The Winding Road To The Republican Nomination For President

A voter can request a Republican or Democratic ballot at the polling station -- that's the extent of party registration in Illinois. That information is public, so it's available to parties for purposes of compiling direct-mailing lists, call lists, etc.

In New Mexico, we register by party. That's public information, and candidates can also find out if you actually bother to vote.

I've voted in both Dem and Rep primaries in the past. Everyone calls me! Only one pro-Romney robo call so far today. I actually listened to it. It wasn't pro-Romney, it was anti-Santorum.

Two anti-Santorum calls today from the Romney camp. Do they have anything to say about Mitt?

"You've got nowhere to go, so you might as well accept it."

Cycloptichorn

I got a pollster robo-call last night asking me if I was planning on voting in the Republican primary. I pressed "2" for yes. Then I was asked to press 1-4 for which candidate I was going to "support" on Tuesday. I hung up. I can't quite bring myself to going on record as supporting any of them, but I would love to see a head-to-head referendum between Obama and a strong social conservative in the fall.

I'm torn between who I want to lose to Obama in the fall.

If Santorum loses to Obama then the Crazy conservatives will lose control of the GOP.

If Romney loses to Obama then the Conservatives will use that as the excuse to make the GOP more conservative guaranteeing they won't win an election for decades.

For the good of the country, I hope Santorum gets the nomination so we will still have 2 reasonably viable parties.

<agreeing with Parados>

Scary though, if he would get that far.

New York mag had an article that came to the same conclusion (I posted a link to it somewhere). Took them 6 pages. I prefer the length of your assessment.

Well you can't get too much more of a social conservative than Santorum, so Rick'd have to be your man.

I was merely summarizing that article. I guess I should have given it credit.

Drats.

Yeah, but.... that's a tough box to blacken.

Even if it's Mitt, there will be a strong push to name a social conservative as a running mate. And, then, there's the idea of a brokered convention with Sarah P ready to swoop in and claim the nod. These are crazy times, indeed.

George Will, and others (the old Republican guard), are following parados's thought by suggesting that the R's forget about the Presidency and focus on keeping their hold in the House and regaining the Senate. I think they're toast there too, but we'll have to wait and see.

Recapping today's race in Puerto Rico. An open primary with 20 delegates at stake, divided proportionally unless a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. If Romney gets 51% he gets all 20 delegates.
If the vote is 49% for Romney vs 40% for Santorum, the delegates are divided 10 to 8.
Gingrich and Paul have not campaigned in PR but could still prevent Romney from getting over 50% of the vote. That is the way I see it, but Santorum made some pretty stupid comments about Puerto Ricans needing to learn English.
He seemed to support statehood years ago, but that is too long ago, perhaps, to still resonate.

The AP reports, without giving out numbers, that Romney won all 20 delegates in PR. He got more than 50% of the votes.

Statehood doesn't sound like much of an issue in Puerto Rico. There's about as many who want it as don't

What if Santorum gets the nod, the economy tanks and Obama gets blamed and President Santorum takes over?

sounds like the beginning of an epitaph to me...

CBC reported last night that he got 80% of the vote.

Santorum noted today in, I assume, IL, that "We need a candidate who's going to be a fighter for freedom."
He adds, "I don't care what the unemployment rate is going to be."

I think that the conventional wisdom is that the economy will be the deciding issue in November. Romney conceded today that the economy has gotten a bit better in the past few months but he argues that if McCain were in charge, the economy would be even better.
Santorum. meanwhile, seems to be focusing on social issues.