An Update on the GOP Primaries

     As we all know, Newt Gingrich took the South Carolina primary election on Saturday. This was a bit of a surprise since Gingrich's campaign has faced a number of serious setbacks. Back in May, most of his staff quit and his campaign was left in ruins. Gingrich decided to stick it out and it worked in his favor for awhile. In early December, Gingrich enjoyed a bump in the polls and led Romney in the polls nationally and in a number of states. Then Romney unleashed a series of negative attacks on Gingrich's record that drove Gingrich's numbers down drastically. But again Gingrich stuck it out and managed a win in South Carolina's primary.
     Now many have said that South Carolina picks presidents. Since 1980, this has held true. However, all of the candidates who have won South Carolina and gone on to win the nomination have won either Iowa or New Hampshire before they took South Carolina. Now we have a three way race between Romney, Santorum and Gingrich.
     The race moves on to Florida in the coming week and the battle promises to be quite nasty. The Gingrich campaign is aiming to knock out Romney and Romney's campaign promises to minimize Gingrich's win in South Carolina. Santorum is moving along and advertising his record as a consistent conservative. Ron Paul is downplaying Florida and moving on to the smaller caucus states.
     Who will win Florida? I really don't know at this point. According to a new poll this morning, Gingrich has a nine point edge over Romney in Florida. That could change quickly. We saw that in South Carolina and Iowa and it could just as easily happen in Florida. Today, I will show you my terrible bias and support for the only conservative left in the race, Mitt Romney.

Romney
      Mitt Romney suffered a setback on Saturday when Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary. Apparently, the voters of South Carolina forgave Gingrich for his past misdoings and voted for him over Romney. Romney expected to lose South Carolina and is holding out the hope that Florida will not follow in the footsteps of South Carolina.
    The South has proven to be rather hostile territory for Romney but Florida tends to be different from the rest of the South. Lots of older folks live in Florida and that could prove helpful for Romney. Also, the evangelical vote doesn't play nearly nearly as important of a role that it does in states like Iowa and South Carolina. Romney has always polled well in Florida while Gingrich's support has surged and then fallen in the Sunshine State.
     Don't get me wrong, Florida is going to be a big battle between Romney and Gingrich, but Romney has an advantage over Gingrich and that is organization. Romney has a massive Florida operation and lots of money to compete with. He has been visiting Florida since 2010 and has built up a strong base of support.
     Romney has some work to do before the Florida primaries. He can no longer sit back and watch as his rivals fall by the wayside. He has to fight for the nomination now.
     Romney will need to perform well in the two debates just to be safe in case the Florida voters decide that debates matter like those South Carolina voters. He will also need to go after President Obama's poor record and show voters how his private sector experience will help in turning the economy around. He needs to go after Gingrich with everything he has on Gingrich's attacks on Romney's private sector experience. Romney will also nee to explain to Florida voters why he is not a flip-flopper compared to Gingrich.
     Florida is friendly territory for Romney and he can win the state if he shows that he is the one to beat Obama. Despite a recent poll that suggests Romney is nine points behind Gingrich, Romney can easily close that gap. He will have to fight for it, but I am confident that Romney can win the Florida primary. Remember, Florida has a closed primary and it will be impossible for liberals to get in there and ruin Romney's chances.
      Romney is more conservative than Gingrich in many ways and he needs to let the voters know that.



 

The Republican Primaries and the Candidates

   Ah yes, the nasty popularity contest that is the Republican Presidential primary election. There is lots of whining, picking, poking, and general rudeness. Not only from the Democrats, either. Ups and downs as candidates battle to become the Mitt Romney "alternative" even though Romney has just won the two early states, Iowa and New Hampshire. All of the candidates, except Mitt Romney of course, are trying to prove to voters how conservative they really are compared to Romney.
      The field of candidates is thinning as Romney has won and will probably continue to win many state primaries. Some of the candidates are trying to cast their second and third place finishes in New Hampsshire and Iowa as "momentum" and a massive improvement. Well, for Jon Huntsman, a third place finish in New Hampshire is a MASSIVE improvement.
    But let's talk about the candidates, shall we? Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain have all dropped out, but there are still other candidates in the race who just refuse to quit even though Romney is smearing them...

