Predicting Florida: Newt's Petard
As we wend our way through the Republican primary season, at times predicting the outcome of a single state's race is very hard to do. At other times, it is actually pretty easy. Florida looks to be one of the latter.
One short week ago, the Florida political landscape was decidedly different. Newt Gingrich was riding a big wave of momentum from his overwhelming victory in South Carolina, and Mitt Romney appeared to be on the ropes. Two debates were scheduled, which was seen as helpful to Newt, since debating is supposedly his strong point.
What a difference a single week can make, though! Mitt turned in two debate performances that were feistier than anything we've seen yet, and Newt was the one getting pummeled on the ropes. The best description I've heard yet of what happened is: "When you punch a bully, he doesn't know what to do -- it confounds him." That was Newt -- getting verbally punched, and looked stunned and confused about what was happening to him. His story is now that he finds it hard to debate someone who keeps throwing factual inaccuracies at him -- well, welcome to the Democrats' world, Newt, ever since your reign in the House.
I find it hard to be sympathetic to Gingrich (obviously) because he did more than perhaps any other single individual to push Washington politics into the dark and ugly place it now lives in. Newt, in his glory days, was the one instructing other up-and-coming Republicans how to use the nastiest possible language to describe the opposition, and using blunt-instrument tactics in Congress to try and force his will on the country. Newt was (and still is) a master of making something outrageously wrong and nasty sound reasonable and possible.
And now he's got the gall to complain about the current state of politics? Cry me a river, Newtie.
Newt has always enjoyed "playing the victim" to some degree or another, but playing the victim of Republican attack politics is just flat-out laughable. I mean, I thought Newt actually patented this playbook back in the 1990s.
Linguistic interlude: a "petard" is a small bomb. Being "hoist" by your own petard means the bomb you were carrying blew up unexpectedly, throwing you (and not your intended enemy) up into the air. The word petard is actually French. It translates as "fart" (for the sound of the bomb, assumably). Feel free to use the phrase liberally in the next few days, when discussing Gingrich. Ahem.
Of course, Newt's dive in the Florida polls didn't exactly happen in a vacuum. Mitt Romney has been showing everyone that conventional political wisdom still has a place in today's Tea Party Republican ranks. Being angry and running "against Washington" is all fine and good (to put it another way), but boatloads of cash spent on television advertising still goes a long way in the primary season. Mitt dumped over ten million dollars into Florida's huge media markets, and his investment is paying off big. Of course, not all the money went towards ads -- Mitt also reinforced another bit of political wisdom: the ground game counts. Organizational strength translates into votes, and organizational weakness can be deadly for a campaign.
Which brings us to predicting Florida's outcome. As always, I feel duty-bound to report my record of prognostication so far this election cycle. Since Iowa's Republicans announced they are unable to count ballots correctly, I have to revise my score for the state to 0-for-3 (I called it: Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, in that order). The good news is I picked two out of three right in South Carolina (I predicted: Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul). This leaves me with an overall score of:
Total correct 2012 primary picks so far: 5 for 9 -- 56%.
Florida, as I said, doesn't seem to be too hard to call. Since around the middle of last week, Mitt Romney has risen in the polls to eclipse Newt's standing. So I'm going with: Romney wins with a double-digit lead over Newt. Gingrich comfortably places second, but this won't matter at all because Florida is breaking not just one but two Republican Party rules in tomorrow's primary -- it wasn't supposed to vote this early, and it was supposed to award its delegates proportionally. Florida ignored both rules, and will be a winner-take-all state, meaning Mitt will walk away with all its delegates.
The real tough race to call in Florida is third place, however. Neither Rick Santorum nor Ron Paul put any effort into Florida at all (their campaigns just don't have the money, to be blunt), and both have been polling very closely to each other. I'm going to guess Santorum edges Paul out for third place, though, mostly on a hunch. Conventional wisdom would suggest that Santorum would drop out of the race after this disappointing finish, but he really has nothing much to lose by staying in -- hoping Newt gets hoisted so far on his own petard that the voters start looking around for another "not Romney" candidate. So all four candidates will continue on to the next four contests (Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri).
