEVER gotten that good. Oh, but the possibilities! A campaign as utterly demented as his would produce untold volumes of laughs. Can you imagine the endless possibilities?
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Santorum deserves to be the Republican candidate. A man who opposes contraception as presidential candidate is a winning ticket for the Republicans. /snark
I am sick and tired of hearing Massachusetts depicted as a state filled with depraved liberal scum living in a socialistic nightmare by Gingrich and in particular Rick Santorum. This is how these people operate: create a boogey man and then make people fearful. I understand they are trying to link Romney to what they consider the lowest of the low (in other words, liberals, because Mass. is where we breed and thrive apparently) but this is disgraceful and disgusting behavior.
I get the feeling that Santorum won these primaries because people KNEW their votes didn't count - no delegates; no harm, no foul.
So it's all just a huge waste, right?
Romney, how's that whole "buy the election" thing workin' out for ya?