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Is it just me, or was Mitt Romney’s address the most frightening speech delivered this election cycle?
Romney has been criticized in the past for looking fake. When he tries to do relaxed, he looks stilted. When he tries to do passionate, he looks sappy. Tonight, when he tried to do tough, he looked like a helmet-haired Brooks Brothers angel of death.
Maybe it’s because he spent half the time looking into the camera. (The teleprompter is located directly below the center camera.) Maybe it’s because 17 sentences in the transcript end with exclamation points.
Either way, I think he succeeded mightily at convincing Republicans they made the right choice—not him.
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Barack Obama is speaking right now before a roomful of Jewish leaders at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference, and Hillary Clinton’s up next.
Clinton isn’t expected to concede today, but imagine the favor she’d be doing Obama by stepping aside and pledging her full confidence in him in front of a group whose support Obama has struggled to win over. Remember how Mitt Romney dropped out at the Conservative Political Action Conference, two days after a slew of losses on Super Tuesday? He praised John McCain's policies in his withdrawal speech, knowing it would help McCain to be lauded in front of conservative skeptics.
Clinton will eventually be forced to unify, and unify hard. That means rounding up voters with whom she performed better than Obama. Some have proposed that Clinton hold a big rally and call it “Women Voters for Obama.” She might also massage relations between Obama and her Hispanic supporters. A productive first step would be backing him in front of the Jewish community.
Update 11:32 a.m.: And praise him she does:
"Let me be clear: I know Senator Obama understands what is at stake
here. It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him," she
said. "I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel."
"I know that Senator Obama shares my view," she said, that America
must remain a staunch Israeli ally, "our stance non-negotiable" and
that "the United States stands with Israel now and forever.
(via Ben Smith)
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After Mitt Romney endorsed McCain last month, we figured Romney would crawl into a cave, never to return until 2012. The strained smiles, the too-tight handshakes—it felt like a testy family reunion. But since then, Romney has said repeatedly that he would take the VP slot if offered. However, McCain didn’t exactly reach out.
Until today. Right now MittCain (too soon?) is taking a whirlwind fundraising tour around Rocky Mountain country, starting in Utah and finishing up in Denver this evening. The main reason is to drum up cash—McCain raised $11 million in February, compared to Obama’s $55 million. But it’s also a chance for the former rivals to show everyone that now they’re besties. (They look so exuberant it’s frightening.)
Naturally, speculators wonder if this means Romney tops McCain’s veep list. After all, presidential candidates have overcome former bitterness to forge alliances of convenience before. George H.W. Bush, for example, accepted Ronald Reagan’s VP offer after ridiculing Reagan’s “voodoo economics” during the primary season.
But McCain’s situation is different. For him, picking Romney would fly in the face of his entire “straight talk” image. (However spurious.) McCain spent much of the primary slamming Romney not for minor policy differences, but for fundamental dishonesty. Given that McCain already arouses suspicion among many conservatives, the last thing he needs is someone whose reversals on abortion, gay rights, and stem-cell research make McCain’s own reversal on Bush’s tax cuts look consistent. No doubt McCain needs the cash, but as Romney himself discovered, money can’t buy votes. Especially when there's video evidence your running mate can't stand you.
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Mitt Romney’s endorsement of John McCain today was a fitting coda to his campaign, if only because you couldn't believe a single thing coming out of his mouth. (At least he knows how to do a proper endorsement, unlike Fred Thompson, who might as well have scribbled his on the back of an ATM receipt.)
After assuring everyone that today’s press conference “promises to be one of our more pleasant exchanges,” Romney acknowledged that “things can get rough in a political campaign.” But “even when the contest was close and our disagreements were debated,” he said, “the caliber of the man was apparent.”
This seems like an appropriate moment to recap some of our favorite moments when neither man's caliber was particularly apparent to the other:
Romney promised to “pledge” his 289 delegates to McCain, which McCain says puts him above the 1,191-delegate threshold needed to secure the nomination. For more details on the logistics and limitations of delegate-gifting, see here and here.
