Tag Archives: Mitt Romney for President
Romney’s six home plague
With news breaking that Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential hopeful Willard Mitt Romney wants to once again expand one of his six (yes I said six) homes; reportedly an already very expensive sea-view spot in La Jolla, California, GOTP voters, pundits, fellow candidates and opponents are reminded of a supposedly “apocryphal” tale from the 2008 presidential campaign involving Romney’s multiple homes.
The story goes, when John McCain was looking for his VP pick, allegedly Romney was on the short list of his possible vice presidential running mates. But during the very week they were considering him, McCain created a headache for his campaign by blithely asserting in a press interview that he didn’t know how many homes he and his wife owned. It turned out that the correct number was eight. So, here was the GOTP presidential nominee with eight homes and one of the leading VP picks with six – yeah creates a bit of a wealth gap.
The “I’m too rich for the rest of you” image continues to plague Romney and he doesn’t seem to care, throwing out seemingly endless quips and dropping names as though no one would notice. When asked by FOX PAC anchor Megyn Kelly about the problem with appearing too wealthy. His answer: “Guess what? I made a lot of money.”
Romney’s personal real estate includes six homes: one in La Jolla, two in the Boston area, a ski lodge in Utah and two lakeside residences in New Hampshire.
But Willard doesn’t get it; the majority of the country doesn’t own a home, much less six, and many who do are struggling to keep their homes. The “Guess what? I made a lot of money” resounds of “let them eat cake”; and it’s bound to continue to haunt, if not to outright bite Romney.
Latest 2012 Presidential Polls – (pre-Missouri Caucus) 16 Mar 12 Edition
Willard Mitt Romney got his lunch handed to him this week in the deep south where clearly Republican Tea Party (GOTP) voters didn’t buy his “How y’all doin?” nonsense. Romney came in third in both Alabama and Mississippi, falling in behind Santorum and Gingrich, but he won Hawaii and American Samoa.
In Alabama’s Proportional Primary Rick Santorum took first (19 delegates); Leroy Newt Gingrich took second (12 delegates) Romney limped into third (11 delegates) and Ron Paul came in his traditional last place (0 delegates).
In American Samoa’s Proportional Caucus Romney took first in the strong Mormon island winning all 9 delegates.
In Hawaii’s Proportional Caucus Romney again took first (9 delegates) Santorum took second (5 delegates) Paul took third (3 delegates) and came in dead last (0 delegates).
In Mississippi’s Proportional Primary Santorum took first (13 delegates) Gingrich was second (12 delegates) and Romney came in third with fewer votes (12 delegates) and Paul was again last (0 delegates).
Next up is Missouri’s Non-Binding Caucus – 17 Mar 12 (52 delegates): PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 27 – 29 Jan 12; Gingrich 30; Santorum 28; Romney 24 and Paul 11.
Puerto Rico’s Winner Take All Primary – 18 Mar 12 (23 delegates): no polling data available
In Illinois’ Direct Election Primary – 20 Mar 12 (69 delegates): Chicago Tribune poll of registered voters conducted 7 – 9 Mar 12; Romney 35; Santorum 31; Gingrich 12 and Paul 7.
In Louisiana’s Proportional Primary – 24 mar 12 (46 delegates): GCR/WWL-TVh poll of likely voters conducted 8 – 10 Mar 12; Santorum 25; Romney 21; Gingrich 20 and Paul 6.
The regular season records for the dauntless candidates: Romney 19; Santorum 9; Gingrich 2 and Paul 0 with Maine still unbelievably yet to be determined.
The GOTP Delegate Count to date is: Romney 496; Santorum 236; Gingrich 141 and Paul 66.
The current GOTP Popular Vote Count is:
Romney 3,477,020
Santorum 2,286,339
Gingrich 2,106,200
Paul 949,914
Nationally the GOTP Nomination according to the latest Gallup Tracking poll of registered voters conducted 10 – 14 Mar 12: Romney 35; Santorum 27; Gingrich 15 and Paul 10 with 13% undecided.
So, how does each of the Four Horseman of the GOPocalypse stack up against the President? The latest FOX News poll of registered voters conducted 10 – 12 Mar 12; if the general election were held today:
President Obama 46/Romney 42
President Obama 51/Santorum 39
President Obama 53/Gingrich 35
President Obama 50/Paul 38
If the GOTP clown car had finally stopped spinning, and the general election was held today, Willard Mitt Romney would be the GOTP nominee, and he’d lose to President Obama in the general election.
