Mitt Romney may have adopted a Southern drawl, learned the word y’all and tasted grits for the first time but Rick Santorum has won the south defeating Romney and Newt Gingrich in Alabama and Mississippi. This was despite the advantage of Mitt Romney’s advertising carpet bombing campaign and Newt Gingrich’s supposed Southern advantage. Both Alabama and Mississippi were close races with Mississippi being a “barn burner” in which the candidates were separated by under 3 percentage points while Santorum won Alabama in a relatively comfortable manner by 5% over Gingrich and 7% over Romney.
Rick Santorum campaigning in Alabama (Eric Gay/AP)
The biggest loser was Romney who again struggled to gain over 30% of the vote in a Southern state. Santorum and Gingrich more than doubled the votes cast for Romney. This is a consistent narrative in this primary season, even where Romney “wins” his totals are almost always below his opponents. As I have said since Iowa this has become the search for the anti-Mitt anti-Mormon candidate. Romney is viewed by the Evangelical Christian and Conservative Catholic base of the Republican Party to be a flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate who belongs to a religious cult. That is the bottom line. Romney has tried hard to ingratiate himself to the base but has not been able to seal the deal despite the weaknesses of the Republican field and his massive advantage in campaign organization and financing. The results demonstrated Romney’s inability to seal the deal with the conservative base that not only the are the key to the GOP nomination but the General Election as well.
Gingrich is another loser tonight although in my mind not as much as Romney because Gingrich really has nothing to lose at this point because he will not be the nominee. He does not have much in terms of organization and most of his advertising comes from Vegas Casino owner Sheldon Adelson who has said that should Gingrich withdraw that he would switch his support to Romney. One has to wonder why he stays in the race except that this is so personal for him that he cannot let it go even if it means undercutting his fellow conservative Rick Santorum.
If Gingrich was to leave the race the Republican party would finally be able to define what it intends to be not only for 2012 but maybe for the next several election seasons. A Santorum versus Romney showdown would determine if the old guard moderates or if the new more socially conservative Christian voters finally gain the ascendency at the national level that they enjoy in many state and local races.
Ron Paul finished lower than in other outings in these states and should cease to be much of a factor in the coming weeks except to draw off support that might go to one of the front runners.
There are a number of primaries coming up. While I do not any of the next primaries to be decisive they could provide some measure of momentum to Santorum or buttress the Romney campaign. Hawaii’s caucuses will close in a couple of hours and it is more than likely that Romney will will Hawaii. On Saturday Missouri will caucus and it based on Santorum’s convincing wins there in the unofficial non-binding popular vote primary and his continued ability to beat Romney in heavily Evangelical areas I expect that he will win the majority of these delegates. Puerto Rico is Sunday followed by Illinois next week. Romney should win Illinois but the way things have been going Santorum may well challenge him hard in that state. Two weeks from now is Louisiana which I expect Santorum will win in a convincing manner.
When all is said and done by the end of March Romney should still lead the delegate count but I expect that he will not stop the bleeding. Gingrich will face pressure from Santorum and possibly senior GOP officials to leave the race. If he does there is the possibility that he could still be a Vice Presidential nominee.
The race is certainly interesting especially since President Obama remains mired in low approval ratings which promises that the General Election in November should be a nail biter unless something really happens to upset the apple cart. This makes it fun for me because I am actually coming to enjoy writing about politics.
Peace
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