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About five minutes before Mitt Romney strode onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., text messages started flying around the room. Romney was dropping out.
Laura Ingraham was introducing Romney, but it sure sounded like she hadn’t been fully briefed. It gave her whole surly, cocky shtick a morbid overtone, and the knowledge gap produced some cringeworthy moments. “I don’t think any of us in this room think another Ronald Reagan is going to walk through the door,” she said. Indeed not.
Romney arrived already looking deflated. The crowd cheered, but as he spoke, there was a disconnect between audience expectations and his words. He started out by describing John McCain’s lead: “Eleven states have given me their nod, compared to his 13. Of course, because size does matter, he’s doing quite a bit better with his number of delegates.”
The audience waited for a “but." But there was no but.
He didn’t exactly endorse John McCain but said he agrees with the senator on the war and national security. “If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win,” he said.
It took a second to sink in. A man from the audience screamed, “Nooooo!” Boos followed. Romney’s eyes looked moist—I’m sure we’ll hear that he cried—and his voice seemed to tighten.
“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose,” he said. “… If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.” Again, boos.
It’s a curious rationale for ducking out. He’s essentially saying that a tough Republican race helps the Democrats, which in turn helps the terrorists: “I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.” (Does that mean a Romney win would have been a win for terrorists?) Whereas John Edwards dropped out to “let history blaze its path,” Romney is dropping out to let McCain beat Obama and catch Osama.
The fact is, Romney realized he was beaten on the board. Mathematically, he had to win nearly every other primary in order to beat McCain. And every contest lost would be another blow to his integrity and thus the likelihood of another run. Plus, by the time he was done, he would have spent so much of his own money—$18 million and counting—that he might have to change his tune on entitlement programs.
When he left the stage, the crowd filed out in a daze. Romney signs dangled at the sides of supporters, rather than being held aloft. A Ron Paul supporter gleefully pointed out how his candidate outlived Romney, only to be stared down by Romney-ites.
Someone pointed, and I looked over. There was Flip the Dolphin—the stuffed-animal man who has been following Romney everywhere—doing a jig.
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Mitt Romney is pulling out of the Republican race today, most likely after realizing he was mathematically eliminated from winning the nomination. Rather than pray for a brokered convention that turns to him as the party's savior, he's pulling out now while he still has enough dignity in the tank for a 2012 run.
Romney's withdrawal (which is technically a "suspension" of his campaign) means it's down to Mac and Mike. Yes, the two candidates least likely to win the Republican nomination five months ago are now the only two candidates (besides Ron Paul) left standing. For the full effect, we're going to write it one more time: Aw-shucks Huck has stayed in the Republican race longer than moneybags-Mitt.
For weeks, Huckabee has said it's a two-man race—between him and John McCain. Since Iowa, pundits have said that Huckabee was the one draining Romney's votes, but now the chattering class is left with a new question: Was Romney draining Huckabee's votes?
Doubtful. Huckabee won't pick up Romney's fiscal conservative vote thanks to his fair tax plan, and all of Romney's anti-radical-jihad fans are going to flock to McCain. He could scavenge Romney's social conservative bloc, but there probably aren't enough of them to put Huckabee over the top to beat McCain.
McCain will still be the nominee, but Romney's withdrawal will allow Huckabee to make some noise. In the coming weeks, Louisiana, Kansas, Texas, and Ohio all become especially friendly to Huckabee. That, of course, assumes Huckabee is going to stay in the race, even though he can't mathematically win, either. Last we heard, Huckabee said he was going to stay in until somebody had a majority of delegates. Then again, the last we heard from Romney, he said he was staying in through the convention. Consider it his final flip-flop.
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Mitt Romney's time has come. But will he admit it?
Romney has won six primaries and caucuses tonight. None of them matters. The two primaries—Utah and Massachusetts—took place in his home state. Four caucuses—North Dakota, Colorado, Montana, and Minnesota—have turned Romney Red. Not exactly an all-star list of high-impact states. The Washington Post is projecting he'll take home 67 delegates.
