On Tuesday night the conservative electorate made a resounding and clear statement as Alabama and Mississippi held their GOP presidential primaries.
These states marked the passing of the half way point in the GOP 2012 presidential contest, because 27 states have now completed their primaries/caucuses. The results of Alabama and Mississippi made four things very clear:
1: Rick Santorum put to rest any doubt that may have remained that he is the clear and only viable conservative alternative to Mitt Romney as he swept both states in dramatic fashion. He proved once again that he can win against all odds, being outspent by a 10-1 margin; and he bested every poll leading into the contests by an average of 6-7%. (Every poll had Santorum coming in 3rd to Romney and Gingrich.) In both states Santorum won with comfortable margins, 6% in Alabama and 2% in Mississippi. 2% may not seem like much, but as compared to states like Ohio where Romney edged him out by only 0.8% it’s a convincing win. Not only all that, but Santorum was able to do it with the conservative “not-Romney” vote still spilt 3 ways.
2: A clear repudiation was sent to Mitt Romney as he finished 3rd in both states. In Alabama 71% of voters voted for the “not Romney” candidates, and in Mississippi it was 69%. So in both states nearly 3 quarters of the votes were cast against Romney. This should serve as a wake up call to those who have assumed all along that Romney was the most “electable”, and sort of the “heir apparent” to the nomination. It’s one thing to win big in his home state of Massachusetts (which is a heavily “blue” democrat state during general elections. Ted Kennedy’s state.) But it’s quite another thing to be able to carry the heartland of America where Santorum is proving to be the clear winner. Perhaps Romney should order his cheesy grits to go and take them back to Ol’ Mass, “y’all.”
3: Newt Gingrich proved himself to be a totally moot factor in the race for the nomination as he lost his 23th and 24th states. (When Hawaii is factored in Newt has lost 25 of 27 states.) He has finished dead last in 15 of 27 states, which is dead last in over half of the states.
He has 3rd place finishes in 5 states, 2nd place in 4 states, and 1st place in only 2 states.
Newt has finished dead last in 4 more states than all his 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishes combined.
Newt has a losing record with every other candidate:
Newt 4 Romney 23
Newt 4 Santorum 22 (Neither Newt nor Santorum were on the ballot in VA so there are only 26 counted between them. VA is counted as a loss to Romney and Paul since Newt failed to make the ballot.)
Newt 11 Paul 16
Every other candidate has beaten Newt more times than Newt has beaten them.
Gingrich was promising his big comeback run through the south, but fell well short of it. Over the last several weeks many conservatives had already been calling on Gingrich to step out of the race and help consolidate the conservative “not-Romney” vote, and now that has greatly intensified. For many Gingrich supporters, Alabama and Mississippi was seen as Newt’s last stand, and they have now joined the call for Newt to step out and help defeat Romney. It remains to be seen whether Newt will take the high road and step out for the good of the conservative movement, or if he will continue to crash and burn his way to the convention possibly bringing Santorum down with him.
4: As Ron Paul has done for a few decades now, he has brought a lot of tenacity to the political debate during this race. He has raised some very important issues, especially those concerning monetary policy and the economy. But after losing 27 states in a row and not having a single win, it is clear that he is only in the race at this point as a protest factor. He will collect a few more delegates to add to the handful he has collected along the way, and try to make as much of a stir as he may at the convention. But it will fall well short of the promised “revolution” his die hard supporters have been awaiting.
To Paul’s credit, he has beaten Gingrich in more states than Gingrich has beaten him as cited above. But the highlight of Tuesday for Paul was that he was able to make a 3rd place finish in Hawaii with 18% of the vote. In Alabama he was 4th with 5%, and in Mississippi he was 4th with 4%. So for Ron Paul the best he could muster was a punt.
One other very notable thing to come out of these contests is that Rick Santorum is getting a higher percentage of the vote from females than all the other candidates. In Alabama Santorum received 38% of female votes, Romney had 30%, Gingrich 25%, and Paul 5%. In Mississippi the margin was a bit closer as Santorum got 35%, Romney 32%, Gingrich 29%, and Paul 3%.
So with the conservative base solidly behind Santorum including a majority of the female vote, and two more big wins against the odds under his belt; it’s game on for Santorum, watch your flank Romney, go away Gingrich, and Peace out Paul.
By: Javan Browder
The post Santorum Sweeps, Romney Repudiated, Newt Moot, Paul Punts, –Song of the South appeared first on The South Carolina Conservative.
