1. Rick Santorum would benefit from the Romney-Gingrich scrum and finish strong.

2. Mitt Romney was in serious trouble.

3. Newt Gingrich would finish with between 23 and 43 percent of the vote.

.333 is a great batting average in baseball, but not so great in prognosticating, especially when the correct guess had plenty of margin (though Newt did fall right in the middle of the range). What happened?

Romney actually had enough money to “carpet bomb” Florida. One of my assumptions was that the immense cost of saturating the state would mean even Romney would face limitations. Incorrect. He spent $17 million and it worked in three ways:

First, much as when he went nuclear on Newt in Iowa, Romney managed to throw Gingrich completely off message, turning the Conservative Warrior of South Carolina into the Great Whiner of Florida.

Second, while Santorum seemed like the comparative adult in the room and may ultimately benefit, in the short run, he was completely overwhelmed by the attention given the other two. Part of this was strategic behavior on the part of the voters. For those determined to stop Romney, Gingrich’s lead over Santorum was large enough to make voting for the ex-Pennsylvania Senator a protest vote.

Meanwhile, Newt managed to alienate enough Floridians that the anybody-but-Gingrich contingent decided to throw in with Romney as Santorum wasn’t going to stop him. This quickly turned the primary into a two-man race, particularly with Ron Paul deciding to concentrate his time and money on upcoming caucuses. By the time Santorum performed well in the Thursday debate, it was already too late.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the combination of urgency (losing South Carolina) and momentum (Newt crumbled quickly) allowed Romney to fulfill the major requirement of perceived electability–debate combativeness. Where Gingrich used moderators as a prop to convince South Carolinians the was the man to take the fight to President Obama, Romney used Newt as his punching bag, allaying fears he would attempt to float through the fall on a sea of platitudes.

Both Romney and Gingrich are better with their backs against the wall. Each have a hard time with frontrunnerdom, but in a different way. In South Carolina, Romney attempted to run out the clock. While this was an understandable strategy, it plays directly into Romney’s weakness, making him seem tentative and calculating. Combined with constant comments from the pundit class about the Inevitable Mr. Mitt, this riles up the base and pushes them into Newt’s arms.

When Romney falls behind, he gets very aggressive in debates, proving this week that he can fillet Newt just as easily as the seemingly hapless Mr. Perry. The next couple weeks provide an interesting test for Romney. Each previous vanquishing was followed by a tack back toward General Election Romney, re-opening the contest in the process.

Will Romney go for the kill, attempting to neutralize Newt, once and for all, or will he let him back in again? You can almost make the argument it would be a mistake to finish him off too quickly (assuming Romney is capable), as this would push Santorum into the non-Romney position. Unlike Gingrich, Santorum has fairly solid support within the conservative establishment. Training the artillery on Rick might provoke an outcry from the Limbaugh-Palin wing of the party far in excess of what we have heard so far.

Meanwhile, Gingrich can’t handle prosperity. Yes, some of Romney’s (or his PAC’s) ads are unfair. Sofreakingwhat? Is David Axelrod going to play fair in the fall? Should he? If unemployment is still in the mid-upper 8% range, Team Obama is committing political malpractice if they don’t hit the Republican nominee with the kitchen sink and most of the plumbing. There is zero reason to think Obama would react to a Gingrich polling surge any differently than Romney is. If he can’t handle the Mittster…..

Gingrich taking on Obama in seven (not gonna happen) Lincoln-Douglas debates sends conservative hearts aflutter. Gingrich providing bold, substantive answers in the normal three presidential debates sounds pretty good. Gingrich whining during the debates that Obama’s ads are lies is a nightmare.

Each time Gingrich gets a lead, he acts as if it is his divine right to hold that position, assuming negative ads are the only thing keeping him from his destiny. Well before the television, telephone, telegraph, or any modern forms of communication, the likes of John Adams had to deal with primeval political attacks. As long as Newt continues to react as though he is the first candidate in recorded history to face questionable advertising, he will ensure he continues to need to rise from the dead.

Now that Romney has officially sanctioned momentum and faces a seemingly very favorable February schedule, the evidence of the past few months favors Gingrich. This is not to suggest he will win Nevada or any of the upcoming caucuses. However, Newt apparently only functions when being issued political Last Rites, so his next recovery is just a couple disappointing third place finishes away.

Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are at the ready to help with this endeavor. Paul is virtually certain to finish ahead of Gingrich in Maine and several other caucuses (perhaps not Nevada–that one is really tricky to estimate). Santorum is going to get his chance in the next couple weeks, despite finishing a very distant third in Florida, he received some of the praise a candidate would normally need more votes to receive.

Romney is still the most likely nominee; Santorum only cleared 20% in Iowa, Paul is not a nomination possibility, and Gingrich appears as though he will never manage to maintain momentum for more than a few minutes. However, this isn’t over yet. None of the non-Romneys have a path to 50.01% of the delegates yet, but they do still have the ability to keep Romney from winning a majority. In the meanwhile, if Santorum wins Michigan, or Gingrich wins a state outside the South (and environs), a path could open quickly.

-Evan Dodge

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Rush to Judgment: Newt’s Big Night

Florida Primary Blog: Fickle Florida

If pundits can agree on anything it’s that predicting the weather is easier than the 2012 Republican primary season. One debate took Mitt Romney from presumptive nominee to vulnerable candidate. He even managed to lose Iowa two weeks after he won it. If you can’t even trust election night results, and Newt Gingrich can turn a 10 point deficit into a 12 point win in five days, what can you trust?

Absolutely nothing. That won’t stop me from making the following assertions about the coming Sunshine State Political Apocalypse:

Rick Santorum will do very well. This doesn’t mean he will win, or even finish second, though both are very possible. A close third place finish, one within 10-12% of the leader and where he registers at least 25% of the vote will exceed expectations and make it very difficult to argue Santorum should drop out.