Current electoral college totals based on current poll numbers:
Latest 2012 Presidential Polls – (pre-Alabama and Mississippi primaries) 12 Mar 12 Edition
Willard Mitt Romney has added, little-by-little, to his delegate lead in the past week for the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential nomination, sweeping his opposition in the Northern Marianas’ Non-Binding Caucus (9 delegates); Virgin Islands’ Non-Binding Caucus (7 delegates) and Guam’s Non-Binding Caucus (9 delegates) taking home a whopping 24 non-binding delegates, meaning they can switch at the convention; but he had his lunch handed to him in Kansas.
Speaking of the Sunflower State, Rick Santorum won a devastating victory over Mittens, taking home 33 delegates from the Kansas Hybrid Primary to Romney’s 7.
Newton Leroy Gingrich won zero delegates out of the last four primaries and caucuses; while Ron Paul garnered one delegate from the contest in the Virgin Islands.
And so the fight heads towards the Deep South:
In Alabama’s Proportional Primary – 13 Mar 12 (50 delegates): a new PPP (D) poll of likely voters conducted 10 – 11 Mar 12; Romney 31; Gingrich 30; Santorum 29 and Paul 8.
American Samoa’s Proportional Caucus – 13 mar 12 (9 delegates): no polling data available
In Hawaii’s Proportional Caucus with 20 delegates: PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 13 – 16 Oct 11; Romney 24; Gingrich 8; Paul 4 and Santorum 1.
In Mississippi’s Proportional Primary with 52 delegates: PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 10 – 11 Mar 12; Gingrich 33; Romney 31; Santorum 27 and Paul 7.
In Missouri’s Non-Binding Caucus – 17 Mar 12 (52 delegates): PPP (D) poll of registered voters conducted 27 – 29 Jan 12; Gingrich 30; Santorum 28; Romney 24 and Paul 11.
Puerto Rico’s Winner Take All Primary – 18 Mar 12 (23 delegates): no polling data available
In Illinois’ Direct Election Primary – 20 Mar 12 (69 delegates): Chicago Tribune poll of registered voters conducted 7 – 9 Mar 12; Romney 35; Santorum 31; Gingrich 12 and Paul 7.
In Louisiana’s Proportional Primary – 24 mar 12 (46 delegates): Clarus Research poll of likely voters conducted 20 – 22 Nov 12; Gingrich 31; Romney 23; Paul 6 and Santorum 0.
The regular season records for the dauntless candidates: Romney 16; Santorum 7; Gingrich 2 and Paul 0 with Maine still unbelievably yet to be determined.
The GOTP Delegate Count to date is: Romney 455; Santorum 199; Gingrich 117 and Paul 64.
The current GOTP Popular Vote Count is:
Romney 3,203,592
Santorum 1,974,351
Gingrich 1,832,322
Paul 904,503
Nationally the GOTP Nomination according to the latest CBS News/NY Times poll of registered voters conducted 7 – 11 Mar 12: Santorum 34; Romney 30; Gingrich 13 and Paul 4 with 19% undecided.
So, how does each of the Four Horseman of the GOPocalypse stack up against the President? The latest ABC News/Wash Post poll of registered voters conducted 7 – 10 Mar 12; if the general election were held today:
President Obama 47/Romney 49
President Obama 49/Santorum 46
If the GOTP clown car had finally stopped spinning, and the general election was held today, Rick Santorum would be the GOTP nominee, and he’d lose to President Obama in the general election.
Mathematically Improbable for Romney to win nomination
Being somewhat of a politics-geek I’ve been thinking why the Romney camp’s pushing the idea he’s the sole inevitable winner of the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) nominating process; the only answer I can come up with is because he’s nothing of the kind and they’re trying to weaken his opponent’s base. They’ve come to understand the longer Rick Santorum and Newton Leroy Gingrich hang on the fewer delegates their guy wins.
If you run the numbers – specifically the number of delegates yet to be won – it’s abundantly clear Romney’s the only one who can still win the nomination outright prior to the GOTP convention 27 – 30 Aug 12; but it’s not very clear at all if he’ll be able to do so, in fact the odds are fast becoming anything but in his favor. There are 878 delegates left to be picked up by the candidates and 1,144 needed for victory; Romney’s picked up 455 delegates to date and still needs to pick up 691 delegates to win, or roughly 80% of all the remaining delegates. If you eliminate the “winner take all” primaries won so far he’s averaging about 33% of delegates, and that’s not going to get it done; even if he wins all the “winner take all” primaries – which he may, but is doubtful – if Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich remain in the race it doesn’t look probable for Romney, and thus a brokered convention is looming more and more on the horizon.
