Lee Atwater: Romney can't win in November 2012

By Nicholas Wilbur

Master political tactician Lee Atwater once said that "anyone who gets more than a 35-percent negative factor can't win an election."

In the 2012 Republican presidential contest, Mitt Romney is that person.

According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 39 percent of adults in America view Romney very or somewhat negatively, compared to 28 percent who view the former Massachusetts governor very or somewhat positively.

"If his negatives are 35 percent and his positives aren't at least 5 percent higher," Atwater believed, "it's politically fatal."(1)

Far from a polling fluke, the NBC/WSJ survey has remained fairly consistent over the past six months. In fact, the only significant difference between this year's results and the same poll's findings in 2008 is that Romney is disliked more now, as the frontrunner and presumed nominee, than he was in '08 as a third-place finisher in the GOP primary.

In January, 2008, Romney earned a 28 percent positive review from poll respondents -- the exact same positivity rating recorded in this month's poll. His negative responses, however, have jumped 7 percentage points since 2008, from 32 percent to 39 percent.

The question is, will Atwater's axiom hold true? Is Romney's political fate doomed?

What the GOP primaries forecast

The only thing standing between Romney and the 2012 nomination is Rick Santorum. Unfortunately, the only thing that has kept Santorum from securing permanent frontrunner status is Romney's 28-to-1 fundraising advantage.

Santorum has survived Romney's attacks with an authentically grassroots-style campaign -- shaking hands with constituents, sitting down for hours-long chats with meager-sized crowds, and, in Iowa, driving a truck through each of the Hawkeye State's 99 counties.

Romney, in contrast, has done little more than throw money into (mostly negative) advertising.

For a man with a $50-million fundraising advantage over Santorum (per the Jan. 31 disclosure reports), Romney doesn't have much to show for it.

The single most important takeaway from Super Tuesday -- other than the obvious observation that Romney is still very much disliked -- it's that the "presumed nominee," a title now requiring quotation marks, has no Southern Strategy whatsoever. He has lost South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, and he's on track to lose Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas, and Alabama -- all of which will be decided this month. (Florida, though technically in "the South," is neither ideologically or demographically "southern," and in the panhandle of Florida, the more conservative, "southern" part of the state, Romney lost 27 of 33 counties to Newt Gingrich.) In Texas, a February poll showed Santorum with a 29-point lead over Romney.

Romney managed to eke out an eight-tenths-of-one-percent victory over Santorum in the must-win Ohio primary on March 6, but considering the paper-thin margin, the four in ten Republicans who expressed reservations about their options, and the "weak field" of Republican candidates, David Frum called the win "deeply, deeply ominous."

Perhaps more ominous, Romney's primary victories have come mostly in states Obama carried with ease in 2008: New Hampshire, where Obama won by 10 percent; Massachusetts (26 percent); Vermont (37 percent); Maine (17 percent); Washington state (17 percent); Nevada (12 percent); and Michigan (16 percent). Obama also won Virginia, by 6 percent; Ohio, by 5 percent; and Florida, by 3 percent.

In other words: Arizona, Idaho and Alaska are the only states Romney has won that Obama lost in '08. Combined, the three states will provide Romney with a whopping 18 electoral college votes out of the 270 needed to win the presidency.

(Though difficult to fathom, it's possible that Arizona, which Obama lost by an 8-percent margin in 2008, could turn blue this November. Republicans have isolated Hispanics with their vehement opposition to the DREAM Act and their state government's discriminatory SB 1070 immigration law. According to the 2010 census, 30 percent of Arizonans are Hispanic. A February 22 poll showed Obama and Romney tied at 47 percent in The Grand Canyon State.)

This race should be over

The upward political mobility of a presumed nominee should be visible 22 races into a primary.

Sen. John McCain hadn't officially secured the Republican presidential nomination after winning Florida on January 29, 2008, but his poll numbers shot through the roof, jumping 16.5 percent after a narrow but powerful 5-percent victory over Mitt Romney in The Sunshine State. A week later he led Mike Huckabee by 25 percentage points.

Two days after the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday races, when Romney won seven states to McCain's nine, Romney dropped out. By the time Mike Huckabee followed suit a month later, McCain was polling at 57 percent nationally.

In 2000, George W. Bush was polling in the mid-60s at the end of January. In February of 1995, when the politically insipid Bob Dole fought for the nomination with the equally bland vice president, Dan Quayle, Dole hovered between 38 and 46 percent from February to April before breaking out for good. "And although Gallup's Republican test elections expanded to contain up to nine candidates, Dole faced no significant competition throughout 1995."

In January 1987, H.W. Bush was in the low 30-percent range, but he too held a 20-percent margin over his primary rival (Dole) "and maintained a roughly 2-to-1 lead over Dole the rest of the year."