Post-Iowa, Santorum went from non-existent to 16% in Florida polls. After giving up a few points, the most recent CNN survey had him at 19%. If you take his Real Clear Politics average of 15%, he starts from a decent floor, only 10 points away from a solid result. There are a number of reasons to expect him to make up that gap and then some.

1. Ron Paul is not making a big push in Florida. You might wonder what Ron Paul could possibly have to do with Rick Santorum, isn’t Gingrich his big obstacle? Paul is the candidate who spends the most time attacking Santorum, both in debates and in ads. Paul is focusing his attentions on the upcoming Nevada Caucus, where his dollars and enthusiastic base will bring better results. This eliminates the most likely source of anti-Santorum bile.

2. We know the Romney campaign will let Gingrich have everything they’ve got. We know Newt will respond. When two candidates are dueling, a third usually benefits. With Paul out of the picture, there’s only one possible beneficiary. Santorum has generally high favorabilty ratings among Republican voters. He is a potential second choice for Romney voters who can’t stomach Gingrich and Gingrich voters who question Romney’s willingness to fight.

3. The two debates are a great opportunity. Everyone agrees debates are insanely important this cycle, but given the cost of paid media in Florida, and general fickleness of the electorate this is even more true. As well as Newt does, his best moments are usually when he is not in a lead position and forced to fend off attacks from other candidates. After what happened to Juan Williams on Monday and John King on Thursday, this week’s group of questioners are likely to avoid giving Newt a fat pitch to hit out of the park.

Romney will have to deal with questions about his tax returns, Newt is sure to face new queries about his Freddie Mac consulting. Santorum does not have an equivalent weak spot. While his explanation on voting against right-to-work legislation leaves something to be desired (and bears a strong resemblance to Mitt’s answer on Romneycare), he will have more time to play offense and have fewer defensive worries.

Mitt Romney is in serious, serious danger. Mind you, two weeks before Iowa voted, there was an outside chance Romney could have finished a devastating fourth; instead he had a temporary win. With up to 200,000 absentee ballots already in, Romney received plenty of Florida votes while he was still Mr. Inevitable. There is still every chance Romney will win Florida and move to Nevada (a state he won in 2008) with plenty of momentum.

However, he can also finish third. It would be a very close third, as there is no chance Romney will fall below his 25% national floor. In 2008, Romney won 31% of the Florida primary vote. Even if you assume removing the Inevitability Cloak will harm him tremendously, with some votes already in, 28% is probably the approximate minimum. That still would leave at least 60% for Gingrich and Santorum to split (remember, they combined for 57% in South Carolina), making it possible for both to exceed him.

Romney can either make a very strong argument for himself or against Gingrich. As Newt himself learned over the past couple weeks, you can only do one or the other, the news cycle will only allow one meme per candidate. Shifting to making his own case through aggressively confronting the media, the pro-Newt message did what the anti-Mitt couldn’t. The Gingrich recovery was directly linked to the switch in focus.

While it is very tempting to suggest Romney needs to stop Gingrich now, before he builds more momentum, focusing on the very negatives Newt was unable to quash in Iowa, Romney needs to make a case for himself instead. If he goes positive, there is a decent chance Newt will win Florida. If he goes negative, there is a decent chance Santorum will finish ahead of Romney. The first is an obstacle, but one that is surmountable, given Newt’s proclivity for self-destruction and Romney’s organizational advantage and presence on more primary ballots.

Losing to Santorum in Florida, whether the order of finish is 1/2 or 2/3 would destroy the remaining shards of front-runnerdom. Republicans want someone who will provide a strong contrast with President Obama. Each candidate recognizes this and mentions it constantly. They need to show, not just tell. When Gingrich said he was a better anti-Obama than Romney, nobody cared. When he replicated Sherman’s March through the moderators, he made his point.

When Romney attacked Gingrich in Iowa, Newt lost time (and got stomped in New Hampshire) complaining about the attacks. It took over two weeks to shake off the hit and direct his anger at the moderators. Romney does not have time to waste talking about Newt’s attacks on Bain Capital, saying that Gingrich isn’t a suitable defender of the free market.

Instead, he needs to make a stronger anti-Obama case on the economy, ideally focusing heavily on the recently rejected Keystone pipeline extension. Fewer platitudes and more specificity would help. Voters need to hear the debate lines that would harm the president and sound bites that will make them feel good about having Romney as their champion in the fall. Raising doubts about Newt without satisfying doubts about Romney will only benefit Santorum.

Newt Gingrich will finish with between 23% and 43% of the vote. I have no idea how Newt will do. All the momentum in the world is on his side. Two more debates give him a chance to shine. Floridians loved him six weeks ago, pushing him to an enormous lead in post-Thanksgiving polling. Gingrich does very well with senior citizens, who turn out disproportionately in primaries. I hear they have a few older voters in Florida.

On the other hand, he still hasn’t adequately answered for his Freddie Mac involvement (something Team Romney is telegraphing their intention to focus on), will face renewed heckling from parts of the conservative establishment (like the National Review, not just from Bush 41 Republicans), and has a 20 year history of being unable to stand prosperity. Newt is at his best when things look bleak and his worst when they look promising.

Almost anything is possible in Florida. Romney could restore order, exit the Sunshine State as the front-runner, with Newt as the main non-Romney challenger. Gingrich could win by double-digits and seem like a solid front-runner himself. Newt could implode in a hail of hubris. Romney could disintegrate now that he is visibly vulnerable.

Santorum exceeding expectations and proving he has a place in the race is the only thing I’m fairly sure of.

-Evan Dodge 

Related Items:

Fickle Florida

Crowded House

Newt’s Big Night

South Carolina: Final Prediction

Before the returns came in, I speculated that a narrow Gingrich win would not be the victory it seemed like, given his home-field advantage. It wasn’t narrow. Newt finished well ahead of Mitt Romney and reached the 40% level.