Even worse: Mike Huckabee is pouring metaphor-laced salt in his wounds. The South badly wanted to elect somebody other than McCain, and it seems nearly every state (with the possible exception of Missouri) chose Huckabee over Romney. Republican voters, faced with a choice between a say-anything robo-pol and a genuine, slightly nutty Southern boy, chose the guy without any money. Romney was so noxious that Republicans actually chose the less viable candidate—not what Republicans are supposed to do.
So, what now? Romney's last hope was to remain relevant in California, but that worked about as well as his two-dozen different campaign messages. The next few contests—Kansas, Louisiana, Washington, Virginia, and Maryland—don't really favor him, but that's because the country doesn't favor him. The only region where Romney did especially well was in the mountain West, where Mormons live and news stories go to die. His political life has run its course. It's time to end it.
We may not see a withdrawal tomorrow, but we should--if only for Romney to save face and his bank account. Between him and Giuliani, the fall's front-runners have both faltered miserably. Instead we're left with two candidates, both of whom had no money, no momentum, and no chance in hell in December. It looks like Romney really is a turnaround specialist. Except this time, he turned himself around.
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CNN just called a slew of states for McCain, Clinton, and Obama. Here's why none of them are suprising:
Connecticut, New Jersey for McCain: McCain had Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani backing him.
Oklahoma for Clinton: Borders Arkansas. There's that whole Arkansas first lady thing in Clinton's past.
Massachusetts for Romney, Illinois for Obama: Home turf for both. The only mild drama was whether McCain's last-second push for Massachusetts would make any noise. It may have, but obviously not enough to stop CNN from insta-projecting Romney the winner. The untold storyline: Some of Massachusetts' delegates are assigned proportionately, so McCain's efforts could have made an imprint on the delegate picture when all is said and done. But we'll have to wait a while to find out.
Illinois for McCain: This is the only one that's somewhat exciting. Illinois is delegate-rich (70) and a nice bellwether for the Midwest. But polls had him way up leading into tonight and the McCain win is more proof of his front-runner status than anything else.
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Poor Mitt. Even when he does something right, he still screws it up. Today at the West Virginia GOP convention, Mitt Romney finished in a strong first place--on the first ballot. Romney racked up 40.9 percent to Huckabee's 33.1 percent after the first round of voting. Because Romney didn't clear 50 percent on the first round, the convention went to a second ballot, this time without Ron Paul on it. Realizing Romney might win, and there was no way McCain could win, McCain's surrogate pulled McCain out of the race and told his supporters to support Huckabee, instead. It was like a politics-themed episode of Captain Planet. By your powers combined, I am Captain No-Mitt!
All green mullets aside, this means absolutely nothing for how the rest of the day will play out. The final vote tally in West Virginia was 557-522. Yes, you read that right. Eighteen GOP delegates were decided based on 1,100 votes. The Republicans who show up to a state convention are the die hards of the party and party officials--not exactly McCain's crowd. Romney's support there was probably as much of a McCain rebuke as Huckabee's win was an anti-Romney alliance.
UPDATE 4:34 p.m.: Ron Paul tells us he brokered a deal with the Huckabee folks to grab three of the 18 delegates available at the convention. Kudos to the Paulies. But they should double check their math before sending out press releases: "With three national delegates, Ron Paul secured 20 percent
of the 18 delegates that were decided at the State Convention." (emphasis added) That's 16.7 percent.
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Just because we didn’t live-blog doesn’t mean we didn’t
watch the debate. For what it’s worth, we’re adding our belated thoughts to the
cacophony
of instant
reaction. The executive summary: Nobody screwed up, only Romney helped himself.
John McCain: When
did John McCain become slightly senile? His prolonged spat with Mitt Romney
about Mitt’s non-support
of an Iraq
timetable made McCain look like a desperate slanderer. Considering he’s the
undisputed frontrunner, McCain’s whole strategy was nuts. As my Trailhead
colleague Mr. Beam pointed out, he's the senile grandfather you let prattle on
because its too sad to tell him to shut up. Another McCain highlight of the
night was watching him go out of his way to send some love to California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger. Word leaked that Ahnold is endorsing
Johnny Mac tomorrow, so there was no chance McCain was going to disagree
with him on fuel-efficiency
federalism. If Anderson Cooper had some stones, he would have asked McCain
whether the Governator was going to endorse him.
