The General Election

                So, the Pennsylvania Primary is next Tuesday the 24^th, and the nominee for both parties is decided. The only real significance of the primary in terms of the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney race is that the state could be used to make a statement. Neither party wants to have a lower voter turnout than the other purely for sake of their pride. All in all, the only race that actually matters in the primary at a national level is the race for attorney general, and even that pales in comparison to the significance of picking a presidential candidate. 

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                In light of the recent developments, I’m going to give a quick preview of the general election in the fall. Regardless of your political affiliation, it is apparent that this will be a close race. Given the fact that Pennsylvania is a swing state with a large number of Electoral College delegates, it is likely that both candidates will visit Penn State in the fall. I actually work with the Obama campaign and know that it is highly, highly likely that he will come. I have no inside knowledge about Romney’s plans, but it would be strange for him to visit Pennsylvania and not come to Penn State.

                In terms of constituencies that each party must pick up in order to win the election, Republicans must gain back the women vote. The past four years have resulted in an increase in abortion restrictions, something which most women consider to be a very important issue.  Both parties are fighting over the Latino vote. As the largest minority population in the country, their vote will be extremely important in the Southwest and Florida. That is a group that Romney will have to fight especially hard to win given his reputation as a rich white guy with a hard time relating to other people who aren't rich white guys.

                That’s just a quick preview of what to expect to hear about in the fall. My prediction is that Obama will win by a reasonably small margin (around 4% of the popular vote). That’s all for this semester. Remember to vote.

Santorum Is Out

So, it’s official. Or at least as official as it can be without being formally announced: Mitt Romney will be the Republican Presidential nominee come this fall. If you’ve been following the election at all these past few months then that really shouldn’t be a surprise to you, since he was the frontrunner and presumptive nominee from the very beginning of the primary campaigns. While all of the potential nominees experienced their own small peaks in approval ratings, all of them eventually dropped out of the race, leaving Romney as the sole viable Republican candidate standing.

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There are still quite a few primaries left before the Republican National Convention (RNC), which is why no one can technically say that Romney is the “official” nominee, though he certainly is in everything but name. Newt Gingrich is still on the ballot in many states, and although Rick Santorum has officially suspended his campaign, he has not said that he is dropping out (although the writing has been on the wall for those two for a long time). The Pennsylvania primary is Tuesday after next, April 24^th and some voters will likely still vote for Gingrich and Santorum even though they are both out of the race. However, at this point it isn’t even a race because the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

This really has no purpose. I just find the misspelling amusing.

In terms of what all this means for the fall, Santorum suspending (and effectively ending) his campaign is both good and bad news for President Obama. It’s good because he now knows who his opponent in the general election will be, but it’s bad because Mitt Romney is a much more electable candidate than Rick Santorum. If Rick Santorum, as the result of some freak accident, won the nomination Obama would barely even need to campaign come fall. Santorum’s position is too far right for him to receive virtually any moderates and swing voters. All in all, it will be an exciting campaign come fall. 

Romney Wins (Not Yet Really, But He Has)

After three decisive primary wins this week, it has become apparent that

Mitt Romney will win the Republican Presidential Nomination (something I have been saying for weeks).  Wisconsin, Maryland, and District of Columbia (all winner take all primaries) went to Romney, giving him eighty-six delegates this week, and making his total delegate count six hundred and fifty five.

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If they had not done so already, most major media outlets have called Romney as the winner. Still, Santorum has stated that he will continue his campaign and that he still believes he has a change. Barring any near nuclear disaster scandals (a la the West Wing) that seems virtually impossible, so come the fall, it will be Mitt Romney versus Barrack Obama in the general elections.

            Now, despite the fact that Romney has the nomination all but sewn up, there are still twenty more primaries ranging from April 21^st to June 26^th. For the next two weeks, the media’s focus will all be on how Romney now has the nomination secured and how he should proceed from there. Santorum will continue to campaign and will have to find some way to keep some part of the attention on him until the next primaries.   

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            Pennsylvania is an important state in the primaries, with a large delegate count, so Santorum will likely be campaigning in this state at some point in the coming two weeks. He visited campus earlier this fall, and it is likely that he will be making another stop here. Penn State is a huge collection of potential voters. In the past students have split 60-40 (Democrat-Republican), which is a more favorable proportion than in other colleges in larger cities, so it makes sense for Santorum to visit.