No other candidate has the distance between ceiling and floor that Newt possesses. Romney has not reached Gingrich’s highs or lows in the polling. Newt literally doubled his South Carolina support in one week, snagging seemingly every undecided voter. Besides proving that if you don’t like where Newt Gingrich is in the polls, you just need to wait a few days, here are a few other things we learned:

Somewhere, JFK is smiling. Only 52 years ago, a Catholic candidate was viewed with suspicion. Today, South Carolina evangelicals gave 65% of their vote to Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum–both Catholic.

This election is about courage. I’ve argued this for awhile. America is tired of getting its head kicked in. This isn’t just a Republican thing. People liked Herman Cain because he had courage, if he knew where Libya was he would still be in the race. Gingrich stood up for conservatism on Monday and himself on Thursday.

Romney defended free enterprise, which while admirable is not exactly sticking one’s neck out. Instead of releasing his tax returns and saying he earned his money and is re-investing his Bain gains in America, or telling everyone to mind their own business, Mitt opted to sound like a weasel. Sounding above attacks in debates while blasting his rivals in ads is not a profile in courage either.

Rick Santorum often talks about courage and had a big COURAGE sign behind him during tonight’s speech. What he lacked in South Carolina was the opportunity to demonstrate it. He needs a question on social issues in one of the Florida debates to give him the opportunity to show the voters how he would handle fall campaign mainstream media attacks, rather than just talking about how he will stand in there.

Santorum is a better candidate than people think. I was as much of a Santorum skeptic as anyone. A quick trip through the archives will lead you to any number of snide comments made during debate previews, reviews and drinking games during Rick’s time in the Margin of Error Zone. He gave an excellent speech tonight, easily the best of the four, neatly summarizing his purpose in the race and how his vision of America is different from his opponents.

Much of the conventional wisdom about his candidacy is wrong. Gingrich is not better off if Santorum exits. As much as people focus on non-Romneys, Newt just won by 12% with Santorum doing fairly decently. The two combined to grab 57% of the vote, more than double Romney’s 28%. Much as South Carolina decided the contest needs to go on a bit longer, a couple quick Gingrich victories and a real one-on-one contest would bring all of Newt’s detractors into the open.

Nobody sees a real path to the nomination for Santorum right now, but all he needs to do is finish well in Florida (well ahead of Paul and within 10-12% of the winner, even if he finishes third) and he can continue to Michigan in late February. Santorum’s big argument is that he can win those Rust Belt swing states, so there’s no way he’s getting out until he gets his chance to prove it. That’s more than a month from now, plenty of time for Newt to re-self-destruct and Romney to continue to sputter. This is the time to buy Santorum for the nomination on Intrade. He’s at 1% right now, way too low.

While Gingrich is great at debates, speeches are not his best format. Newt made several solid points in his address, and very wisely decided to compliment his opponents. Bringing up the Obama rejection of the Keystone pipeline was particulary timely. However, the delivery was lacking and it took him several minutes to build momentum. I’m not sure how many people were watching him on a Saturday night, but if he wins Florida, he’ll need to tighten up the victory speech a bit.

 -Evan Dodge

Related Items:

South Carolina Primary Blog: Final Prediction

Debate Recap: Newt Scores

South Carolina Primary Blog: What’s Inside Newt’s Cranium

Think Different

South Carolina Primary Blog: Runaway Train

Florida Primary Blog: Fickle Florida

The Pauldoza Line

January 21, 14:30 ET

If the present trends hold (and I think they will), New Newt will defeat Angry Newt to win the South Carolina Primary, completing one of the more striking comebacks in recent political history (though only Newt’s 2nd best comeback in the past six months).

When the ballots are finally tallied, I suspect the end result will resemble this:

Newt Gingrich 36%

Mitt Romney 32%

Rick Santorum 17%

Ron Paul 15%

Assuming Gingrich hangs on we will have gone from one of the more somnolent primary races (if Romney continued his early momentum and won South Carolina by several points) to one of the more unpredictable. To make things even more tricky, narrative usually trumps reality, so perceptions of strength, momentum and success are more important than how well a candidate actually did.

If the above prediction is farily close to reality, it will actually mean:

Gingrich overcame himself to score about as well as you might have figured a few weeks ago. This was always Newt’s must-win primary. If he couldn’t win in South Carolina, he wasn’t going to win anywhere. The only possible exception was a scenario where Rick Perry was a stronger candidate, stayed in the race and split the conservative vote, allowing Romney to win narrowly. With Perry out, anything below the low 30s is a failure, and he needs to reach 38-40% to claim he actually outperformed.

This should take nothing away from what Newt accomplished in Monday’s debate and how effectively he used John King as a punching bag on Thursday. Few serious presidential candidates have the hubris to act as their own campaign strategist and do interviews where they sound like a strategist instead of a candidate. I’m positive that is not a good idea and contributed to the lack of success in playing the Bain Card.

Fortunately, Gingrich the strategist has Newt the debater to save him. You can even make the argument that he made it possible, falling far enough behind going into the debate to keep the focus on Romney, giving Newt more opportunity to make the type of comments that win debates for him. Thursday’s debate was rougher, with Gingrich suddenly a target again. The venom over King’s question and the excellent sound bites from it obstructed some of the shots Santorum delivered during the debate and obscured that it was actually a difficult debate for Newt. 

Romney actually did very well, finishing near the top of his range. Unless he surprises everyone, grabs over 35% of the vote and wins, you’ll hear this presented as a big loss for Romney. It is actually his best performance so far. Yes, on Monday afternoon it seemed like he would win by several points, but that was due to several bits of luck:

1. Huntsman dropped out, giving Romney a potentially important cushion of 2-4%.

2. Perry was still in the race, depriving Gingrich of a similar cushion.

3. Newt was doing his best to get Romney nominated, forcing Rush Limbaugh and other Romneyphobes to defend Romney.

Newt managed to reverse all of this in less than two hours, with a final assist later in the week from ABC News, CNN and his 2nd ex-wife. Romney picked a bad time for a bad debate performance, but I’m not sure this actually mattered very much.  Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney will do far better in South Carolina in 2012 than 2008, despite facing a potentially more difficult playing field.