Mitt Romney
     The expected nominee, eventually, Mitt Romney has been the most steady in the polls and remained in the first or second place spots. To begin with, he polled rather well when he announced his candidacy. Then Michele Bachmann pushed him out of first place in the polls. She quickly faded into a distant fifth lace when Texas Governor Rick Perry entered the race and took the lead from Romney. Then Perry faded into fourth and fifth as Republicans became unsure if he could stand up to the Obama campaign's all-out war with Republicans.
     Romney took the lead once again. Then Herman Cain took the lead. He left the race. Then Newt Gingrich stole the lead away from Romney for a short time December. But, once again, Romney took back the lead and won Iowa by 8 votes, very narrowly defeating former Senator Rick Santorum. The Iowa win helped Romney's chances in New Hampshire in spite of him always polling well there. He won in New Hampshire with 39% of the vote, defeating Texas Representative Ron Paul who came in a distant second with 23% of the vote.
      Can Romney win the nomination? I would think so and so would many other Republicans considering his wins in the two early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. But as the race moves on to South Carolina and Florida, the remaining candidates have pledged to topple Romney from his frontrunner status. I personally do not support Romney completely for the nomination, but if it's down him and the President, the former will get my vote.

Newt Gingrich
     Though his campaign suffered numerous setbacks in the beginning, Newt Gingrich enjoyed a bump in the polls when Governor Perry slid and after Herman Cain suspended his campaign. The media pundits went wild when they saw that Gingrich was at the top of the polls in early December. Some were absolutely positive that the Republicans had finally found the candidate they were looking for. That quickly went away when other candidates brought up his big government ties and his polling numbers fell sharply in a matter of weeks.
     Even though Gingrich has tried his hardest to paint himself as a Ronald Reagan style conservative, it would seem that the voters really don't seem to believe him. In spite of the many mainstream pundits yelling about how Gingrich was the Romney "alternative", his campaign seemed to have difficulty dealing with the sudden attention.
      Why did Gingrich's campaign stumble they way it did? My opinion may not matter very much, but here's what I think: Gingrich could easily be the Republican nominee. However, he has not set up his campaign in a way that will help him win. Even after the departure of his campaign's top staff, his campaign team has not been able to deal with the media attention. The Gingrich campaign had been set up like a lower tier candidate's campaign. When Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have massive operations and an almost endless supply of cash, it's hard to keep up with a sudden increase in media attention and voter scrutiny.
     If Newt Gingrich had continued to use his record as Speaker of the House in the 1990s, such as the success of the Contract With America, I think he could have done better than expected in Iowa and New Hampshire and beyond that. He still has time to get ahead, but that time is quickly running out as South Carolina and Florida's primaries draw closer.

Ron Paul
   Ron Paul, the candidate with the most loyal supporters but also the candidate who is always being attacked on his very different kind of foreign policy views. He is doing much better than expected in the early states, with a third place finish in Iowa and a second place finish in New Hampshire, and is telling his supporters that these are victories. Hardly.
    Paul has much more support this election cycle than he did four years ago, but it doesn't seem to be enough to defeat Romney in the primaries. In Florida and South Carolina, Ron Paul is polling rather badly. I doubt that any of the Southern states will even be courteous enough to put him in a third place position. If that somehow happens, I will be rather surprised.
      Don't get me wrong, I like Ron Paul. His views on the Federal Reserve are spot on and his fiscal plan is exactly what is needed to save our financial system. Most of his views on foreign policy hurt, but are true. However, I don't believe that he will ever be the Republican nominee for President. Why is that? I'll tell you.
     Ron Paul has always had a loyal base of support. His fans will do anything for him. The problem for Ron Paul is that there are not nearly enough fans for him to win the nomination. Also, many view his foreign policy as a threat to national security and rather isolationist. Many don't like his plan to save our economy either. Some call it radical. That's not necessarily true, however. Ron Paul's views strictly adhere to the Constitution but many find those views to be radical because those people haven't read the Constitution. I think if Americans were more educated on the subject of the Constitution, Ron Paul would be the nominee.
     What would happen if Ron Paul was on the track to become the nominee? You would see the Republican Party establishment rise up and throw even their personal money into keeping him from getting elected.
     I like libertarians, though I am not one myself. However, when Ron Paul fans start banging on with their vast conspiracy theories, it gets old. Also, when they start talking about how our military doesn't need new and innovative weapons, or that we don't need a standing military, that bugs me too. Other than that, libertarians are spot on with politics.

