The Winding Road To The Republican Nomination For President

Some 1500 people were turned away from a caucus site in Washington state that was deemed to be too small to handle the turnout. More than a bit of angst about that.

SUPER TUESDAY - GIRD YOUR LOINS
Or not.
Ten states will hold primaries/caucuses on Tuesday. Geographically diverse states. Much will made of the outcome with regard to the popular vote in the various states. But we know that the real battle is over collecting delegates.
Thus far fewer then 300 delegates have been awarded. That is about 12% of the total.
Something like 420 delegates will be selected on Tuesday.
Probably the most closely watched race is in Ohio. We have an A2K reporter on the ground there. I hope we will hear from her.

Georgia has 76 delegates up for grabs and Newt Gingrich has to do well in what really is his home state (although he now lives in northern Virginia).
The last poll I saw has Gingrich @ 40%, Romney @ 24%, Santorum @ 21% and Paul @ 6%.
As I understand it, 31 of the delegates will be awarded proportionately to candidates WHO GET AT LEAST 20% OF THE VOTES. Paul will likely get no delegates and Santorum and Romney are on the bubble from that group.
The winner in each of Georgia's 14 districts get 2 delegates each with the 2nd place winner getting 1 delegate in each district. Unless the 1st place winner gets 50% of the vote in which case the 2nd place winner gets zip.
I hope I have made that all clear.

Virginia, my home state, has 42 delegates. Santorum and Gingrinch (and Perry) failed to get on the ballot. They threatened to sue, claiming the process was too complicated That didn't fly. Not at all.
Romney will likely win big over Paul in the popular and delegate race.

Hi RJB - how does that happen? What is the real reason they failed to get on the ballot - from a distance it seems bizarre.

Horrible organization, HH. Candidates needed to collect names from so many registered voters statewide and so many in each district. It was not that complicated and Romney and Paul complied. How did they do it? They stood outside the polling places in November and got signatures from registered Repubs leaving the polls.
The Santorum and Gingrich people stood outside Wal-Marts. They collected signatures from people not registered to vote or not in sufficient quantity to qualify to get on ballots in certain districts. It was plain stupid organization.

When I was in Texas I signed something like that, they didn't question my eligability, despite me having an English accent. I thought it was a bit of a laugh, but not as much as the Texans I was with.

Thanks for the explanation RJB. Looks really bad doesn't it? - Santorum and Gingrich saying something was too complicated that Romney and Paul managed just fine - a picky journo would easily turn that into a declaration of incompetence.

This also has to do with a lack of crystal balls -- Gingrich and Santorum were relatively minor candidates back when they had to do the legwork necessary to get on the ballot. They didn't know that they'd be two of the last ones standing.

They still should have taken care of it of course, but I think it's as much a testament to the topsy-turviness of the race as anything else.

Meanwhile, a Mitt update (and that's what his own campaign calls him -- "Rally with Mitt" etc.):

Still no response re: events or an interpreter. I checked the website as I was directed in the first email (before I mentioned the need for an interpreter), and there is now an event in Zanesville tomorrow evening (6-7), which is in the vicinity but more than an hour away. With no promise of an interpreter, I'm not really willing to drive that far.

I will find it somewhat interesting if there end up being no events in Columbus proper before Tuesday -- that suggests either writing off or overconfidence. Or maybe just plain being stretched too thin.

Additionally, Mayor Coleman (Columbus Mayor) is very pro-Obama. He was one of the earliest mayoral endorsements in 2008.

Just checked the Santorum website, also no events scheduled in Columbus.

Checked Newt, nope. (Many more events listed than Santorum's site, but mostly in the south.)

No Ron Paul either.

Wonder if Kasich's lack of popularity has something to do with this?

Ohio has a Republican governor, which would seem to be a good thing -- we had a Democratic governor in 2008 and he (Ted Strickland) did a lot to help Obama. But Kasich is wildly unpopular and maybe the Republican candidates aren't that eager for his help.

The 2008 Ohio primary was March 4th; I found Obama's schedule in the week before that:



http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker/candidates/barack-obama/states/oh/

(Events go back to February 17th, that's just the week before the primary.)

Obama lost the state primary to Hillary, but won Ohio in the general election.

Thanks for the perspective Soz. And for the reminder about Kasich.

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight has an excellent summary of Super Tuesday in the Times. He notes that there are 7 primaries and 3 caucuses tomorrow. Romney could collect the most votes in only 4 or 5 of them which might be the headline Wednesday morning. (Romney in MA, OH, VA, ID and VT)
The delegate tally is the more significant thing to watch. There are some 437 delegates at stake although that number could be a dozen or so less because of some of the rules.
By Silver's calculation, Romney will get 217 or about 50% followed by Santorum with 107 and Gingrich with 61.

I don't care what anyone says - these numbers are disastrous for a candidate for president.

Cycloptichorn

It's a really bad sign when you're being compared to Mr. Burns....

And it's an extra-bad sign when you're the presumptive Republican nominee and you regularly say things that could easily have been said by Mr. Burns.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/03/05/gop-hopefuls-losing-ground-to-obama-among-latinos-poll-says/

I really wonder about AZ and NM in such a situation.

Cycloptichorn

I have been following the RCP Electoral College Map. I haven't bothered to comment on it yet - too early for that.
The states are divided into the usual categories: Safe Obama, Leans Obama, Toss Up, Leans Republican, Likely Republican.
RCP at present has New Mexico (with 5 electoral votes) as Leans Obama and Arizona (11) as Leans Republican.

I follow it as well, but find it annoying, as they have some states as toss-ups (such as CO) in which no GOP candidate has EVER been ahead in polling, and others in which Obama's lead is farther ahead than in states they have listed as 'lean Obama.' I can't understand their methodology. I suspect that they are reluctant to assign too many states to the 'lean Obama' column for political reasons.

I mean, PA is a toss-up? It's voted Dem for the last 20 years in presidential elections and Obama has a pretty good lead there in the polls. C'mon.

Cycloptichorn

I quibble with RCP on some of its calls, Cyclo. I also watch Larry Sabato from UVA but he hasn't updated his listing since he premiered it on September 1, 2011. He had question marks next to both PA and CO and, overall, a closer race than RCP as I recall.
He noted the potential impact of the Latino vote as being big.

Lat week, The Atlantic published a bunch of US Treasury graphs on the economy . Anyone care to comment on the veracity of them? The charts are numbered 1 thru 13 so it should be easier to refer to them by number.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-white-houses-economic-case-for-reelection-in-13-charts/253806/#.T1J_RPDMHGo.facebook

Hey Bfly,

Do you mind if I respond to this in the 'Where is the US Economy Headed' thread instead?

Cheers
Cycloptichorn

I'll repost it over there.