In Iowa, Romney finished with almost exactly the same vote count as 4 years ago. In 2008 Mike Huckabee consolidated most social conservatives and finished several points ahead. This time, Santorum had to share with Michele Bachmann and Perry and only began building momentum in the final couple weeks, so the finish was (to say the least) closer. Romney was Romney, a solid finish, with the other candidates determining how well his 25% would hold up.

In New Hampshire, Romney finished several points ahead of his 2008 result. However, instead of competing against John McCain, once considered New Hampshire’s 3rd Senator, he was endorsed by him. In a stronger field, with a local favorite for a main rival, he pulled 32%. Against the ineffectual Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul, Romney received 39%. Not bad, but not super-impressive.

Whether he finishes toward the lower end of his projected range at 28% or the higher end at 33-34%, Romney will have approximately doubled his 2008 result, despite facing arguably tougher competition. Huckabee finished ahead of Romney by almost 20 points in 2008; Romney will likely finish well ahead of Santorum this year. Gingrich will finish with about the same percentage as McCain in 2008, despite having more of a home-field advantage.

In 2008, Romney finished behind conservative underacheiver Fred Thompson, in 2012, conservative underachiever Rick Perry dropped out ahead of the vote. No matter how you look at it, South Carolina is the first state wheere Romney dramatically improved on his 2008 results. Despite that fact, the narrative will frame Romney as a loser. With Iowa now in the Santorum column, the trendy comment will mention the supposed front-runner has only won one of the first three contests, that one in his virtual home state.

Given how fickle Florida is, the next fun for Romney is hearing how his huge Florida lead has vaporized. This is not a firewall for Romney. Though his considerable organizing efforts, infrastructure and funding advantage give him an advantage, the immediate narrative will focus on Gingrich making up 20 points in Florida polls in less than a week. If Newt wins tonight, he’ll be ahead in Florida as long as he has a decent debate on Monday.

Given that Gingrich is a better underdog than favorite, this isn’t necessarily horrible for Romney, but get ready to hear about how the wheels are coming off a candidacy that is actually performing as well as could have been expected. Gingrich was pushing 50% in Florida polls taken right after Thanksgiving. A surge now is not a rejection of Romney.

Santorum has plenty of time. This is completely dependent on finishing above the Pauldoza Line. If Santorum can finish third, he has plenty of reason to stick around to see how he can do in the Michigan and Ohio primaries. Every point Santorum makes about his viability or right to stay in the race is correct. He finished well ahead of Gingrich in Iowa, even with him in New Hampshire. If Newt wins South Carolina and approximately doubles Santorum’s total, they will be virtually even through three states.

Each of the three main contenders would have won a single early state. A Gingrich victory in South Carolina would prove it was possible to beat Romney without facing him one-on-one, reducing the need for all conservatives to unite behind a single non-Romney before determining who the best non-Romney is.

With Newt still persona non grata in many conservative establishment circles, Santorum will receive plenty of support to stick around. Some will hope Gingrich eventually implodes and Santorum can replace him as the leading non-Romney. Others would happily settle for Romney and hope Santorum will keep votes away from Newt. Either way, Santorum can count on assistance heading forward, as long as he finishes ahead of Paul and with a respectable 15% or more of the vote.

The big challenge for Santorum is himself. He’s a fighter, and many people like that. He doesn’t give up easily, and many people like that even more. Unfortunately, he also has the habit of sounding whiny when he feels overlooked or marginalized. When he gave his Iowa victory speech, Santorum sounded confident and like a legitimate contender. His debating skills are solid and he does a good job taking Romney and Gingrich on directly.

When Newt finished a distant fourth in Iowa and roughly tied for fourth in New Hampshire and headed to South Carolina with a bad strategy, he survived by considering himself an important contender, regardless of whatever anyone else said. Rather than trying to convince others that he mattters, Santorum should focus on keeping that to himself and projecting it outward through his general attitude rather than words.

He has every reason to stick around. Romney has not sold the rank-and-file on his candidacy yet, Gingrich is several steps beyond unpredictable. Paul is not going to be nominated. The more Santorum acts like he belongs, the more chance he has of pulling out a nomination that is not as improbable as analysts will make it sound tonight (assuming he finishes ahead of Paul).

Ron Paul did very well in South Carolina. This is true even if Paul finishes fourth with 13-14% of the vote. If he finishes third with closer to 17-19%, it’s a huge success. In Iowa, Paul doubled his 2008 result, in New Hampshire, he almost tripled. Even at the low end of his projection for tonight, Paul is likely to triple his 2008 result. If he gets to the upper end, it quadruples. That would represent a ton of below-the-radar momentum and mean he can do some real damage in some of the smaller caucuses going forward.

Running on an anti-war platform in one of the most military-heavy states, Paul made some good progress before fading a little bit the last few days, as he shifted some of his focus to the upcoming Nevada Caucus. You might not hear much about his performance tonight, but that shouldn’t take away from how well he actually did. While Paul won’t get nominated, he can win enough delegates to block the others from clinching the nomination ahead of the convention.

Unless Romney wins, which the media would correctly interpret as a huge victory for him, expect the narrative to wind up 180 degrees away from the underlying truth. South Carolina was always Newt’s to lose and difficult terrain for Romney and Paul. Santorum is just getting started. We are likely in for a wild few months, where nothing is how it appears.

-Evan Dodge

Related Items:

Fickle Florida

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Newt Scores

The Pauldoza Line

After one of the best (possibly the best) debate performances of the endless season, he is now down one touchdown with about 7:00 to play. Romney is still the favorite, but Newt is in position to at least keep the newsfolk up late on Saturday if he can repeat his performance on Thursday.