Mitt Romney: Mitt
was sharper than a Mormon steeple tonight. He offered something for all three
Reagan-coalition constituencies. The social conservatives got a gay-marriage
ban shout-out (an issue that has disappeared from this cycle). The national
security conservatives saw Romney mount an effective rebuttal to McCain’s
baseless withdrawal claims. In case fiscal conservatives didn’t already know
it, Romney knows what’s up
when it comes to the economy. When McCain attacked Romney’s record in Massachusetts, Romney
yanked stats out of his brain that only an economic cyborg can remember. With
Reagan’s Air Force One as your backdrop, pandering to the Reagan coalition is a
good idea—no matter how tacky that plane looked.
Mike Huckabee:
This was an ugly debate for the Huckster. What makes Huck such an effective
debater is his ability to use his quips as a gateway into important policy
points. Tonight Huck didn’t do that. His best Huckism was a long-winded stat
about sitting in traffic that didn’t fully connect to his policy point: that
fixing the nation’s infrastructure would stimulate the economy. Plus, he pulled
it off better at a fundraiser
earlier in the day. When Romney and McCain started bickering about Iraq timetables,
Huckabee might as well have been wearing a cloak of invisibility. When he
actually spoke, Huckabee complained about not getting a chance to speak—always
a faux pas.
Ron Paul: Poor
Paul. Cooper gave Dr.
No the silent treatment all night. At one point Cooper cut Paul off while he
was trying to answer two questions in one. Cooper promised Paul would get
another chance to speak “coming up in like two
minutes or two questions.” To be fair, Cooper honored his word, but then
cut him off again later in the evening. At one point Paul recoiled from being
cut off, arched an eyebrow, and cocked his head a bit as he stopped himself
from staring Cooper down. On a related note, I don’t remember the last time
Paul was off-message at a debate. Sure, he’s been reduced to a sideshow (fairly
or not), but at least it’s a consistent one.
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Another presidency just opened up. Gordon B. Hinckley, president and "prophet" of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, died yesterday at the age of 97. We're always on the lookout for political omens, and this one can't be good for Mitt Romney.
That said, here's why it's only a matter of time before we have a Mormon president:
Mr. Hinckley is survived by his children, Kathleen Barnes Walker, Virginia Pearce, Jane Dudley, Richard Hinckley and Clark Hinckley; 25 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren.
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Did George Bush pass his bulge down to Mitt Romney? In 2004, Bush infamously had a giant, microphonelike bump on his back during a debate against John Kerry. Rumors were flying that Bush had a direct line to Karl Rove during the debate and that Rove was feeding him answers to the questions (even though Bush turned in a terrible performance). Last night, Bush’s Bulge begat a cousin: the Romney Whisper.
At last night’s debate, Tim Russert asked Romney if he would follow Reagan’s example on Social Security. Russert was careful not to tell Romney that Reagan raised taxes to help Social Security funds, so somebody else tried to tell Romney instead. After Russert finishes his question, a Lost-like whisper is heard that mutters, “Raise taxes.” Romney answered that he would not raise taxes, and then Russert giddily informed him that that’s not the case.
We asked MSNBC why the whisper came through, and MSNBC’s spokesman responded via e-mail.
We heard the same thing you heard. There was obviously an open mike which picked up the whisper, but we have no way of knowing who did the whispering.
So, who is the whisperer? Three schools of thought reign in the blogosphere:
- It was a Romney staffer trying to talk to Romney.
- It was a producer trying to talk to Russert.
- It was another candidate whispering the answer to himself or his neighbor.
But forget about what us bloggers think. Decide for yourself after watching the clip at Slate V.
With Alex Joseph.
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The holy grail of campaign opposition research is the perfect metaphor: an activity or hobby or object that captures a politician's character. For George W. Bush, the metaphor has been his ranch, allowing Hillary Clinton to describe his foreign policy as “cowboy diplomacy.” For John Kerry, the metaphor was his penchant for windsurfing, which critics highlighted to suggest that his positions drifted with the breeze.