Comparatively, it has been a year since Romney announced his presidential exploratory committee, and he has thus far failed either to reach the 40 percentage mark or to open up a poll margin greater than 10 percent. (On the few occasions he has topped 10 percent, the lead hasn't been sustained for longer than a week.) He's trailed Rick Perry, by 12 percent in September; Herman Cain, by 2 percent in November; Newt Gingrich, by 12 percent in December; and most recently Santorum, who has led by as much as 6.6 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average of all national polls.

NBC's Chuck Todd et al. wrote recently that: 

Romney's image right now is worse than almost all other recent candidates who went on to win their party's presidential nomination: Obama was 51%/28% and McCain was 47%/27%, per the March 2008 NBC/WSJ poll; Kerry was 42%/30% at this point in '04; George W. Bush was 43%/32% in 2000; and Bob Dole was 35%/39%. The one exception: Bill Clinton (2), in April 1992, was 32%/43%. That means that if Romney becomes the GOP nominee, he has a LONG WAY to go to rehabilitate his image.

As columnist George Will observed of Romney and Santorum, "[n]either has demonstrated, or seems likely to develop, an aptitude for energizing a national coalition that translates into 270 electoral votes."

And as a recent CNN analysis predicted, Super Tuesday won't change that.

Romney is quick to attack Santorum for not having a national campaign apparatus in place -- or even a national campaign headquarters. He's an evangelical extremist who offends all but the hardcore religious right. His strengths in the primaries would be his demise in the general election. But a primary opponent's shortcomings don't make Romney a general election contender.

Santorum will still be "nipping at Romney's heels" long after Super Tuesday, and even if Romney manages to win enough delegates to secure the nomination (or if he doesn't but Santorum concedes at the Republican convention this August), Obama will be waiting, with a full war chest and a strong favorability rating among both Democrats and independents.

How is Romney going to compete in the general election if he can't separate himself from the pack, can't rally the South, and can only win primary victories in liberal states that are guaranteed to vote Democratic in November? He has higher negatives than any electable presidential nominee in decades, and even his fundraising is drying up. (He already has tapped 40 percent of his campaign donors for the maximum amount they're allowed to contribute.)

How is that guy going to beat a growingly popular incumbent whose re-election campaign is both financially well-oiled and strategically unrivaled?

The answer is, he can't.

Atwater knew the outcome of this election 20 years ago.

**********

1 - Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater, by John Brady, 1997.

2 - Bill Clinton was running against two conservatives in 1992, the GOP establishment candidate George H.W. Bush and the anti-establishment populist Ross Perot. Clinton won the presidency without winning a majority of the vote.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Live-blogging Super Tuesday 2012: A day of reckoning for the GOP

By Michael J.W. Stickings, with Richard K. Barry

UPDATED FREQUENTLY.

7:08 pm - Is there anything more super than Super Tuesday? (Don't answer that.) In politics, and for those of us who follow the horse race, it doesn't get much better than this. All I would ask for is a bit more drama. Oh, sure, the media are all about the drama, but, then, the media have an enormous stake in drama. It's what they can talk about instead of, you know, policy, or the complexities of the world, and it drives viewership as well as readership, to the extent people read anymore. Certainly it's good for us bloggers, too. With public interest way up, traffic is up as well. And that, to be sure, is super.

7:11 pm - But, really, Super Tuesday 2012 is Romney Day. I firmly predict that he will win Ohio and do well enough across the board to wrap up the nomination -- well, all but wrap it up. He won't have the delegates to declare victory -- that won't come for some time yet -- but he'll continue pulling away from Santorum and the other two also-rans, Gingrich and Paul, something he started doing with his big wins in Michigan and Arizona last week, and what we'll witness tonight, in his "victory" speech, is the confidence of the winner.

7:15 pm - If you're into the numbers, Nate Silver looks at the possibilities in the ten states voting today.

7:17 pm - I would just note that the night has begun with some good news for Newt, probably the only good news he'll get all night. He has won Georgia, CNN projects based on exit polls. This is no surprise, of course. He's from Georgia and was the expected winner. He'll be a distant third or fourth everywhere else. And that, as they say, will be that. I put the before/after of him getting out of the race at March 8, two days from now. I think it may just be the before. Look for him to say tonight, disappointment all around, that he'll talk about his campaign with friends and family and decide on where to go next. The announcement could come tomorrow. The road has ended.

7:21 pm - It's going to be a very busy night. I'm off to have some dinner and will back shortly. I'll be adding to this post all evening and no doubt into the early-morning hours. Richard will also be commenting, as usual. While we'll be following the returns and the "drama" of the night, particularly in Ohio and Tennessee, the two key states in play today (as Massachusetts and Virginia are sure things for Romney, and the other states are small, like Vermont and Alaska), we'll also be looking at the narrative that emerges, or is set to emerge, from these results and look at the bigger picture, with Romney, backed by the party elites, preparing more urgently now for the general election campaign to come. In other words, we'll try to keep this interesting and amusing.

