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Rick Santorum dominated Missouri, took a commanding lead in Minnesota and ended up outgunning Romney in his own territory in Colorado. The night was flawless for Rick Santorum and an absolute nightmare for two other candidates. Let’s walk through the nightmares and then we’ll circle back to Rick Santorum.
The above image is a tweet I sent out at 8:05 PM last night. At the time my thinking was that early reports showed a possibly damning result for Mitt Romney in Minnesota. This vibe began to strengthen not long after when both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum were beating Romney in counties surrounding the St Paul and Minneapolis area. At the same time, the counties around St Louis and Kansas City were going strong for Rick Santorum as well. We knew Romney wasn’t likely to do well outside of the major metro areas, but we had no idea he would fall in the cities as well.
But if that were the worst news of the night for Romney it would have been much better than what ended up happening in Colorado. Earlier I mentioned Colorado as Romney territory. I say that because in 2008 Romney dominated Colorado, blowing out McCain and Huckabee by a huge margin. Unlike Minnesota and Missouri, Romney had significant infrastructure and organization in place across Colorado. The fact that Romney lost Colorado is wildly damaging to the narrative that Romney can win big battleground states.
Additionally, while I can’t get into the minds of Romney’s advisors, my guess is Colorado is the first state they thought they would win, but lost. I mean, the polling indicated a loss in South Carolina and the Romney team downplayed expectations going into the southern conservative state. But Colorado… all indications were that Romney would walk away with it with no problems.
I honestly believe there might have been a serious miscalculation happening on the part of the Romney team last night. I think that since they knew all three states had non-binding delegates, they decided not to spend big money in Missouri and Minnesota. They assumed they would likely win Colorado, and while they spent significant money there, they didn’t pile on to seal the deal in a big way. As a result, they ended up getting trounced in all three.
The size of the contrast between Romney losing two states and three last night simply can’t be overstated. February was supposed to be his month. It was a time for him to trump the field and show he can carry a diverse range of states going into Super Tuesday. Two weeks ago he was looking decent in Minnesota, strong in Colorado and somewhat competitive in Missouri. Today he looks like a very weak, barely front runner.
You know who got hurt worse than Romney last night? Newt Gingrich.
The second candidate to go through a nightmare scenario last night is Newt Gingrich. It’s true the Gingrich failures didn’t get as much attention as Romney’s, but the long term effect will be far more damaging for Gingrich than it will for Romney.
First, Gingrich was nothing short of an afterthought in all three states, even though his choice to forgo the ballot only occurred in Missouri. How Gingrich finished dead last in Minnesota is beyond me. He didn’t do a whole lot better in Colorado, coming in a very distant third.
Second, Gingrich has openly admitted he needs Santorum out of the race in order for him to see victory. Gingrich has gone so far as to actually call for Santorum to drop out. Now, instead of Gingrich enjoying the possibility of splitting all the Super Tuesday states with Romney, he’ll be lucky to split half of them with Rick Santorum.
Which brings me back to Santorum… can he win?
Santorum is now a very legitimate candidate and he’ll likely get a couple million dollar strong boost to his campaign by the end of the week. I don’t think his chances are great in any of the states between now and Super Tuesday, so he would be wise to focus his energy on those states. If Santorum can do well in the debate planned for later this month, raise a ton of cash and continue to unify conservatives around the idea he can win as the Not-Romney candidate, he can possibly elbow Gingrich out for a better chunk of the Super Tuesday delegates.
But just as Santorum is a hurdle for Gingrich, Gingrich returns the favor by being a major hurdle for Santorum. Both candidates will be very competitive for the conservative vote in southern primary battles that begin happening on Super Tuesday and beyond.
With all four candidates in the race, Mitt Romney is still the front-runner and likely nominee. But if Santorum continues to gain momentum and Gingrich continues to have days like yesterday, we might have ourselves a serious fight to the finish.
-Eric Odom
Related posts:
- LIVE GOP Primary Results for Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota
- Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota… what to watch for in tonight’s primaries
- Delegate roadmap gets tough without a Florida win
- Bombshell: Newt Gingrich Failed to Qualify for the Missouri GOP Primary… Won’t Appear on Ballot
- And we’ve got ourselves a race!
What planet do you all live on? It ain’t earth.
How could I possibly not live on earth. Surely you aren’t being serious, silly.
Romney can’t win, unless Newt or Rick cave and give their votes to Romney and why would they. I think Newt or Rick will not give their votes to Mitt. So it’s Rick or Newt and Romney comes in short, I hope.
Santorum wins 3 caucuses and receives exactly ZERO delegates!!!
The big loser last night was Ron Paul having spent all his time, money, and effort on a caucus strategy that failed miserably.
Btw – if Big Government Republicanism is going to be the new “Conservatism” (read — Santorum getting the nomination and becoming the leader of the party) I don’t want any part of it… period!
Yep. And it could be easily argued that Santorum, Gingrich and Romney are all three big government.
God help us.