The Gingrich superPAC should immediately cease running King of Bain and start running debate clips. While Newt’s concept of a fall campaign based around Lincoln-Douglas debates is a stretch, Gingrich definitely comes off better in this format than any other way.

Reviews on the others:

Mitt Romney: Romney often takes up huge chunks of time at the beginning of a debate and this was no exception. For awhile it seemed like he would run out the clock and fillibuster his way through the debate. The second half was another matter, as Gingrich continually scored. This is where Romney’s polling lead is so helpful. He doesn’t need to do well, just not terribly and avoid horrible gaffes.

For maximum safety, Romney needs a bit stronger performance next time, to ensure that a repeat performance won’t vault Newt over him to a comeback victory. Interestingly, many of his better answers were on Bain-related questions, not as likely to dominate the next debate. If this debate proved anything it was the less Bain is discussed, the better for the non-Romneys.

Rick Santorum: Santorum had two challenges; distinguish himself from Gingrich as the primary conservative non-Romney and face off with Romney to show he is a legitimate opponent. Ironically, Romney had reason to root for Santorum to succeed, increasing the odds of splitting the conservative vote and giving Romney a South Carolina win. While anything is possible, absent a bigger surge than in Iowa, Santorum’s best-case scenario is a second place finish.

Santorum got about a third of the way to his goal. He did go head-to-head with Romney a couple of times, most notably on voting rights for felons (didn’t have that one on my drinking game list), and acquitted himself fairly well, causing the best programmed debater in American history to fumble over his answer.

Ron Paul: While I’m convinced a larger than commonly accepted percentage of Republicans are at least sympathetic to if not totally in sync with Paul’s foreign policy views, he’s still better off when the focus is the deficit, sound money, etc. The Paul economic program is arguably the most suitable for a large chunk of the Republican audience and he didn’t get much time to talk about it. Instead, he spent several minutes debating when and under what condidions it was acceptable to kill Osama.

As usual, there is no chance a devoted Paulista found anything in his debate performance to make them even slightly waver. He probably didn’t do much to help build support with undecided/non-committed voters. A greater focus on economics in the Thursday debate and Paul still has a chance to approach 20% of the vote and finish a fairly strong third.

Rick Perry: Perry had a solid effort. Gingrich won’t study tapes of Perry, looking for ways to become a better debater, but the Texas Governor is going out in style. If he is headed for a fifth place finish (which seems likely) and an exit from the race, Perry will have at least proven to himself that he was capable of improving. His supporters are probably very frustrated this version was not available in September.

Again, any benefit to Perry from doing well is a bigger favor to Romney, as most Perry votes would otherwise arrive in the Gingrich or Santorum column. If the 5-8% of voters supporting him in the polls stick with Perry on Saturday, and Newt winds up losing by 1 or 2%, it will be interesting to see how Gingrich frames it.

On to Thursday…..if nothing else, Newt did well enough to make it matter. He’ll need an even stronger encore to save his chance of winning the primary.

Related Items:

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Bain of Their Existence

Fox News South Carolina Debate Drinking Game

Debate Doubleheader Recap: It’s All About the Moderators

A few recent developments have moved Romney from a strong to almost unassailable position:

Bain Backfire: Right after Iowa, Romney was just over 30% on average in South Carolina. After almost two weeks of constant Bain-bashing, release of the long-awaited King of Bain “documentary,” Romney is at approximately 30% in South Carolina.

Before the fun began, Romney led Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in South Carolina by approximately 10 points each. Now he leads Newt by 8-10 points, and Santorum by 15 or so. There are two ways to make up a deficit; either pull yourself up or knock the other guy down. By deciding to focus on Bain, Gingrich decided to pull Romney down, and has completely failed. If the vote were today, accounting for undecided voters and Romney’s normal ability to close, he would pull a solid 33-35% of the vote.

While Romney is happily running out the clock in the Palmetto State, his national standing has improved. Post-Iowa, pre-Bain, Romney had a 10 point advantage on Gingrich, approximately equal to his South Carolina margin. While the gap remains steady in South Carolina, with the constant flow of negative ads at least serving to hold Romney in place, nationally, voters are hearing about Negative Newt, without seeing the anti-Mitt spots every hour. Result: Romney now leads by an average of 20 points.

The negativity is hurting Newt’s candidacy and cutting off the oxygen supply for Santorum, as he is obscured by the Bain Battle. While the national numbers include a bunch of people who aren’t going to vote soon, South Carolina Republicans have shown a stong bias toward the front-running candidate, virtually always choosing the national poll leader. Hearing Romney is widening his lead (in the last few polls, his support is greater than Gingrich and Santorum combined) will increase the chances of undecided South Carolinians opting for Mitt.

Zaijian Huntsman: Though Jon Huntsman never caught on, his presence in the race was more harmful to Romney than any other candidate. Nationally, Huntsman’s poll numbers were microscopic at best, but in South Carolina, he was pulling 5-6%, potentially enough to cost Romney the state if Gingrich were to suddenly catch fire.

With Huntsman leaving, a good amount of these voters will gravitate to Romney by election day, increasing Romney’s chance of reaching 38-40%, which will almost guarantee victory, and making it almost impossible to drop below 30-32%. Unless Newt manages to consolidate the vast majority of non-Romney voters, the math is now very difficult, even with his home-field advantage.

Evangelicals Endorse Santorum: How does this help Romney? Two ways. First, it Tebowizes Santorum, further pigeonholing him as the “religious right” candidate. For the most part, Santorum has avoided Bain Bashing, avoiding the backdraft that singed Gingrich and Perry. Combined with his strong pro-manufacturing stance, it gives him the chance to take advantage of any fears the anti-Bain campaign has created, without being connected to the propaganda itself.

