Mitt Romney has to be one real happy ex-Governor right about now.
The former chief executive of Massachusetts won in convincing fashion last Tuesday. Romney tallied 39% of the vote, beating his closest competitor, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, by 15%. For the first time we saw him get more than 25% of the vote.
His
victory speech was tremendous. It featured one of my favorite lines of the campaign so far: "The President has run out of ideas, now he's running out of excuses. And (together we will) make 2012 the year he runs out of time."
The die is increasingly being cast in this race. So far Mr. Romney has had all the answers. The South Carolina primary is in 8 days, on January 21st. If Romney wins there in decisive fashion, this will pretty much be over. Sad but true, as it seems like we're just getting started, but if someone is going to establish some momentum against him it'll have to be at the next contest in South Carolina. Even though he'll still be far from the 1144 delegates he needs, Romney has a lot of money and a huge, well organized campaign operation. If he couples that with his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire and then adds a win in South Carolina, his nomination will begin to appear inevitable. If that happens, his opponents fundraising will start to dry up, and it will do so at just the time when money becomes far more important. As we move into bigger states like Florida, the ability to spend on advertising becomes crucial.
The biggest loser of the night Tuesday was definitely Jon Huntsman. His campaign was totally focused on New Hampshire, and he came in third, 6% behind Ron Paul and tallying less than half of Romney's votes. He promises to press on, but he'll be spending his own money to do it. He has a lot, so he can hang around for a while, but his chances of being nominated are, precisely, zero.
While we're talking about people with no chance, we have Congressman Paul. He will continue to be a factor, but not one in terms of winning the nomination. He appears to want very much to play a roll in writing the party platform. So be it. But he's polling at around 10% in South Carolina, and less in Florida. Not a recipe for gaining momentum.
It was also a bad night for Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich. Perry got around 1% of the vote, but never mounted much of a campaign there. Gingrich, the leader in national polls just 5 weeks ago, got only 9%, tied with Rick Santorum. For Gingrich and Perry, South Carolina is likely to be their last stand. Actually that's only true of Gingrich. Perry is toast, and it's time someone told him so. He's polling at around 5%. If the Governor of Texas can't do better than 5% in South Carolina, it's time to pick up your marbles and go home.
Going forward, the story lines developing in South Carolina are really interesting for a political junkie like me. There is a rough justice in the attack ads that have been launched against Romney in the last couple weeks. Don't get me wrong. I think the assertions that Bain Capitol, the company Romney ran in the 80s and 90s, was some sort of corporate raider that broke companies up and sold off the pieces, are complete and utter nonsense. Bain mainly provided capital to
start new companies, and they achieved some great American success stories, including Staples and The Sports Authority. At the same time, Gingrich's lead in Iowa was torpedoed largely by attack ads from a Romney Super PAC.
Ads
that were frankly full of lies. So as much as I like the Governor, I have no sympathy for him having to answer these attacks. He didn't have to be the first person in this race to go negative,
but he was. If there is a tab for doing that, I will personally enjoy watching him have to pick it up.
The math here has not changed. If the more conservative parts of the Republican party want someone besides Romney, they have to coalesce behind one opponent. If they continue to remain split, Romney will soon build a lead so large that he can't be caught, even with delegates being awarded proportionally.
The person with the best chance to accomplish this unification would seem to be Rick Santorum. Socially conservative South Carolina is more his kind of state than New Hampshire, so the momentum he had coming out of Iowa could continue there.
I still hope that person will be Speaker Gingrich, but a second comeback? That would be a tough trick to pull off. Still, the latest polls in South Carolina seem to show him closing the gap. Newt had a big lead there before Christmas. That lead dissipated over the holidays. (We can't tell exactly when, because pollsters deserve some time off, too.) However, in the four polls that have been released since New Year's, Romney's lead over Gingrich has gone from 19 to 9 to 7 to 2. A trend? We'll have to wait and see.
Stay tuned.