There are 126 so-called “super delegates” available at the GOTP Convention, made up of state chairs and additional RNC types, but they’re not necessarily going all to Romney, especially considering his “popularity” within the party; even if we were to count all the super delegates to Mitt, he only takes the nomination at that point by a mere 50 or so delegates. Santorum or Gingrich could very much act as spoilers sending this into a brokered convention. At any rate, it’s not a foregone conclusion that Mitt’s the nominee. Not just yet.
Of course the only possible way for Santorum to win now is in a brokered convention and that’s what he’s aiming at, he knows he can’t win any other way; Newt’s reason for hanging on is pure and simple, he hates Romney’s guts for the character attacks following the South Carolina primary; so at this point it’s all about keeping Romney from winning. Ron Paul’s still hanging in there but he’s pretty much inconsequential, basically just siphoning off delegates here and there. Romney’s basically in a begging position where he needs the others to fall out.
God himself could not sink this campaign?
According to news reports Willard Thurston Mittens Romney’s campaign staff called the national press corps into a room and boldly declared, it would take an “act of God” for any candidate not named Mitt Romney to win the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) nomination. Really, they declared this roughly a month from the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic, the ship “God himself could not sink”!?
Now, their seemingly unshakeable confidence in Mr. Vanilla is not necessarily misplaced, especially when one starts looking at the mathematics; clearly Ron Paul is way past done, and outside of Newt’s “miraculous” victory in his home state of Georgia he too is finished in this campaign, leaving only Rick Santorum, who also clearly is facing extremely long odds at winning the nomination out right – but Romney’s camp shouldn’t be invoking the Lord’s name quite so fast. After all, it was just a few short weeks ago that Mrs. Santorum declared that God had chosen Rick.
“We will get to 1,144 whether it’s on someone else’s timeline, or on our timeline,” said one top Romney aide. “We will get to 1,144 and be the Republican nominee.”
But, what if their candidate were to make another couple of dozen gaffs? Like that’ll never happen; and what if Santorum can keep from sounding too crazy, and he wins enough delegates, not necessarily to win, but to keep Mittens from crossing the magic number? And of course there’s always the possibility that many of the delegates – who are “non-binding” switch allegiance?
The Romney campaign’s simply trying to paint their guy as the inevitable winner, and is trying to convince GOTP types to stop all this nonsense and just accept it, and rally to their banner!
“There’s not a lot of Floridas left out there, no more Arizonas, no more Virginias. There’s just no more big chunks of delegates to go get. So whether it’s a one-, two-, three- or four-way race, you’re still going to have people bunched up there,” said one Romney aide.
The campaign’s also trying to get its opponents to accept they can’t win and to drop out rather than to continue to force Romney to spend millions more in primaries and caucuses only to barely squeak past Santorum; states like his home state of Michigan, where he outspent Ricky by 2 to 1 only to win by a couple of percentage points; or in Ohio, where he once again out spent Santorum by more than 2 to 1 and managed a mere 1 percent victory. In short, it’s getting embarrassing and, to top it all off, they’re making Mittens spend his war chest too quickly. Allegedly Romney’ campaign raised $11.5 million in February, but then spent between $8 to $9 million between Michigan and Ohio, and who knows what it spent in Virginia where Ron Paul still managed to win more than 40%.
What’s really funny is how Romney aides are trying to play down the persistent stories their man’s a weak front-runner, unable to connect and failing to garner the support of independent voters and they’re pointing to polling from 1992, which showed then-Gov. Bill Clinton’s favorability ratings upside down.
“If I remember correctly, he served two terms,” said one aide.
THEY’RE COMPARING ROMNEY TO BILL CLINTON!? Yeah, that’s going to help big time with the uber-conservative crowd; or are they simply trying to imply Romney’s got a heartbeat, and is a “great communicator”?
When you, as the purported GOTP frontrunner (who’s only managed to garner 55% of the delegates thus far) start to compare your campaign to Bill Clinton all is not as it appears; my Dad used to tell me when someone keeps talking about one particular strength in a product – or a candidate – attempting to get you to buy it, that’s usually its weakest point; team Romney’s not confident of winning, they’re scared spit less this is going to drag on into summer, that Mittens isn’t going to garner enough delegates and they’re going to be facing a brokered convention, where Mr. Luke Warm doesn’t win.
RUN HARDER RICK! RUN HARDER NEWT!
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