However, a constant flow of stories talking about evangelical leaders wanting to stop Romney with Santorum diverts attention from his economic message. It adds to the perception that Santorum is a social issues candidate in an election year about the economy. This was already a challenge for Santorum; it’s no accident that moderators decided they needed to ask about contraception and gay marriage as soon as Santorum reached center stage.

This creates the best of both worlds for Romney. While the support keeps Santorum in his narrow box, it does set a floor under his support and makes him seem more viable in South Carolina and gives him a reason to continue to Florida if he finishes third or fourth. That’s the second benefit; while not strong enough to beat Romney, Santorum is strong enough to keep Newt from beating Romney.

Paul Outperforming Expectations in South Carolina: While his momentum seems to have slowed, Ron Paul is in the mid-teens is virtually every poll. With very few voters deciding between Romney and Paul, every vote for Paul is a vote not available to non-Romneys. Even better, it increases the number of candidates who will finish behind Paul (yet again), blocking any chance for a moral victory. Though Santorum and/or Perry might continue to Florida even if Paul finishes ahead of them, they won’t be able to claim momentum or blame their finish on splitting the conservative vote.

Mitt Romney entered the race with a strong campaign organization, plenty of endorsements, lots of establishment support, the most money and many lessons learned from 2008. He was always the favorite, but as Hillary Clinton would tell you, favorites don’t always win. After sneaking out an eight vote landslide in Iowa, Romney’s already strong position improved. When Huntsman failed to challenge him in New Hampshire and finished behind Paul, Romney’s position went from leading to commanding.

Giving the leader the kind of luck Romney received this past week or two is almost unfair, but if the other candidates aren’t capable of making their own breaks, they don’t deserve the nomination. It isn’t over yet, but it’s getting insanely close. We’ll never know what would have happened if Newt passed up jumping on the Bain Train, but at the moment it looks ready to pitch him and the other non-Romneys into a ravine.

-Evan Dodge

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Bain of Their Existence

Mitt Romney: Shadow President

Fickle Florida

User’s Guide to Polling

You and any of your debate watching companions are welcome to drink when Bain Capital is mentioned, but if you want to avoid having your stomach pumped, some discretion is probably wise. In the meanwhile, some other popular phrases and comments are likely to appear, so please go ahead and imbibe when the following occur:

Seemingly Unconquerable Front-Runner Department:

1. I know how the economy works.

2. I spent 25 years in the private sector.

3. I believe in America.

And on the 7th Day Newt Rested:

1. I created (with a small assist from Bill Clinton) 11 million jobs in the 1990s….think about a double if he also mentions bringing unemployment to 4.2%

2. With that Reagan fellow, we created 16 million jobs in the 1980s…bonus if he mentions how he taught Art Laffer about supply-side economics.

3. I’m the only candidate who can debate Barack Obama (as an aside, just because John McCain wasn’t great at it, why is it assumed than anyone short of Abe Lincoln’s ghost can’t hack this?)

Just Like Tebow, Whatever I do, I’m the God Guy

1. I can win the important states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, yada, yada, yada…(take an extra shot if another candidate chimes in to ask about that 2006 PA Senate re-election loss)

2. I’ll fight for conservative principles, even when it isn’t easy.

3. We need a special 0% tax rate for manufacturing because _______ can’t move to China, but manufacturers can.

Supposed Protest Candidate Who is Getting More Votes than Non-Romneys

1. Nobody else has a plan to cut $1 trillion dollars from the budget immediately (If you are wondering why the Paulistas are making Newt & Friends look bad, it’s not just legalized pot, this has something to do with it too).

2. We have bases in 4 million countries (think he says 130, which is pretty staggering).

3. We need to bring the troops home!

The Candidate Who Was Supposed to Matter but Apparently Doesn’t 

1. We need a part-time Congress, so they can get a job and see what it’s like to work for a living, or take out the trash, drop their kid off at school, yada, yada, yada..

2. We created a million jobs in Texas.

3. Something about energy without really explaining anything beyond we need to create/find/use/sell more American energy (always makes me grumpy–great topic, they reference it for about 18 seconds and move on).

This should create a solid hangover for tomorrow.

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Republican Debate Bingo: Fox News Iowa Debate (December 15)

thanks to alpepper.tripod.com and Topps

Thirty-plus years ago, when the Sunday paper was the easiest way to check baseball statistics, weak-hitting shortstop Mario Mendoza provided a convenient measure of futility.

If a player sat below the Mendoza Line on the batting average chart, it was time to do some serious work with the hitting coach or look for another line of work.

This concept works in plenty of non-baseball situations, and is often applied to politics, with an poor approval rating or primary result considered below the Mendoza Line. Several pundits have set the barrier for this season at Ron Paul’s result in a given primary or caucus.

At first glance, this makes sense. If a supposed front-runner or serious non-Romney challenger can’t exceed the vote of the libertarian protest candidate, how seriously can we take them?

After Newt Gingrich finished below the Pauldoza Line in Iowa, his support in New Hampshire (and national polls) plummeted. Jon Huntsman was unable to clear the line in the Granite State and moved to South Carolina grieviously wounded. Rick Santorum’s Iowa momentum collapsed in a heap after failing to cross the line in New Hampshire.

Apparently, in order to gain full certification, you must pass Paul. The problem is the line of minimum acceptability has turned into an impassable trench. Ron Paul is turning from protest vote to distinct brand of Republicanism before our very eyes.

Iowa was supposedly a fluke, a strong third place finish propelled by pushing some true believers to caucus in a state where only 120,000 people turned out to vote Republican. Paul finished with approximately double the share he posted in 2008, slowed a bit by a sudden focus on racist newsletter articles of questionable provenance.

His strong performance in New Hampshire was easily explained as another outlier. Unlike other states, almost half of the voters on Tuesday were registered independents. With so many Paul supporters coming from outside the Republican Party, it was easy to dismiss his haul as not representative. Though he almost tripled his 2008 result, it’s not like Paul has any chance of repeating the performance in South Carolina. Or does he?