It might have helped that conservative icon Rush Limbaugh came out strongly in support of Santorum recently, rightly pointing out that Rick is the only real conservative remaining in the race so we need to get behind his candidacy, get him nominated to the Republican ticket and then elected to serve in the Oval Office. It would be dynamite to see a Santorum-Rubio ticket for this Fall…great way to replace Obama et. al. and begin restoring America!
Have you seen where Santorum stands with illegal immigration? He voted against even a voluntary E-verify. He is a social conservative to be sure, a general conservative, not so much. He lost to Casey for PA senate by 16 points in ’06. BO will eat him up. He is a good man, but over his head. Romney is our best bet to overt a total disaster.
As a past contributor to PAN, I never lose a chance to hop up on my favorite soapbox: VOTER APATHY!!! The ignorance of the average American voter is beyond unbelievable, it’s frightening. Ask someone at random to tell you what happened on “American Idol’s” last episode. How about which celebrity du jour is in what rehab center this week? What you’ll get is a fountain of information. Now ask these same people what there Congressman or woman was up to last week, and wait for the clueless look. Wanna really get scared? Ask them to name their State and US Congressmen and Senators. I bespoke one gentleman who opined that Obama was doing a great job, and had no idea who Joe Biden was! I am not making this up. These people need adult supervision to go to the bathroom and we let them vote? This is why EVERY VOTE COUNTS! There is NO EXCUSE not to get to the polls. How do you think Democraps get elected? Even dead ones vote! We get the government we deserve, or sometimes we get the government we didn’t deserve because we were outnumbered at the polls. Don’t let it happen this year!
Right now we have a choice between four candidate challengers running for the opportunity to face Obama. If WE lose to President Obama, it will be OUR fault because of OUR lack of commitment. WE are the voters, the selectors, of our presidential and congressional representation. Do YOU want to win? If so, YOU need to be involved in the process and ensure YOU are inviting your neighbors and friends to vote especially in a caucus state. We will eventually have only one candidate to get behind for the general election and we will need every vote and all the financial support WE can muster to fight the Obama re-election machine. To carry on about one candidate or another now is just fine as you try to sway others to vote for your choice. But to say there is no way you could vote for such and such is just a little too much. I have chosen a candidate and will try my best to see he becomes the only choice for the general election. However, I’m not so naive as to think that there isn’t a chance for some other candidate to come out on top in this primary season. I may not like it, but I personally committed to do what it takes to relieve Obama of his job. I feel that is the only way WE stand a chance of taking OUR country back. Once WE have a single candidate YOU and I must be ready to fight tenaciously until WE have the desired victory. If we can’t rally around a any one candidate when the time comes then WE have already lost and I dare not think about that scenario.
I agree with Mr. Bradford – I couldn’t have said it better myself! I preached that exact message this morning to some of my clueless friends. They just want “their” man to win. It seems as if they had rather have BO back in the WH than to rally around whomever DOES make it in the primary! It is all so childish with the “I’ll show YOU” posture. Thanks, Mr. Bradford!
I take exception to one of your comments Mr. Odom…”they assumed they would likely win CO. and while they spent significant money there”…
As a Coloradan I choose to believe that we were simply not taken in by Romney’s big money! I averaged 4 phone calls a day from his campaign. I was in the caucus room, as were many 1st time caucus goers who stood their ground against many Mormon neighbors & proclaimed that Romney is no conservative! He flip flops more than a fish out of water. We also proclaimed that we will no longer cast our vote based on who the media & establishment cram down our throats!
OK< fine. Then why did he command a big lead in Colorado in 2008?
Because the electorate is reading that Romney is a RINO candidate. They are awake but need MUCH more education.
Yes, Mr. Odom as Patriot says, education is at least part of the key. Colorado is very Mormon. I warned at the caucus Tues. nite that we are not voting for or against a religion, nor one whom we consider a “brother”. We should be voting for a POTUS, period! I then went on to elaborate on Romney’s very un-conservative record. I’m not taking credit for what happened in our caucus room, but unlike 2008, I went to causus for Huckabee as did many others. After being bombarded with pro Romney goers who had plenty of glowing comments, not one other person said a word. Not so this time. Also expressed was the establishment & media picking our candidate for us. They remain trying to do so, down playing Santorum’s win, i.e., no delegates, MO. just a “beauty contest”.
They gave us the likes of Dole, & McCain, & thank God we learned! Now, either the party will or I fear they will find themselves going the way of the Whigs!
Is Santorum a natural born citizen? Was his father a citizen when Sanorum was born? Comments? I want to support him but would like comment. I have asked his campaign to comment.
That is a good question to ask. I believe one time when I heard him speak he said that his father was an immigrant.
But a better question to ask is “Is Romney a natural born citizen?”
His parents were from Mexico.
I hope Santorum spanks all of em. The only chance of cleaning up the cesspool that is Washington is with Santorum. Romney is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,, Newt is and old school ego maniac like McCann was and is ,, Ron Paul is a man on mission to nowhere. If Romney was to get the nomination Obummer will prove him to be the fake that he is. Obummer knows all about being a fake and how to spot a like minded person.