With Mitt Romney, however, no perfect metaphor has emerged. He has no special passion for flipping pancakes, nor does he collect weather vanes, nor has he ever expressed an interest in robotics. What, then, can his opponents use to symbolize his foibles?
Meh, how about windsurfing again. Who cares that he doesn’t do it? (Or at least there aren’t any incriminating photographs.) Thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, John McCain’s new ad makes it look like Romney does, goofily pasting his face onto a windsurfer’s body. “Where does Mitt Romney stand?” a voiceover asks. “Whichever way the wind blows.”
Forget Swift Boating. John Kerry should reach across the aisle and speak out against windsurfing-ing.
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Sometimes it feels unfair to take a person's small moment and blow it up to Cloverfield proportions. But when that person is Mitt Romney and the small moment is him trying to endear himself to black people, it’s impossible not to.
In the first moment, Romney poses with a group of young African-Americans and says, “Who let the dogs out? Who, who.” (A spokesperson says he was responding to someone saying, “Who let you out?”) Later, he approaches a baby wearing a necklace: “Hey buddy! How’s it going? What’s happening? You got some bling bling here!” Fox News has the video here.
On the one hand, it’s a cringe-worthy display. George Romney may have marched with Martin Luther King Jr., but judging from this video you'd guess that was the last time a Romney interacted with an African-American. But on the other hand, it’s sort of adorable. He’s like your out-of-touch grandparent who tries to win you over by proving he knows the “Bad Boys” theme song. In the current issue of the New Republic, Jonathan Chait describes how Romney’s cluelessness can be touching:
Romney has acquired the aura of an overbearing, upper-class phony. But I see him as more of an earnest dweeb, desperately, and unsuccessfully, trying to fit in with his new crowd. I can almost picture him coming home from the Republican debates, crying his eyes out that he wants to move back to Massachusetts because all the other candidates keep laughing at him. If this image leaves you unmoved, you're made of sterner stuff than me.
Same goes for the “bling” moment. As much as I want to call Romney out for tone-deaf pandering—can you imagine him saying that to a white baby in Utah?—that would be stating the obvious. If any other candidate had said it, like Giuliani, the remarks might have sounded downright offensive. But with Romney, it’s clear he just doesn’t know any better.
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Fred Thompson, in his withdrawal way-out-of-first-place speech, finally looked and sounded presidential. But, alas, his time has finally come, whether or not he wants to realize it—and it's all Ronald Reagan's fault.
Thompson reached the most stirring line of his speech this evening when he said that the Reagan coalition was alive and well. If Thompson was right, he would have had more success in this primary race--therefore, he's totally wrong.
A quick primer on the Reagan Coalition: Three different conservative groups—foreign policy, economic, and social conservatives—all coalesced around one candidate to put him in office for eight years. But if any message has become apparent during this mad primary season, it's that there isn't a coalition anymore: It's every splinter group for itself.
Mike Huckabee courts social conservatives because of his hidden-crosses in political ads. Mitt Romney attracts economic conservatives because the only thing about his candidacy that stays constant is his business background. And John McCain courts foreign policy conservatives because of his Senate experience and military years. Note how those three men won the first three major contests. The coalition is dead. And it's questionable whether it will show up again in time for the general election.
If Thompson really thought the Reagan Coalition was going to get him elected, then he just wrote his own obituary.
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Juicy bits from CNN's exit polls:
- Mike Huckabee and John McCain are in a tight race at the top.
- Young voters lean toward Huckabee, but seniors greatly favor McCain. This isn't surprising but could be a major factor if older voters turned out in greater numbers than the kiddies.
- Mitt Romney won the plurality of votes from Catholics who go to church weekly, which is good news for his campaign after his big Mormon speech a month or two ago. (Unsurprisingly, very religious voters of all denominations preferred Huckabee.)
- Only 9 percent of Catholics, who made up 14 percent of CNN's voter pool, voted for Huckabee. Thirty-nine percent voted for McCain.