The standard assumption (parroted relentlessly by yours truly) was that Paulian isolationism/non-interventionism was a very tough sale in the veteran-heavy Palmetto State. Paul’s 4.4% result in 2008 seemed to back this up. Even if he repeats his New Hampshire feat and triples his total, it would still leave him well out of the running at 13%. Seemingly, this restores the Pauldoza Line, as any serious candidate should clear 13% in the primary won by each Republican nominee since Reagan.

The problem is our assumptions are beginning to look very wrong. Veterans are not automatically opposed to Paul. Politifact has confirmed that Paul received more contributions from active duty military than any other candidate. The Paul campaign is actively fighting this perception with a series of ads highlighting his support among veterans. It’s working; Paul has moved from single-digits to the mid-teens over the past few days and Nate Silver’s latest estimate has him finishing third.

If either Gingrich or Santorum manage to grab most of the traditional conservative vote and Paul stays where he is, the Pauldoza line will mortally wound the candidate who falls below, rendering him electorally impotent in Florida. However, if they wind up splitting that vote, particularly if Newt fails to make a solid case to vote for him as opposed to against Romney and Paul continues his momentum, he could easily finish ahead of both. Could the Pauldoza line kill off all the non-Romneys?

In a fair world, it wouldn’t. A successful Paul effort in South Carolina is equivalent to Mendoza (career .215 hitter) challenging for a batting title. Politics ain’t fair. A conservative candidate is not likely to survive grasping at Paul’s palmetto leaves, regardless of his heightened relevance.

Mitt Romney is not in the clear either. While he is likely to stay ahead of Paul in South Carolina, if he somehow winds up trailing him, it will be a devastating blow. A more likely Waterloo is March 6 in Virginia, where Romney faces Paul mano-a-mano after the other candidates failed to qualify for the ballot.

This is the ultimate no-win proposition for Mr. Front-Runner. Especially if other candidates are still active in the race, Romney will need to focus on several Super Tuesday states, while Paul can pay more attention to his big chance to defeat Romney straight up. Virginia is no insignificant outlier. Instead, it is a crucial purple state, part of most Republican electoral scenarios, where most Republican primary voters are actual Republicans. If Paul wins a thinly attended small-state caucus in the next several weeks, that’s one thing, a key swing state primary is another entirely.

Whether due to Gingrich/Santorum voters picking Paul as an anti-Romney protest, or Paul simply getting more votes, Virginia is a chance for the final victim to fall below the Pauldoza Line. Unfortunately for Romney, rather than indicating Ron Paul is a bigger deal than previously thought, it might signal to many that none of the standard choices are acceptable.

With proportional allocation (until April) stretching out Romney’s journey to actually acquire the needed delegates, the Pauldoza Trench could swallow Romney whole. Either the candidates need to do a better job combatting Paul’s newfound acceptance, or they are at even more risk than they realize*.

-Evan Dodge

*There’s still no credible scenario where Paul is the nominee. There are plenty of scenarios where Paul wins enough delegates to prevent Romney from clinching the nomination before the convention. If Republicans have a chance to pick somebody not yet in the race over a Romney who has fallen below the Pauldoza Line on multiple occaisions, they will. If Newt has one delegate less than the minimum to clinch, he has about as much chance of winning the nomination as I do.

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The Bain of Their Existence

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South Carolina Primary Blog: User’s Guide to Polling

Florida Primary Blog: Fickle Florida

Recently: Crowded House

Mitt Romney leads the latest Florida Rasmussen poll by 22 points (Romney 41, Gingrich 19). That’s a healthy margin, more than he won virtual-home state New Hampshire by (16%).

You would think this is an almost insurmountable lead. After all, Romney is the best financed candidate, has arguably the strongest field operation (with the possible exception of Ron Paul, at 9% in the same poll), plenty of endorsements and momentum.

While Romney is still more likely to triumph on January 31 in the Sunshine State than any other candidate, this huge margin means less in Florida than it would anywhere else, and is almost completely dependent on how well he fares in South Carolina.

A strong Palmetto State victory and Romney is likely to win Florida with ease. A Gingrich recovery, Paul upset, or any other non-Romney winner and this lead will vaporize overnight. Based on polling over the past several months, Florida is the most fickle state in the Union.

Rick Perry was popular everywhere in early/mid September. Florida was no exception, as he reached the 28-29% range in mid-month polling. Quinnipiac gave Perry a 21 point lead on Herman Cain (+6 over Romney) in a survey ending 9/19. Three weeks later, NBC/Marist found Cain 21 points up on Perry (Romney approximately tied with Cain).

Perry collapsed and Cain advanced nationwide during the same time, but it wasn’t anywhere near as fast. While they went from Perry +21 to Cain +21 in about 21 days in Florida, nationally, the two moved from Perry +22 to a tie. Florida was twice as volatile as the average state.

The same trend repeated itself as Gingrich rose and fell. From late September through most of October, Romney had a 20-25% advantage over Newt. Less than five weeks later, Gingrich was ahead of Romney by 20-30 points, a flip of 50 points in 40 days. Again, while Newt made progress everywhere, Florida moved twice as fast. During the same period, Gingrich turned a 10-15 point national deficit into a 10 point advantage.

As Gingrich fell, he moved from a 10-15 point national lead to a deficit of about the same amount, while in Florida, his 20-30 point lead is now a 22 point deficit. You get the point. Florida moves fast. Why?

Florida is a swing state. In this case, I don’t mean how the state is in play for both parties during most close elections. Even among Republican voters, there is a ton of diversity. While many Iowa Republicans are evangelicals and New Hampshire is extremely independent/moderate influenced, Florida is all over the place. While there are not enough voters of any particular demographic to put a candidate over the top, there also are not as many who would eliminate a particular choice. This puts many more voters in play for any potential front-runner.