RKB: Wow. Boring so far. They are calling Virginia for Romney, but only he and Paul were on the ballot, so no biggy.

7:40 pm - Yup. (Wait, did Richard just use the word biggy? If you knew him, you'd find that odd.)

RKB: What? I use "biggy" all the time.

Ron Paul is speaking from North Dakota and as crazy a libertarian as he clearly is, he's consistent about not liking the wars we are in and wanting them to end. Gotta like that about him. Other than that, he's crazy as batshit, but I'm with him on the anti-war agenda. 

8:10 pm - I'm telling you, my dinner (tacos!) was a lot more super than Super Tuesday.

8:11 pm - The problem is that I was watching CNN while I was eating, and that made the food go down with an unpleasant bitterness. (Thankfully, I'm washing it down with a Granville Island English Bay Pale Ale from Vancouver.) I know it's too easy to pick on CNN, but it really is awful. John King can talk voter and result demographics with his magic boards, but his analysis is ridiculously superficial. And Wolf was talking about the scoreboard, as if this is just some sporting event. Which it is, in a way, but people like Wolf don't even pretend there's any more to it.

RKB: Although it was expected that Gingrich would win Georgia, it will still mean that he won't be getting out after tonight or soon. With Santorum and Gingrich still in the hunt, this thing continues to grind on no matter how well Romney does tonight. I guess that begs the question, does anyone get out before the convention? I suppose that also means that Romney will have to continue spending money to swat at Santorum and will have to continue dealing with the social conservative background noise that won't go away as long as Santorum is in.

I wonder if there is anything the GOP establishment can threaten these guys with or promise them to get them out.

Sometimes the power brokers can promise support for future contests as a quid pro quo to get out and sometimes they can promise to crush a candidate who won't play along. Is there anything like that that could work for Santorum? I hardly think he'd be the party's choice in 2016, say, if Obama wins in 2012, but there might be something he could be offered. 

8:16 pm - Free condoms for life? Oh... right.

RKB: On that former point, sometimes the power brokers promise to help pay off campaign debt if a candidate gets in trouble, not that we are necessarily at that point yet.

8:17 pm - Or maybe Santorum would accept that heart that was stolen in Dublin the other day. You know, being a crazy Catholic and all.

8:18 pm - Richard's on fire tonight. Here's more from him:

RKB: I don't know. Is the story tonight that Romney is continuing to plod along towards the nomination but no one really loves him? I'm pretty sure we knew that. It looks to me like the narrative is not going to change all the way to convention. Romney wins but no one cares. How many different ways can we, and everyone else, say that?

No real knock-out blow, just a war of attrition and Romney gets the nomination and we have to suffer through the half-hearted attempt of GOP opinion leaders to extol the virtues of Mitt. I'm still not sure it can't work under any circumstances, but it sure doesn't feel like it. 

8:20 pm - Oh no. Wolf goes to Wasilla, to the Thrilla herself, Sarah Palin, who just voted. (Alaska's holding caucuses today.) Is Sarah allowed to go on a network other than Fox? Breaking news: She's an idiot. And all she's got are the usual bobble-headed anti-Obama speaking points. Basically: There are five men running for president and Obama is the worst of them. The other four are duking it out. Uh, yeah, sure they are. You go, Sarah. Go far, far away.

RKB: Romney's people are signalling to reporters that Romney will turn his full attention towards Obama and more or less ignore the other candidates in his speech tonight. So, no matter what happens, he will try to act like the nomination process is over and he has won. It's a new age thing, act like the thing you want to have happen is already true. I think that pathological, but that's me. 

8:24 pm - Just as I suggested about an hour ago. Romney suffers badly when he has to focus on the silliness of the Republican race. He'll likely suffer badly when placed under the spotlight of the general election campaign, but for now he looks best when he's allowed to position himself, or be positioned, above the fray, that is, as the only credible candidate in a race of awful also-rans. And today's results will likely allow him to do that.

8:27 pm - The geniuses on CNN are now analyzing what Sarah had to say. And Wolf had to note, hyping the drama, that Sarah said she might be open to getting involved at a brokered convention. Please. It won't come to that. And even if it did, it wouldn't be Sarah to whom the party would turn.

8:29 pm - Okay, enough Sarah Palin.

8:31 pm - But let me say that I do agree with David Gergen. This is about Sarah Palin Inc., about her brand, about her business. She's "artful." And she's not serious about getting into this or any other race. Now let's move on, even if CNN insists on continuing with its Palin obsession.

8:32 pm - I note that Richard and I disagree over Newt. I think he'll get out soon, perhaps even tomorrow. He thinks he'll stay in for a while and that "this thing continues to grind on no matter how well Romney does tonight." Fair enough, but Richard also pointed out that the party's pro-Romney power brokers could offer him and perhaps also Santorum a significant quid pro quo for getting out. I think that's possible with Newt, should he not get out on his own soon, but Santorum is likely in it for the long haul at this point. Particularly if he wins Tennessee and even comes a close second in Ohio. And let's not forget that if there's one thing we've learned about Santorum, or been reminded of, it's that he's a true believer with nothing to lose. If nothing else, he'll stay in to continue to advance his far-right social conservative (theocratic) agenda.

