Hard for Romney to explain this away
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, with a sweep in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado on Tuesday, has now won more nominating contests than any other candidate in the Republican presidential race.
Hard for Romney to explain this away
Thomas Fitzgerald, Inquirer Politics Writer
There are a number of ways to spin it away or place an asterisk next to it, but the fact is unavoidable: Rick Santorum has won more nominating contests than any other candidate in the Republican presidential race.
Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, swept frontrunner Mitt Romney in three states Tuesday, winning caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado, as well as a presidential preference primary in Missouri. On one level, these results scrambled once again the GOP race, bringing the potential for chaos, and on another they returned it to a familiar storyline: the struggle of conservative elements in the party’s base to overcome misgivings about Romney and get in line, or instead settle on a viable alternative.
It was a breakthrough for the former Pennsylvania senator, who had been an afterthought since a razor close victory in the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3. Now he faces the twin challenges of needing to broaden his coalition and increase his fundraising, to try to prove he can hang with the well-financed and organized Romney campaign.
There are no contests until the Arizona and Michigan primaries on Feb. 28.
No actual delegates were at stake Tuesday. Missouri’s primary was a so-called “beauty contest,” a chance for Republican activists to express their preferences for a nominee, and the results in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses merely kicked off multi-stage processes of selecting delegates for the GOP convention in Tampa this summer, and are not binding on those choices, made in county and state conventions later.
But perceptions, obviously, matter.
It's clear there was an embarrassing fall-off in support for Romney that could be hard to explain away.
In Colorado four years ago, Romney won about 42,000 votes out of 70,000 cast. On Tuesday, he captured 23,000 out of 65,000.
In the 2008 Missouri primary, in which delegates were at stake and which fell on Super Tuesday, got about 172,000 votes out of 589,000 cast. Last night, Romney got around 64,000 out of roughly 233,000.
And in Minnesota, it was 26,000/63,000 for Romney in 2008 and 8,000/47,000 for Romney on Tuesday.
Including his victory in Iowa, Santorum has now won four contests. Romney has won three (NH, Florida and Nevada) and Newt Gingrich, the former speaker has finished on top in one (South Carolina).
@mike I- You really don't see the difference between health insurance and homeowners/auto insurance? Now I understand why you usually just post and run, never to be heard from again. You probably should have stuck to your usual MO.
First, homeowners insurance is required generally by the terms of the LENDER. Government agencies may also have requirements that the loans they back also have homeowners insurance, but it is the lender that requires the insurance as part of making the loan.
In the case of both auto and home insurance, they are required because you did something else (ie bought a home or a car) neither of which is required. If you don't own a home or a car, you do not have to buy insurance.
The decision to buy the car or the hosue triggered the requirement to buy insurance. What exactly is the 'trigger' that would require someone to buy health insurance? What step did they take that would give a third party the right to force them to buy health insurance? Because you have to pay more is a pretty flimsy excuse to mandate someone else buying something, now isn't it? When apples are on sale for $2 dollars each but you can get 10 for 10 dollars, do you MANDATE that your neighbors go in with you to buy enough to get the reduced bulk price?
Just because those that don't have health insurance increase the costs for you and the insured, does not mean that the GOVERNMENT has the RIGHT to alleviate that strain on your finances. The fact that some as you say "are getting a free ride" does not mean that the government has the right or power to correct it by requiring a purchase by a private citizen.
— Wiseman6- Each day as Obamacare goes into effect and people see that its not the devil's work the Repubs are becoming more desperate. They were in charge for 30 years and never had a morsel of an idea about how to fix a broken healthcare system. They just left people's healthcare to the profit lines of corporations. Then tried to block everything Obama tried to do. Who could vote for these second rate clowns whose entire existence depends on giving tax cuts to the rich.— alak0926
- Romneycare was a STATE run program. Obamacare is a FEDERALLY mandated program. Opposition to Obamacare is made up of of not only those that don't want federal government run healthcare, but don't support the overreach of the feds in what should be states rights to decide for themselves.
Relying on the commerce clause of the Constitution is a reach too far for many to mandate the private purchase of health insurance.— Wiseman6 - So where is all the protests over govenment mandating you have to buy homeowners insurance if you have a mortgage or that you have to buy auto insurance in order to drive a car? I don't see any difference. What I do see is my health insurance premiums going up in order to pay for those who get "free" medical care because they don't have and/or won't buy health insurance. I am suprised that republicans are against a proposal that would do away with most people getting a free ride at our expense. Whatever became of the repub mantra of "personal responsibility?" I mean, repubs cheered during a debate when Ron Paul basically said a person without insurance should just be allowed to die. — mike l
- Heaven forbid Romney doesn't win every primary or caucus or else we get the same old predictable articles by the Obama left. They forget that Obama didn't clinch the nomination until June 2008.— AvoidSundanceVacations
Comment removed.- Congrats to Pennsylvania's own, Rick Santorum— Blue Hens Rule
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- ....and I'd vote for a duck before I'd vote for Romney. — justacarpenter
- ....and I'd vote for a duck before I'd vote for Romney. — justacarpenter
- 43% of Romney supports wish they had another choice. And he is the GOP frontrunner???— Speedqueen Mistress
So for the second presidential campaign in a row, Republicans are more interested in screaming out ideological demands at the top of their lungs than they are in getting somebody elected president. Folks, I don't like Mitt Romney one bit, but he is the ONLY Republican candidate with a snowball's chance against President Obama. The fact that a lunatic fringer like Rick Santorum or a used-up, disgraced hack like Gingrich could get ANY primary votes speaks volumes about the disarray of the GOP. But that's what you get when you turn over your political party to a bunch of people -- the Tea Party -- who don't believe in politics, but rather in some alternate reality where their screwy socio-religious agenda rules.- How the tent has shrunk.— DennisM
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- Darn, you beat me to it. If republicans are so upset with Obama, then why are less voters coming out to endorse a nominee? — mike l
- Hillary won:
NJ
PA
FLA
INDY
MICHGN
KENTY
S DAKTA
MASS
TEX
OKA
RI
OHIO
TENN
AZ
AK
CAL
NY
In 2008. I guess that was easily explained away??? LOL!!! Notice how the Libs are saying "I feel sorry", their way of putting themselves into that ever present denial.— sarah89 - Your confused ideation and pointless list making bespeaks schizophrenia. Please get yourself help. — Charles B
- A conservative is a liberal who hasn't had a new idea in roughly 20 years. You can pray things don't change or you can realize things change. — justacarpenter
- Huh? What does that even mean? Every one of your posts that I have read have been nothing but a jumble of seemingly random words and some condemnation of "libs," which, to you, I assume means everyone to the left of Mussolini. I bet you're a huge Sarah Palin fan.
Anyway, your point, best as I can figure, is that Hilary Clinton won some states in 2008. Yes, she did. Obama won more states and by much wider margins, and won a lot of the early states so he got the most delegates and thus the nomination. That's how nominating processes work. - Comment removed.
- I feel sorry for the GOP.— BobSG
- Santorum would be a good candidate for Pope. But for President? Get serious.— butchcat
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- The Pea Bag Party finally woke up and relaized that Kerry McRomney is to the left of president Obama. I never understood republicans going ape-sh*t over Obamacare only to nominate the guy responsible for Romneycare. lolz....the GOP is a mess now!— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine
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You can reach Tom Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
Reach Thomas at tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