- Forty-one percent of South Carolina voters thought McCain had the best chance of winning in November.
- Fifty-eight percent of voters, according to CNN's exit polls, were born-again Christians or evangelicals. They favor Huckabee 41 percent to McCain's 27 percent. Only 11 percent of non-born-agains and evangelicals voted for Huck.
- Huckabee won support among those who care most about immigration, McCain among those who care most about Iraq. Again, this follows the polling we saw before the primary.
- 25 percent of voters were veterans, and that group favored McCain. Huckabee and McCain were essentially tied among non-veterans.
We offer the usual disclaimer that exit polls are just polls, not results.
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In a caucus that nobody cared about, Mitt Romney is the predicted winner of the Republican contest in Nevada today. Yay for Mitt.
Romney and Ron Paul were the only two candidates who paid any attention to Nevada, which lost its importance when South Carolina Republicans scheduled their own primary for today. Leading up to Romney's win, the GOP candidates were given a choice. They could either make a statement down South or out West. All of them chose South Carolina, including Romney.
But after a heavy ad presence and campaign schedule, Romney couldn't find traction in South Carolina, so he decided to pull out and switch focus to Nevada, where CNN reports 25 percent of cacus-goers were Mormons.
So, not to be rude, but Mitt's win means very little. But Romney's campaign won't paint it that way. Here's a guide to some possible narratives that Romney's camp will spin, and why they're all hogwash.
- Expected spin: Nevada win bodes well for California! Spinback: When Nevada originally entered the hallowed early primary-state club, the parties thought Nevada could be the bellwether for the rest of the region. That meant it was going to take California's delegate-rich temperature and give the Nevada winner a head start to win in Reagan-land. But because only Paul and Romney paid attention, Nevada's result won't carry much sway in California, where all the remaining Republicans will compete.
- Expected spin: We're the delegate leader! Spinback: Romney is now guaranteed to be the delegate leader, regardless of what happens in South Carolina. But only Romney's campaign will think that's important. Of Romney's three wins, only one has come in a contested state (Michigan), while the other two have been in states the rest of the field has left alone (Wyoming and Nevada). Romney has yet to prove he can win when it counts and ran away from South Carolina when the going gets tough. He has to earn his delegates to have a delegate lead carry any import. Plus, even though the campaign is becoming less and less about momentum as Super Tuesday approaches, South Carolina's winner is going to be the real newsmaker today.
- Expected spin: Even evangelicals likes us! Spinback: CNN is reporting that outside of Romney's near-unanimous Mormon support, he also beat Mike Huckabee among evangelicals. Perhaps, but Huckabee never went to Nevada nor did he have any ads running, so Romney was essentially competing against Huckabee's media persona.
Photograph of Mitt Romney on Slate's home page by LM Otero/AP.
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It seems home is where the votes are. Mitt Romney has won in Michigan, and we owe him at least a moment so he can bask in his gold-medal glory ...
Now, with that out of the way, let's begin the dissection. A lot of the story line coming out of Romney's win will be determined by the demographics of his support. If a bunch of senior-citizens braved the snow to vote for him, then they probably voted for him because of George Romney's gubernatorial stint. But, if young and middle class voters went for Romney, then he can position himself as the recession-friendly candidate as the country goes the way of Michigan down a dark economic rabbit hole.
The other issue at play for Romney: Can he rightfully call himself the front-runner? He's got more delegates than anybody else and looks strong going into Nevada, where he'll compete while everybody else is gallivanting around South Carolina. From there, he'll be one of two or three challengers to Giuliani in Florida (Romney, McCain, and Huckabee if he wins South Carolina).
The impact on McCain will be muted if the exit polls hold true and independents decided to stay home. McCain is counting on independents to power him through the primaries and the general election, and it's a reasonable expectation given all of the "unification" rhetoric flying around the electoral cycle right now. So, if independents didn't come out to mark the ballot, McCain's camp can't be that shocked by the results. It doesn't look good from the outside-looking-in, but the actual, hard data probably won't show any surprises for McCain.
