The political campaign drums continue to beat loudly here in the States despite Mitt Romney winning the majority of the 10 ‘Super Tuesday’ primaries on 6 March, as he failed to deliver a knockout blow to any of his three remaining opponents.
To be sure, Romney won six of the primary battles, while Rick Santorum won in three states and Newt Gingrich won the most delegate-rich state, his home state of Georgia. Romney also increased his delegate lead over Santorum and Gingrich and has now won 415 – or 35 per cent – of the 1,144 Republican delegates he needs to clinch the Republican presidential nomination.
But neither Santorum nor Gingrich were on the ballot in Virginia, and Romney outspent his opponents by better than a three-to-one ratio across the 10 states.
Last month I said I thought Romney still had a ways to go in terms of winning the GOP nod in a two-man race with Newt Gingrich, due to his dearth of support from Tea Party activists and Christian social conservatives. While I still don’t foresee any of Romney’s three opponents pulling out of the race, Santorum has since proven me wrong about this becoming a two-man race with his strong showings in Michigan and Ohio. In fact, Romney only barely eked out a win in Ohio thanks to the strong support of Rob Portman, touted by many as Romney’s likely Vice Presidential running mate.
Furthermore, according to exit polls Romney lost very conservative and evangelical Christian voters to Santorum by margins of 18 and 17 per cent respectively. So even though he won more states and delegates on Super Tuesday, Romney still remains a deeply flawed candidate in the eyes of many Republicans.
Super Tuesday was expected to be a ‘game changer’ and narrow the Republican field down to just Romney and Santorum, but with his big win in Georgia, Newt Gingrich made it clear he isn’t going away anytime soon. And despite his inability to win a single contest, Ron Paul hasn’t shown any signs of throwing in the towel thanks to his strong support among young libertarian voters.
Rick Santorum, too, has shown staying power, and currently appears to be the only candidate capable of derailing Romney’s slow march to the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination. But I still don’t think he has the closing power to accomplish such a feat. On the other hand, although Gingrich has shown he is capable of closing out Romney in states like Georgia and South Carolina, he has yet to demonstrate much in the way of support outside of the South.
In fact, the only real winner in the Super Tuesday primaries was the South itself, since the mixed results will allow this solidly Republican region of the country to continue to influence who gets selected as the Republican standard bearer. With Republican primaries in Alabama and Mississippi on 13 March and caucuses in Louisiana on 24 March, the South will now stand out in the nation’s political spotlight for the remainder of the month.
Despite his wealth and organisational strengths, I don’t foresee Romney winning any of these contests, which will more than likely be heated battles between Santorum and Gingrich for that most enthusiastic base of Republican supporters: social conservatives. Sarah Palin probably summed up Romney’s problem best when she said: “To be brutally honest, with all due respect to Governor Romney, who is obviously the frontrunner, he’s not garnering a lot of that enthusiasm right now.”
Although I still believe Romney will eventually win the Republican nomination thanks to his overwhelming financial advantages, he still looks like a weakened candidate. Four years ago, when then Senator Barack Obama was slugging it out in the Democratic primaries with fellow Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama’s favourability ratings among likely voters went up by almost 20 per cent. This stands in marked contrast with Mitt Romney, whose ratings have actually gone down by the same percentage.
Charles Laffiteau is a US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is pursuing a PhD in Public Policy and Political Economy. He previously lectured on Contemporary US Business & Society at DCU from 2009-2011.