8:37 pm - Aha. CNN calls Tennessee for Santorum. Not surprising, but still a fairly big win. "A very, very important win," says Wolf. I wouldn't go that far. The key here, though, is not that Santorum won but that Romney can't win anything in the South without serious help. He won Florida, yes, but that's not really a fully southern state. And he won Virginia today only because Santorum and Gingrich weren't on the ballot. He'll win some of the South in November, of course, but he'll struggle to whip up Republican voter enthusiasm.

RKB: Hey, Karl Rove and I agree about something, which is that there will be enough good news for all four candidates tonight for them all to stay in.

Much as I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty details of delegate counting, it really is the meat and potatoes of this whole process. Fox News is spending a lot of time breaking it down. It's true that wins and loses state by state make good headlines, but we are going to have to pay some attention to the process and the rules and how it all shakes out as we come out of Super Tuesday. Democracy sure is complicated.

8:41 pm - One of Newt's wives is speaking... The big talk and smiles, from Callista and his supporters... is it self-delusion? Do they know it's all theater, that they're reciting lines that have no connection to the truth?

8:44 pm - Okay, fine, maybe Richard and Karl Rove are right. And maybe it's the after on Newt -- that is, maybe he stays in past two days from now. But it really is ridiculous for him to talk about how he was down, how no one believed in him, etc., etc., as if he's back with a shot at the nomination. He won a historic victory in South Carolina, he says. Historic? That might be overstating it. He won. That's it. And since then he's won nothing. Is he right that the party elites with their Wall Street money have knocked him down? Sure. But that's just the way it is. And there's nothing he can do about it. And he's not back. And he doesn't have a shot. This is all just self-aggrandizing spin. Yes, yes, I know it's what these guys have to do, it's how the game is played, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous.

RKB: Fox News reports that Santorum has won both Oklahoma and Tennessee. That'll give him enough to be happy about.

8:50 pm - You won Georgia, Newt. That's it. It's your home state. And the takeaway is not that people will vote for you when they know you, as they do in Georgia, but that even you can win your home state. Period.

8:53 pm - Newt is an egomaniac, to be sure, and he probably does believe he can out-debate Obama, but there's something in the tone of his voice that suggests he doesn't quite believe what he's saying. 

8:54 pm - Ah, a teleprompter quip. Newt, you and your fellow Republicans underestimate the president at your own peril. If you really think he can only speak coherently with a teleprompter (which, by the way, is pretty much de rigueur for public speakers in large settings), you're an idiot. Actually, his dismissiveness of the president is just vile. And now he's saying that energy policy should all be about drilling, making fun of Obama's remark about algae. I've said it before and I'll say it again. These flat-earth Republicans, which is pretty much all Republicans, would have ridiculed Newton for claiming the apple fell on his head and would have ridiculed Bell for the whole telephone thing and would have ridiculed Ben Franklin for that whole kite-in-the-sky thing and... you get the point. What a fucking moron.

8:56 pm - Here's Richard on Newt's speech:

RKB: Newt is saying that efforts of the "elites" to kill his campaign have failed. No, Newt, you did that all by yourself.

He's talking about his polling numbers back in December, like that matters anymore.

He's criticizing Wall Street money for damaging his campaign taking a shot at Romney, who he is calling a Wall Street candidate. He's still playing the populist card. Newt, the man of the people, because all the people have accounts at Tiffany's.

His point is that everyone in the GOP nomination battle has had their day and he will have his again. That may not be true, but it's as good an argument as any.

He is clearly really pissed off at Romney's negative ads. It's clearly very personal between those two.

People power vs. money power is what he's calling it.

When Romney wins the nomination, Gingrich may get behind him, but that will obviously be hard for him to do.

I have to say that Gingrich doesn't sound quite as obnoxious as he usually does. A little muted tonight, actually. It's not a bad speech for him.

He is still using the argument that he's the best candidate to debate Obama because Gingrich is so gosh darn smart. What bullshit.

Gingrich is also saying that no Republican will outspend Obama, so Romney's approach in the nomination process won't work.

Gingrich seems a little energized in a way.  

9:01 pm - More on Gingrich from Richard:

RKB: Gingrich is really pushing his energy policy so, he says, no American president will ever again bow to a Saudi king.

Can't blame Gingrich for focusing on gas prices.

This is what he is spending most of his time talking about.

Okay, I'm tired of this. Yes, promising cheaper gas, because Newt can deliver that.

Damn, Fox News is staying with the whole damn Gingrich speech. What a yawn.  