Huckabee? Fox is trying to spin it as a damaging blow, pre-South Carolina, but we're skeptical. He'll reboot his news cycle with the first Huckism he utters on the trail in South Carolina, and off we'll go again—chasing a new narrative. He's already tried to change the subject by saying he was outspent "50 to one" in Michigan. Sounds like he's taking a page out of John Edwards' book.
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Perhaps wolverines do hibernate after all. Reports out of Michigan today suggest people didn't feel like plowing through inches of snow to vote in a primary that doesn’t matter for Democrats and sort of matters for Republicans (mainly if Romney loses). So, with two and a half hours to go before the returns come in, it’s worth a quick look at who wins and who loses because of the 20 percent turnout that’s expected.
WINNERS
Democrats: If the Democratic National Committee is smart, it will harp on the low turnout numbers. They can spin the lack of interest in Michigan and say it proves that the record activity we saw in New Hampshire and Iowa was really due to the excitement around the Democratic race. In reality, the snow was probably just as big of a factor, but you can’t freeze spin.
Mitt Romney: Bear with my series assumptions: If there are fewer voters, that means the exit polls encompass more of the sample. That means the exit polls are probably going to be more accurate. That means that the early pro-Romney reports—heavy Republican presence at the Republican primary, and the economy is most important—are likely to hold true. Also, older voters are usually more reliable than younger voters, which means that low turnout could encompass a lot of seniors who still know Papa Romney, former governor of Michigan.
LOSERS
Carl Levin: Levin’s boneheaded plan to make Michigan matter in the electoral cycle by moving its primary earlier blew up in his face once the Democrats pulled out. Today’s low turnout is only a nasty reminder of how ill-fated his ploy was from the get-go.
Markos Moulitsas: Because he wears an L on his forehead all the time. That, and the Democrats for Romney thing probably fell on its face if nobody went to the polls.
The loser: Whoever loses the primary—Romney or McCain—won’t be able to blame the result on low turnout. Unused ballots mean that all candidates failed to motivate their supporters enough to go out and vote for them come frozen hell or high water. But the winner won’t have to worry about this—a win is a win. Only the loser will have to explain why he couldn’t beat Mother Nature.
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When all is said and done, Michigan Democrats may have more viable choices on the ballot than most other voters. Originally, Michigan residents thought that they would only be able to vote for Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, or Mike Gravel at their primary on Jan. 15. Then came word that anti-Hillary Michigan residents were launching a renegade campaign to get people to vote for “uncommitted”—a post-modern rebellion if there ever was one. Now Michigan Dems are being given yet another option: Vote for Mitt Romney.
Markos Moulitsas—the Daily Kos guy—thinks that the Demcorats are damned if they do and damned if they don’t in the choice between uncommitted and Clinton. So instead, he’s rallying Democrats behind Mitt Romney, hoping that Mitt’s presence will help create more inner strife in the GOP.
As we see it, Michigan Democrats have four options, and each has its pros and cons.
- Vote for Hillary – Pros: If you like Hillary, there’s the chance you can float her above the 60 percent mark, which is necessary to help her avoid derision from the press. Cons: How boring—especially when so many other devious options exist.
- Vote for uncommitted – Pros: Support the Obama-Edwards axis of change; be an ironic cog in the movement founded upon apathy; screw with Hillary’s head. Cons: Unless you really hate Hillary, it’s a wasted vote; may prove even her own party hates her, which won’t help general-election unity.
- Vote for Romney – Pros: Kos’ ego doesn’t need to get any bigger, but he’s right—a vote for Romney messes with Republicans’ heads and weakens the party; if there’s any candidate whom self-aware Democrats should vote for, it’s Romney; a Democrat-fueled Romney win in Michigan is worth it just to see the spin. Cons: It splits the uncommitted coalition up, which will make for a quieter and harder-to-track rebuke of Clinton.
- Vote for Dennis Kucinich. – Pros: It’s better than not voting at all; the guy is due for a karmic boost. Cons: Voting for Romney or uncommitted does more mischief; you might as well shred your ballot—it has the same effect in the overall scheme of things.