Rick Perry
      Having been the governor of Texas for ten years, everyone had high expectations for Rick Perry. After a number of poor performances in way too many debates, the media pundits quickly descended upon the governor's ability to debate. They told everyone that he was a lost cause while his polling numbers were still high. Fox News analysts grumbled about how Romney needed to be the fontrunner and not this dude from Texas. The other candidates went after Perry on his support for in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants and his opposition to a border fence. Perry tried to defend himself, but his defense on these issues came out garbled and messy. He was branded as a big idiot who couldn't talk about what he stood for. Then came his embarrassing 50-second gaffe when he failed to remember the third agency he'd eliminate as President. The media went wild. They called Perry the biggest political novice ever.
     These accusations had nothing to back them up since Perry had been the governor of Texas for ten years. But unfortunately for Perry, people listened to the media and he quickly lost his top spot in the polls.
     Why did Perry go from Republican star to an almost nobody? In my opinion, he let the other candidates stomp him into the ground. He didn't defend his positions clearly enough. Of course the media played a part in bringing him down with his many debate errors, but Perry let himself get blasted by Romney, his chief rival. That's what all but knocked him out of the race.
     If the Republicans chase Perry out, there will not be any more true conservatives left in the race. That would be a shame because we need a conservative to defeat the President and not a moderate Republican.

Rick Santorum
     I must say, Rick Santorum surprised the political pundits (thank heavens) when he came second in the Iowa caucus and was only defeated by Romney with a mere 8 votes. Before that, he polled poorly at 1% and 2%. He is now polling rather well nationally and in South Carolina and Florida.
      Santorum is a strong social and fiscal conservative but he is a Washington insider to some degree. He was in the Senate for twelve years, and he has a fairly clean political record. He is a conservative, but I still think Perry is more conservative on some other issues. Santorum has also stirred up some controversy with his views on homosexuality, abortion and the family.
     Why did Santorum of all people get a bump in the polls? I think people are looking for someone who stands by what he says without flip-flopping. I also think that they are tired of the vicious assault on family values and religion by the media and politicians. They see that Santorum is a religious man who loves his family. Of course, that's not to say that the other candidates don't love their families, but Santorum has been especially vociferous about it. I think people see Santorum as a strong family man who believes in what he says.

Jon Huntsman
     He was the governor of Utah and served as ambassador to China for President Obama. Great guy with lots of experience. He never took off in the polls. Until Tuesday night when defied expectations and managed a third place win in the New Hampshire primary. Huntsman spun this off as great improvement and he was right. Hard work pays off.
     Will he be the nominee? Probably not.

Buddy Roemer
Who? Oh yeah, the former governor from Louisiana.


Matthew's Opinion
     Mitt Romney has a strong lead and it will be tough for the other candidates to knock him out. In fact, it will be nearly impossible. He holds commanding leads in Florida and South Carolina and he has already won two states. His opponents have vowed to knock him out, but he seems comfortable enough with his leads. I don't blame him.
     Who is that candidate that can knock out Romney? At this point, none of them. Paul and Santorum might give him a tougher time, but not by much.
     Who will be the nominee? At this point, Romney. Who can beat President Obama? All of the Republican candidates have that ability. The President is in a tough position right now and he could very well be beaten in November and all the candidates need to focus on the President's very poor record and not each other's.