9:07 pm - Good, funny point from Ari Fleischer (believe it or not), during discussion of Newt's attack on Wall Street money: Newt's money is Las Vegas money. It's all money. Of course, Fleischer's something of a Romney surrogate, but he's right. Newt's only here tonight because he's been funded (or, rather, his Super PAC has) by billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. It's not like Newt's a grassroots phenomenon. His Main Street populism is utterly phony, utterly opportunistic.

RKB: Alex Castellanos, GOP flack, made a good point about Gingrich that his speech was all about himself and not at all about the voters of the state of Georgia who voted for him. It is true that good politics dictates that you talk about the voters. "Yes We Can" is about "We." Everything about the Gingrich campaign is about him.

But even though his claim to be alive and well in the process is delusional, staying in raises the profile of his personal brand and makes it easier for him to earn the big bucks when it all over. That's all it was ever about for him.

9:15 pm - Santorum speaking soon. Seems early.

RKB: Man, Ohio is very close with Santorum slightly up. This would be a big night for him if he won the state. It just drags things out that much further. 39% to 36% for Santorum with about a quarter of the vote in. Still really early. John King is implying that Romney could easily come back because of where his strength is, i.e., in densely populated areas where the vote count happens more slowly.

9:18 pm - "This is our roots," says Santorum. He looks relaxed and confident. And he's right, this is is where he's from. Newt's populism is phony, and Mitt is a privileged rich douchebag, but Santorum's genuinely a man of the heartland who speaks to and for the values and many who live there. "This is about the towns that have been left behind..." He's an extremist, let's not forget that, but his appeal is unmistakable. And he's a lot more effective when he's taking economic populism than, oh, say, birth control or pornography.

9:24 pm - "What right does a government have...?" Santorum asks. Um, well, the federal government is a democratic government. Republicans like to ignore that basic fact. They treat Washington like a kleptocracy. But haven't Republicans controlled most of Washington for most of the past 12 years? Um...

9:29 pm - And "our Creator" gets big applause. Don't you wish Paul would come and show these idiots the truth about the universe, like he did for Kristen Wiig? 

9:30 pm - Always hilarious when Republicans paint Obama as some sort of totalitarian who wants to control people's lives. But I do like how he's going after Romney for health-care reform and the individual mandate -- and calling Romney out for lying. Not that I'm against Obamacare or Romneycare or the mandate, of course, but because I want Santorum to beat Romney, and one way to beat him is to hammer home the conservative positions on health care. 

9:34 pm - Good speech, even if I don't agree with, well, any of it. Reminds me of his speech the night of the Iowa caucuses, way back when. Again, he's very appealing when he's not pushing his theocracy. Even I can admit that. Over to Richard now for more: 

RKB: Santorum is finally playing the working class hero card. Finally.

Alright, introducing the 93-year-old mom. Nice touch.

Talking about the towns that have been left behind. Yes, his advisors have finally got to him. Finally made him listen. It's about the economy, asshole! I don't think we'll hear him talk about contraception tonight.

I think he just called his wife his mom. Some Freudian thing going on there?

Santorum is also playing the campaign poverty card, just like Gingrich did, implying that it's hard to compete with Romney's big money.

Okay, he's playing the elite card, too. The elites are trying to tell us what to do.

Talking about the debt. And who created most of that debt again? I still haven't heard one of these bozos talk about President George W. Bush.

And now he's talking about Obama's health-care program. Okay, churches and neighbors should be providing health care. Is that what he is really saying?

Ah, health care for everyone in America is the beginning of the end of freedom.

What an idiot.

So if our rights come to us from our creator, do those of who who don't believe in their creator have rights?

He still hasn't mentioned the other GOP candidates by name.

Oh, okay, now he's going after the whole individual mandate thing, and Romney by name.

9:38 pm - This is exhausting. Maybe we should just quit now and ignore Romney.

9:40 pm - Romney speaking soon. Looks like these two wanted to get out ahead of the Ohio results.

RKB: Santorum is still holding on in Ohio. Can't imagine the GOP pointy heads will be happy if this ends up that way. Talk about limping to the finish line. I have to say that as much as I despise Santorum, I love it when Romney gets beat.

Speaking of hating Santorum, the bastard is worried that the government is going to tell people what to do, but he doesn't mind telling the rest of us what kind of lives we should live and what values we should hold. We should all live his values and his life choices.

9:42 pm - Honestly, Ann, so what that Romney won where he's known best? It's like Newt winning in Georgia. You're supposed to win those races. The key is winning elsewhere, in states like, oh... oh... Ohio. We shall see.

9:43 pm - Prediction: Romney attacks Obama with an arsenal of dishonesty.

9:46 pm - Ann says Mitt's the only person who can turn around America? Really? Of 300 million-plus, he's the only one? Huh.