            The next primary is in Missouri on April 21^st, followed by five on April 24^th. 

Newt, Just Give It Up Already!

             It was a slow week in the Republican Primary schedule, with only one primary in Louisiana on the 24^th. It was a proportional primary, with Rick Santorum winning and gaining 10 delegates and Mitt Romney coming in second and gaining 5 delegates. Romney continues to lead with 565 delegates and Santorum remains in second with 256 delegates. However, the real story this week doesn’t lie with either of the two frontrunners, but with the third place candidate Newt Gingrich.

Why don’t he just quit? That is the question everyone is asking, from TV pundits to serious political operatives. At this point, in order for Gingrich to win the nomination, both Romney and Santorum would have to be rendered completely incapable of governing. Given that it would take a serious scandal for Gingrich to win, pretty much everyone, even supporters within his own party, is wondering why he is still running. Ron Paul, at the very least, has basically done everything but say that he running to make an ideological point. He has yet to rule out running as a third party candidate  should he (and he will) fail to win the Republican nomination. Newt Gingrich on the other hand, has showed no signs of even considering dropping out of the campaign despite the fact that his financial resources are all but tapped out. 

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Gingrich has started firing campaign staffers due to lack of finances, a sure sign of a losing campaign, but has not yet indicated that he will drop out. Instead, he says that he will focus all of his efforts on the Republican convention in June. He has basically said that he knows he will not win the nomination outright, and so is cutting back on his staff and campaign schedule to try and pull of an upset nomination at the Republican convention.

The next primaries are in D.C., Maryland, and Wisconsin on April 3^rd.

All Romney All The Time

            Only two primaries were held this week, in Puerto Rico and Illinois. Both elections were wins for Romney. They provided him with gains of 20 and 42 delegates respectively. Neither race was particularly close, with Romney winning by at least 10% in both cases. These results are not particularly surprising given the previous trend. Romney wins consistently in states that are traditionally less conservative. This makes sense since Santorum is the more polarizingly conservative of the two candidates. With the wins, Romney’s delegate count moves up to 560, while Santorum’s delegate remains 246. As it has for much of this primary season, Mitt Romney remains the frontrunner. Realistically, in order for Santorum to have a shot at winning the nomination, he would have to win a significant number of delegates from states that are generally found to be more moderate. The only way this could happen is if some damaging information became available about Romney, and even then it would be unlikely. Still, it is physically possible, so I will not call it officially for a few more weeks.

conservativenews.wordpress.com

            

        One of the primaries this week was in Puerto Rico. Many people are unclear about the voting rights of Puerto Ricans given their status in relation to the United States. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the U.S., meaning that citizens of Puerto Rico are also citizens of the United States. They have social security numbers and do not need to go through any special process to move from the island to mainland America. Based on this, people who live in Puerto Rico are able to vote in the primaries. However, people who live in Puerto Rico cannot vote in the general elections in November, unless they move to mainland America and register to vote where they live.

            The last primary in March is Saturday the 24^th in Louisianna. Following that, the next primaries are on April 3^rd. 

Super Tuesday

             A lot has happened since my last post. Super Tuesday has come and gone, along with eight more elections afterword.  As the delegate count stands right now, Romney has 496, Santorum has 236, Gingrich has 141, and Paul has 66. So while Romney still maintains a significant lead after Super Tuesday, the race is far from over. Out of the 18 contests since my last blog post, 10 of them were actual primaries. This means that they are more binding than the caucuses. Mitt Romney won 11 of the 18 elections in Ohio, Massachusetts, Virginia, Idaho, Alaska, Vermont, Guam, Northern Marianas, Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and American Samoa. He was awarded a proportion of delegates in all of the other elections that he did not win outright. Rick Santorum won 6 elections: Tennessee, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Newt Gingrich won one state, his home state of Georgia. Ron Paul failed to win in any of the previously mentioned contests, although he did manage to pick up a few delegates due to the proportional system.