Occaisional bursts of news. Some states (Iowa, New Hampshire) had constant activity with regular candidate events, local media coverage, etc. Others (California, Illinois) are completely off-the-radar, not voting until late in the primary calendar, assumed Obama wins, etc. If things are happening constantly, or nothing is happening, you are not as prone to suddenly switch your support.

Florida did receive candidate visits, particularly from Cain, and to a lesser extent Gingrich, but infrequently enough that a visiting candidate was news. There were events, and the debate where Perry deflated himself (his 3rd debate, well before the oops) was in Florida.

Limited ground presence. The candidates do not have tons of people on the ground, the way they did in Iowa and New Hampshire. Many fewer Floridians know someone affiliated with one of the campaigns. Though Romney has a relatively strong organization, he is not ensconced the way he was in New Hampshire. I don’t think he even owns a home there. Ron Paul was planning on avoiding Florida to concentrate on smaller caucus states until his recent momentum made the Sunshine State more enticing.

If you are mostly dependent on national TV coverage for momentum and support, it can appear and vanish in an instant. Romney and Gingrich are well established enough to have a floor under their support, the others lack that luxury. None of the candidates have much of a ceiling. Paul is hovering around 9% right now; a solid South Carolina result (FiveThirtyEight is estimating a 3rd place finish) and he will surge faster than you can say “end the Fed.”

If the Florida polls have any meaning, it is to potentially influence the vote in South Carolina. For all the talk about evangelical voters, South Carolinians are more front-running than devout at the polls. If big numbers in Florida create the idea that Romney is almost unstoppable, it could push voters toward him in South Carolina. On the other hand, it could also force conservatives to finally agree on a single non-Romney to support.

Either way, don’t take the Florida numbers seriously until South Carolina has voted. The winner (and anyone else who outperforms) will get a major bounce, underperformers will collapse. Anything from Paul creating a serious challenge, to a Gingrich recovery victory, to a Romney landslide is possible. If Rick Santorum can create a South Carolina surge, it will carry to Florida. Nothing short of a 40 point lead is safe.

-Evan Dodge

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Florida Primary Blog: Crowded House

South Carolina Primary Blog: User’s Guide to Polling

The Bain of Their Existence

Last Week: What’s Inside Newt’s Cranium?

The minute Mitt Romney won Iowa, we all knew who was going to win New Hampshire. Any chance of an upset went out the window as soon as he performed well in the first caucus. While there was some interest in who would finish second, third, and so on, we were spared breathless reporting of the latest poll changes (even I resisted most of the time).

The stakes are higher in South Carolina (last chance to stop the Romney Rout), and the outcome less certain, so you can expect plenty of commotion over each fluctuation. Here’s a guide to help you look inside the numbers to separate the hype (including mine) from the data:

Make sure to see how many voters were undecided. Today’s Insider Advantage poll shows Mitt Romney at 23%, down from the 30% he garnered in a PPP poll taken a few days ago. Seems like his support is plummeting, right? While there clearly is not a New Hampshire bounce; perhaps due to the Bain attacks, Romney is not sliding as quickly as it seems. Depending on how the pollster asks the questions, the range of undecided respondents fluctuates.

PPP gave Romney 30% out of 90%, so he had 1/3 support. Insider Advantage gave Romney 23% out of 82%, so while he did move the wrong way, he still took 28% of the available support. His decline is not as large as it seems if you adjust for undecideds. As a rule, if you find the amount of support for the candidate leading the poll seems a bit light, you’ll usually find closer to 80% of respondents picked a candidate. If it seems like the leader is on fire, odds are 90-95% of respondents picked someone. This is particularly important with regard to Romney, because….

Romney closes well. I’ve now made the mistake of underestimating Romney twice in a row. In Iowa the mistake was assuming his voters were less excited and would not turn out for a caucus. Instead of underperforming, Romney’s final vote was a couple points ahead of his polling average leading in to the caucus. 

In New Hampshire the faulty logic was that as a virtual incumbent, undecided voters would break for Romney’s opponents. Wrong again, as he finished ahead of his pre-vote poll average. This isn’t a sample size fluke. If you go back to 2008 the same trend exists. Near as I can tell, this is a combination of Romney’s solid ground game and a tendency of voters to abandon sure losers for the top two or three candidates at the last minute.

Polls are often self-fulfilling prophecies. Momentum can create momentum. If a candidate is surging in the polls, it can lead other voters to take him more seriously and/or abandon another candidate going the wrong way. Rick Santorum is the candidate most affected by this perception issue. There is still plenty of skepticism about his ability to run a full slate of primaries against Romney and ultimately triumph.

Santorum’s position in comparison to Gingrich has slipped over the past couple of polls, going from a few point lead to a several point deficit. With Newt having a home-field advantage and a stronger national brand, perceived weakness in Santorum’s standing will push votes to Gingrich. Conversely, if Santorum begins to make progress, he could see a flood of votes, as his favorability rating his actually higher than Newt’s. More than any other candidate, you should expect the final direction of Santorum’s support to magnify on primary day.

Paul will outperform, but you need to dig to see to what extent. Ron Paul does well with independents. In other news, Friday follows Thursday, it gets dark at night and kids enjoy Christmas morning. The question is what percentage of the final primary electorate are Republicans and what percentage are not? South Carolina is not New Hampshire (another shock). There is no chance Republicans will only make up half of the vote as in New Hampshire. However if Iowa is any guide, they will play an important role.

PPP gave Paul the worst result of the recent polls, a mere 9%. However, they also think independents will only make up 15% of the electorate. If they are wrong, Paul will do better than they think, even if he doesn’t make any overall progress with the voters. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to locate the breakdowns (plus you might have a life to attend to), but if you see he is starting to backslide, it might have more to do with the pollster’s assumption about independents than the Paul campaign which will make sure supporters find a ballot.

Happy poll surfing!

-Evan Dodge

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South Carolina Primary Blog: What’s Inside Newt’s Cranium?

The Bain of Their Existence

Florida Primary Blog: Crowded House