9:47 pm - Sorry, this isn't the most lofty analysis, but... what a smarmy piece of shit Romney is. I keep calling him a privileged rich douchebag, but I'm not sure that's strong enough.

9:48 pm - "Thanks, you guys," Mitt says to Newt, Rick, and Ron. "Nice races." The fact that he went brutally negative and outspent them into the ground? Oh, he didn't mention that.

9:50 pm - As someone who went to university in the Boston area (Tufts), and who loves that city, it makes me ill to see Romney there. The people of Massachusetts may have elected him, once, when he was something of a moderate, but there's no way they'd vote for this right-wing version, the new Mitt, the panderer to extremism. No. Fucking. Way. And Obama will crush him in Massachusetts.

9:54 pm - Yes, right, unemployment is Obama's fault. And the economy will be great again with Mitt in the White House. Need I remind you that Obama inherited a disaster, pulled the country back from the brink, and saved Wall Street and the auto industry? And that Romney was fine letting the car companies collapse?

9:56 pm - Maybe this isn't his worst speech, but there's just no focus to it. It's a patchwork of bullshit. It's like he an actor playing himself. Or an actor playing an actor playing himself. Something like that. Either way, he's about as genuine as Joan Rivers's face. Hence Santorum's appeal, all the more obvious when compared to Romney's lack thereof.

9:58 pm - Hmm, why do you think a guy worth $250 million would want to get rid of the estate ("death") tax? I wonder.

10:00 pm - And over to Richard again:

RKB: Did he say his son's name was Tag? Do these gazillionaires ever have normal names?

This guy is so dull. Really. It's so hard to care about anything he says. I think he might start singing "America the Beautiful." Yup, he's speaking as if the nomination process is over. He's thanking the other candidates for a hard fought campaign. Does anyone believe that Romney gives a damn about working-class and middle-class people? What a crock.

I think Romney almost said that in 2012 he was going to get Obama out of the outhouse. Must have been a teleprompter malfunction.

I'm not even annoyed by Romney. He's just so weak.

There is nothing likeable about this guy, and the polling numbers bear that out. Yeah, bring it on, Mitt. Can't wait till it's you vs. President Barack Obama. Can't wait.

10:06 pm - Long story short in Ohio: Santorum's up 38 to 36 with 61% reporting, but Romney should be able to pick up votes in some high-population areas that are slower in reporting. It'll be close. I still think Mitt wins it. Barely.

10:07 pm - Another win for Santorum: North Dakota. It's easy to dismiss these un-sexy states (according to media coverage, at least), but every win matters and every delegate counts. And it's not close: Santorum's up 40 to 27 over Paul, with Romney at 25, with 78% reporting.

10:09 pm - Tennessee's a clear win for Santorum, too: He's up 38 to 28 over Romney, with 69% reporting.

10:10 pm - But, of course, Mitt's wins count, too, and his wins in both Massachusetts and Vermont are also decisive. Once again, the point is this: Today all comes down to Ohio. It's pretty much a tie otherwise. And even after Ohio it'll still be a tie, more or less, though Romney will win the delegate count, particularly since Santorum wasn't on the ballot in some Ohio counties and not at all in Virginia.

10:13 pm - Taking a break. Be back soon.

10:30 pm - I suppose this is where John King is at his most useful, looking at county-by-county results in Ohio, though all it really means is reading the numbers and stating the obvious. He and Wolf are talking about Romney having to "thread the needle," and, yes, it'll be close. But most of the votes still to come are from the Romney-leaning counties in and around Cleveland (Cuyahoga), Columbus (Franklin), and Cincinnati (Hamilton, Butler, Warren), and Romney is fast closing the gap. It's now just 38 to 37 for Santorum, with a margin of just over 7,000 votes -- and there are still a lot (22%) left to report.

10:39 pm - And the narrowing continues. With 81% reporting in Ohio, Santorum's up by just over 6,000 votes.

10:43 pm - And even closer... It's now 37-37 in Ohio. Santorum's up by just about 2,500 votes with 84% in. Have I mentioned that Romney will win Ohio? Oh, right, I've been saying that from the start.

11:03 pm - CNN apparently has even more up-to-date numbers than the official count and is reporting that Romney has taken the lead in Ohio. And on that I'm off to watch The Daily Show. Be back in a bit.

11:50 pm - So, what did I miss? Romney up in Ohio, 38 to 37, with 92% reporting. I picked him to win by two, by the way. And we haven't mentioned Idaho yet, where Romney's up big, 75 to 13 over Paul, with Santorum at 9. And, you know, we haven't mentioned Newt in some time. Why? Because, as I mentioned, the good news came early for him, the win in Georgia, but since then he's been a distant also-ran. Remember that speech he gave earlier this evening, the one where he was pumping himself up? Yeah.

12:28 pm - Alright, we're done. Romney is solidly ahead in Ohio. It's only 38 to 37, but he's got a 12,000-vote lead with 96% reporting. I guess it really does pay to outspend and crush your opponent with negative advertising. Which, from what we can tell so far, is really the only way Romney can beat anyone in any big-time competitive race.