Florida's results will surprise no one who has been keeping up with the polling: Mitt Romney scores a big win, Newt Gingrich scores a disappointing (to him) second, and far back Rick Santorum snatches third place from Ron Paul.
Those are my picks, what are yours?
[Previous states' picks:]
[Iowa] [New Hampshire] [South Carolina]
-- Chris Weigant
Cross-posted at Business Insider
Cross-posted at The Huffington Post
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
romney, gingrich, santorum. they're the ones with signs in my neighborhood, so i'm going with that order.
For me, the much more interesting question is at what point the Ron Paulites realize that the GOP is not their party.
Matt,
I'm not sure the Ron Paul supporters think things through that clearly.
Florida is breaking not just one but two Republican Party rules in tomorrow's primary -- it wasn't supposed to vote this early, and it was supposed to award its delegates proportionally. Florida ignored both rules, and will be a winner-take-all state, meaning Mitt will walk away with all its delegates.
They can choose when to vote: that's a state action, under their control. But how on earth can they ignore the rule about proportional delegates, and issue a decision on behalf of the RNC credentials committee? The national convention is in their state, but that doesn't mean it's their show. Or does it?
If I were setting these "rules", I think I would be looking into booking a convention center in Ohio about now.
For me, the much more interesting question is at what point the Ron Paulites realize that the GOP is not their party.
Or the evangelical Christians ...
[2]"at what point the Ron Paulites realize that the GOP is not their party."
Elizabeth is right. The Paulites that are actually thinking about electing or influencing RonPaul don't think at all. They have no reason to leave the R party, because they are perfectly at home there at this time. Their political philosophy can be summed up by: I GOT MINE. STAY AWAY
Defining Libertarianism is quite difficult, because the 2 main branches (Left and Right) have only one thing in common: A profound distrust of coercive associations (re: government).
I've discussed the political process with a lot of people who consider themselves to be Right Libertarian. Uniformly, they consider the elective process to be fatally flawed, and participate only to promote discussion of alternative ideas of association. Their support of "mainstream" Libertarians like Ron Paul is predicated on the realization that candidates such as RP have no chance to win. This is a war for the soul of mankind. A revolution dedicated to changing the paradigm of government itself. To actually win a post in the current setup would defeat the cause. An excellent treatment of their ideas is found in Realizing Freedom. Oh, and the ones that I knew thought that Ayn Rand was a weirdo ... and a terrible author.
Left Libertarianism has as many different variants as there are bacteria in cheese. Paul Goodman wrote NY Times OpEd in 1968 that gives a good "feel" for left Anarchism in the late '60's. It should be noted that most LL supporters will have nothing to do with electoral system. Both the IWW and the CNT forbid member unions from endorsing any candidate running for political office.
If you really want to see heads explode and view the internicine bloodbaths by wildly overeducated college level children try Anarchist Black Cross where they essentially define everyone but a couple of hundred people worldwide as "NOT ANARCHIST".
sheesh.
Apparently the RNC decided to go along with the Florida Republican Party's decision to hold their primary early and winner-take-all, letting the 50% delegate allocation count as penalty for both -- perhaps because FL was expected to be a Romney state and the national Party establishment favors Romney. It's speculation, but it sounds plausible on first hearing.
With 92% reporting, here's the results:
Romney, Mitt GOP 742,281 47%
Romney, Not GOP 828,621 52%
FL was expected to be a Romney state and the national Party establishment favors Romney. It's speculation, but it sounds plausible on first hearing.
Here's some more rampant speculation. What's the effect of Paul and Santorum running? A win for Romney.
Think about it. If you wanted to split the base, how would you do it?
First, you'd pick someone who was a pure evangelical. Someone to peel off the evangelical vote. Someone like Santorum.
Second, you'd run a libertarian. Who's supposedly more Libertarian than anyone? Paul.
Ok. Pure speculation. But regardless of intent, the result is a split Tea Party. This should be a lesson to the establishment Republicans. If you want to win, split the Tea Party vote.
-David