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If Super Tuesday showed anything, it’s that the race for Republican Presidential Nominee has become a two-man field. While both Gingrich and Paul are still running their campaigns, neither of them has a real chance of winning. The two candidates it really comes down to are Romney and Santorum. While Santorum won fewer states than Romney, he has been carrying momentum for quite some time, and it doesn’t look like that will be changing any time soon. However, in terms of delegate count, Romney is by far closer to the winning delegate count than Santorum. In order to win the nomination, a candidate needs 1,144 delegates. Romney has nearly 500 delegates, while Santorum has less than 250. Only time will tell, but unless Santorum starts coming in first in a few more states, Romney looks to be the nominee, reaffirming the early assumption.

The next contests are in Missouri, Puerto Rico, and Illinois, on the 17^th, 18^th, and 20^th respectively. None of these are big-ticket states, but they will help either narrow or widen the existing delegate count gap.  

4 Days and Counting

            This past week there were three Republican primaries, in Michigan, Arizona and Wyoming. All of these were won by the same candidate; Mitt Romney. Last week, I wrote about how both Romney and Santorum were going to have a tough time convincing Michigan voters to vote for them given that both of them opposed the bailout of the auto industry back in 2008. Although Romney was particularly vehement about his opposition, he emerged from the race victorious. It was a close race, with just a few percentage points separating Romney from Santorum. Michigan has 30 delegates, so one would expect Romney to come out of the contest with all 30. However, due to the fact that Michigan has a hybrid primary system in place, they were penalized. Thus, Romney came away with 16 delegates, while Santorum got a consolation prize of 14.

            In Arizona, the race was much less contested, with Romney winning by a definitive margin. Though predictable, this win is actually much more helpful to Romney than his victory in Michigan because of the fact that he got all of Arizona’s 29 delegates. This is the only state out of the three that he won where he gets all of the delegates outright. In Wyoming, as I have mentioned, Romney also won. However, Wyoming’s system is that of a non-binding caucus. So while currently Romney holds 10, Santorum holds 8, Paul holds 6, and Gingrich holds 1, that could all change later on this spring when the actual binding election is held.

            The last election before Super Tuesday, which is this Tuesday March 6^th is in Washington on Saturday March 3^rd. This again, is a non-binding caucus, so the results will be subject to change. Coming into Tuesday, it will be important for the candidates to maintain a positive media presence and some semblance of momentum. There is still no clear nominee in sight, though the field may become clearer after Super Tuesday. 

Why Michigan Voters Hate Romney And Santorum

There were no primaries this week, so in light of that I’m going to preview what is coming up next, and why it could pose such a challenge to the frontrunners. The next two primaries are Michigan and Arizona, both on February 28^th. Michigan has a delegate count of 30, while Arizona has a delegate count of 29, so both are reasonably sized in that respect. At this point in the race, Santorum continues to hold the lead, with a 5.2 point lead over Romney. However, despite holding the lead now, he was barely in second place three weeks ago.  Between the three main candidates: Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich, it is still anyone’s race at this point. Though Ron Paul is still campaigning, it has become pretty clear at this point that he doesn’t pose any real threat to the three other candidates. He may do well in a few states, and even win one or two, but he differs too much from the Republican ideals to truly be a powerful force in the primary elections.

Now, onto the Michigan primary. It would be a natural assumption, given that Romney was born in Michigan, that he would have some sort of advantage in that state. That is most definitely not the case. In fact, Mitt Romney is disliked to a pretty big extent there. I should explain the background of why Michigan voters dislike Romney so much, and why he probably won’t do so well. In 2008, Chrysler and GM, both major auto companies, declared bankruptcy. Then president Bush passed an initial bailout, giving them money to keep from going under and dissolving an enormous number of jobs. After President Obama was elected, he passed a second bailout, loaning even more money to these companies. That money saved the two largest companies in the American auto industry, and in doing so, saved all jobs attendant to the auto industry. Now, both companies are doing well, and reporting profits for the first time in a number of years. Detroit is the largest city in Michigan, and bases much of its economy around the auto industry. What does any of this have to do with Mitt Romney? Well, back when the bailout was first passed, Romney stated that he disapproved of the action. He went so far as to write an op-ed article titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”. As you can imagine, this did not endear him to Michigan residents. However, Romney is not the only one who opposed the bailouts. Santorum also made clear that he did not support the actions. With the top two candidates so disliked, who knows what will happen. Maybe Gingrich will surge and make a play for Michigan. Whatever happens, we will have a clearer view of the race after Super Tuesday on March 6^th.