12:30 pm - Nothing's in from Alaska yet.

12:31 pm - So it's been a crazy evening. No time really to do anything fun, which was our intention. Oh well. With ten votes and speeches coming one after the other, it was all business. But we'll be back tomorrow (or, rather, later today) with more, including a fun "Santorum or Khamenei?" game and -- stop the presses!!! -- a new post by Kathryn Rogers, Dear Leader Rush's fourth wife!!! Really? Yes, really. She's back by popular demand, judging from our recent traffic. And who wouldn't want to hear from her? (Or someone pretending to be her, disclaimer included.)

12:36 pm - That's it for me tonight. Crazy long post already. No need for more, other than to say that it was a very good night for Romney in that he cements his position as frontrunner and likely nominee, a very good night for Santorum in that he won three states and can stay in the race as a credible alternative to Romney who speaks for much of the party, a very bad night for Gingrich in that he won his own state but lost badly everywhere else and has nowhere to go from here but down and out, and a very bad night for Paul in that we hardly paid him any attention at all, though his apparent alliance with Romney means that he wins whenever Mitt does.

12:44 pm - The media will continue to play up the tension, and, yes, it will still be Romney vs. Santorum coming out of Super Tuesday, but when you get past the largely media-manufactured drama and all the self-aggrandizing spin on all sides it's pretty clear that Romney, as I wrote at the outset, has more or less wrapped up the nomination. But he remains an incredibly weak frontrunner and likely nominee and, with Santorum still challenging him and still posing a bit of a threat, he'll have to spend wildly and pander to the right shamelessly in order to rack up the delegates. All of which will hurt him come November.

Go Santorum!

Good night, everyone.

Is Mitt Romney past the point of redemption?

By Richard K. Barry

The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is not good for the GOP. The message, according to MSNBC's First Read, ought to be clear to any Republican paying attention, which is that their presidential nomination process needs to come to an end as soon as possible if they have any hope of competing in the fall.

Last week, while live-blogging the Michigan and Arizona primaries, I said that Romney's slim victory in Michigan would force members of the Republican establishment who might have been sitting on their hands to finally get behind Romney because he is the only credible game in town. Not that I find him that credible, but, considering the alternatives, he's credible.

So, with the headline "Before Super Tuesday, Big Names Rally to Romney," the New York Times recently reported on just this phenomenon. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senator Tom Coburn, and John Ashcroft, former Missouri governor and senator who served as attorney general under President George W. Bush are all on board now with the Romney Express. Others will follow.

Watching Romney almost lose to Rick Santorum, which he could have done if Santorum had avoided stupid comments in support of his social conservatism, was enough, I argued, to make the powers-that-be in the party understand how close they truly came to disaster. Maybe they would end up with Romney anyway, but they understood that a prolonged battle with Santorum wasn't good for the brand, that having the race in doubt any longer would be a major problem, that having these four remaining idiots tearing at each other for potentially months to come was a fate from which they could not recover. Pretty obvious, actually.

But is it now too late anyway?

Let them say that the heat of battle would make the final choice, presumably Romney, that much stronger, but the polls don't really support that claim.

Here's the MSNBC analysis of the NBC/WSJ poll:

According to the survey, the combative and highly scrutinized primary season has taken a toll on the party and its presidential candidates, especially Romney. Four in 10 of all adults say the Republican nominating process has given them a less favorable impression of the GOP, versus just 12% with a more favorable opinion. Additionally, asked to describe the nominating battle in a word or phrase, 69% of respondents (including 63% of independents and even 56% of Republicans) answered with a negative comment. Some of the examples from Republicans: "Unenthusiastic," "discouraged," "lesser of two evils," "painful," and "disappointed." And 55% of respondents (including 35% of Republicans) believe the Democratic Party does a better job than the GOP of appealing to those who aren’t hard-core supporters.

As for Romney's popularity:

The primary season has taken a toll on Romney, too. In January’s NBC/WSJ poll, Romney's fav/unfav score stood at 31%/36% (and 22%/42% among indies), which as we noted then wasn't good. But in this latest survey, it’s even worse, 28%/39% (and 22%/38% among indies). In fact, Romney’s image right now is worse than almost all other recent candidates who went on to win their party’s presidential nomination: Obama was 51%/28% and McCain was 47%/27%, per the March 2008 NBC/WSJ poll; Kerry was 42%/30% at this point in ’04; George W. Bush was 43%/32% in 2000; and Bob Dole was 35%/39%. The one exception: Bill Clinton, in April 1992, was 32%/43%. That means that if Romney becomes the GOP nominee, he has a LONG WAY to go to rehabilitate his image.

My sense is that the GOP establishment is ready to close ranks fully around Romney. He'll be the guy. No one not yet in the race will get in the race. Romney will win the Ohio primary, get enough of the delegates today to declare victory, more or less, and then slowly, perhaps painfully, go on to secure the nomination.

But, to my mind, there is nothing to suggest that he has gotten stronger as a part of this process. If anything, he seems smaller, weaker, whinier with each passing day. Through his pandering he has became, or at least appears to be, a soulless creature not so much a positive force but as the only alternative for those who would not vote for Barack Obama under any circumstances.

Depending on what kind of shape the economy is in this fall, I suppose we have to say that anything could happen, but I don't see Romney able to rehabilitate himself to the degree necessary to win.

The damage is done.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Despite tie in Ohio, Romney keeps pulling away from Santorum for GOP nomination

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Where did the weekend go?

In anticipation of a busy week ahead, what with Super Tuesday just two days away, I decided, without even really thinking about it, to stay away from the computer and more or less avoid U.S. political news altogether. Just needed to relax and refresh, I think.

But let me make a few comments as I get back into the swing of things:

Despite the current Romney-Santorum tie in Ohio (according to the polls) and the media's attempt, as is their wont, to manufacture drama, there really isn't any uncertainly as to the eventual outcome of the race. Romney will win. This has been clear for some time now, but his big wins last Tuesday, particularly in Michigan, where his margin of victory as just enough to indicate he's the solid frontrunner overall, made it certain.

There's no "white knight" -- no Jeb or Mitch or Chris or Bobby -- coming in to save the party from itself, and there won't be a brokered convention this summer in Tampa. The (pro-Romney) elites won't let that happen.

And Santorum isn't about to make a comeback. He peaked well before the Michigan and Arizona primaries, and the longer he's been in the spotlight the less likely are his chances of actually pulling this out. Sure, he has much of the party's right-wing base behind him, but even the right-wing GOP isn't going to nominate someone who's against birth control and who otherwise espouses unabashedly such obviously extreme positions.

Yes, many leading Republicans hold views very similar, if not identical, to Santorum's, but those with national aspirations are usually smart enough either to hide or at the very least dilute them (e.g., anti-choice but with an exception or two just to show they're not entirely crazy. And some just hold such views rhetorically, that is, say they're socially conservative in Santorum's vein but actually aren't and certainly wouldn't make them core components of their policy platforms. The problem with Santorum, and this is evident to the party's elites (as well as conservative media elites), is that he actually believes what he says, that he's genuine, that he would actually do what he says he'd do. This is to his credit, in a way, and explains why the media were soft on him at first -- such an apparently genuine politician is something of a rarity, particularly when juxtaposed with Mitt, who is anything but genuine. But now the media know what he really is and, prodded by the party's elites, are making sure the narrative of Santorum as a nutcase is right up front in their coverage of this race, even as they try to make it seem as if he's actually got a shot to beat Romney.

It is certainly possible that Santorum will do fairly well on Tuesday and that Romney will struggle in the South (Georgia, Tennessee) and Midwest (Oklahoma, North Dakota). But Romney should do everywhere else, including Virginia, where Santorum and Gingrich aren't even on the ballot, not to mention in Massachusetts and Vermont. And I suspect we'll emerge from Super Tuesday with Romney having solidified his status not just as frontrunner but as overwhelming favorite to win the nomination.

And just to drive that point home, let us not forget the results yesterday in Washington, where Romney won easily: 38 to 25 over Paul, with Santorum at 24 and Gingrich well back at 10. Not so long ago, the outcome of these caucuses were in doubt. The fact that Mitt won by so much shows just where the momentum is.

Remember when Santorum was ahead of Romney nationally. That, too, was not so long ago. Two week ago, in fact. On February 14, Rasmussen had Santorum up by 12. That was an outlier, as most other national polls had him up by single digits, between two and nine, but it was telling and by the end of the month the numbers had flipped. On February 29, Rasmussed had Romney up by 16, a 28-point turnaround. This, too, appears to be an outlier, but the most recent Gallup tracking polls has Romney up by 14.

I will continue to point out that Romney remains an incredibly weak frontrunner. Given the awfulness of his opponents throughout this campaign, any strong candidate would be well ahead by now, much further than where Romney is now. But there's no doubt that Romney has this race wrapped up. Barring an utter disaster on Tuesday and/or some personal or political scandal (like coming out in support of Obamacare, or in some other way showing he's not actually the crazy hardcore conservative he's made himself out to be), he'll be the Republican candidate in November. Whether Republicans like it or not.

Of course, I'm hoping for an utter disaster on Tuesday and/or for some personal or political scandal, but that just isn't likely to happen. This has been an amusing race, to be sure, but it's just about over. And so now we can begin to watch as Romney contorts himself into hilariously untenable positions as he tries to shift back to the center even as he continues to stress his far-right bona fides, and of course to talk seriously about whom he might select as his running mate.

(photo)