UGA Presidential Discussion Group – March 21, 2012

Paul started our discussion with some data. We had talked about the Norrander proposition on when the last challenger the last two sessions.  The two measures of that are most predictive are the percentage of delegates that separate the frontrunner and the lead challenger (the trigger is 33%) and the gain/ deficit ratio (gain in a week divided by the number of delegates the winner needs to clinch the nomination). Justin Pinkerman has been collecting data since the beginning of the year. As of March 13, Romney led Santorum by 22% in pledged delegates and 19.5% in unofficial delegates. On Super Tuesday Romney had a 27.8% gain/ deficit ratio in pledged delegates and 35.5% (close to the threshold) for unofficial delegates. Although there are different delegate counts, these data suggest that Romney is coming close to wrapping up the nomination.

It was pointed out that Santorum would need almost 70% of the remaining delegates to get the nomination and that Romney needs from 45-50% of them. This discussion assumed that there would not be a major collapse or scandal for Romney. While such a situation is not impossible, we concluded that Romney is sufficiently clean and unexciting that he is unlikely to have any late surprise.

We concluded that the Puerto Rico and Illinois primaries were both a boost for Romney and a major setback for Santorum. If there is such a thing as momentum in this campaign, Romney has it, but this has not been a momentum contest. When Romney wins, he stresses his inevitability and pivots to attacking Obama. Then Santorum wins and steps on his economic message by discussing social issues. Santorum was particularly ineffective in these last two contests, but he has a chance to come back in Louisiana on Saturday and Wisconsin on April 3. A loss in either one will be devastating for him.   

We moved to Gingrich and questioned whether he was still relevant. Our general conclusion is that he is fading fast. He may gain some delegates in Louisiana, but prospects are poor in other states on the calendar. There are two schools of thought on his effect on the race. Some say he is helping Romney by preventing a one-on-one race with Santorum. Others indicate that Santorum’s only chance is to prevent Romney from getting to 1144 with a swing to him at the convention. If Gingrich keeps fading, he becomes irrelevant unless he is keeping Santorum from reaching thresholds at the state or district level in proportional primaries. The question becomes if Romney fails to clinch the necessary delegates before the convention will it turn to Santorum. It would seem unlikely if Romney has a clear advantage in delegates, popular votes in this year’s contests, total number of states won and number of swing states won. 

We then turned to process and how the delegates were being selected. Santorum may do better than currently projected, but it probably will not be that meaningful for the nomination. The proportional distribution of delegates has been blamed for extending the season, but one person’s rough calculation of winner-take-all states suggest that the race would be closer than with the proportional distribution.  Another factor is the Citizen’s United decision that has permitted Gingrich and Santorum to stay in the race longer than they probably would have otherwise. Citizen’s United permits super PACs to pay for advertise, but they still need day-to-day operating money. Gingrich may be very low in operating funds as he doesn’t seem to be travelling to states in play. 

Despite his third-place finish in Illinois, Ron Paul is not doing as well as many expected. He may have been handicapped by Spring Break at the University of Alabama last week and the University of Illinois this week. A discussion followed about how long current students would stick with the Pauls (Ron and Rand). Some of us thought that a gradual accumulation of students over time would come around to their view while others say that politics tend to change as students transition to the real world. Libertarian views combining fiscal conservatism, social liberalism and pacifism may be a hard sell, but a centrist party with the fiscal conservatism and social liberalism might be successful in the long run.

These comments led to a discussion of Afghanistan. Although there is a growing discontent with the war it is not as incendiary as what happened with the Vietnam War. The Republican position on Afghanistan has changed remarkably in the past year with the exception of the McCain wing. It was suggested that an Obama re-election might hasten withdrawal of troops more rapidly than a Republican, presumably Romney as Obama does not need to face re-election and Romney would and could not afford to “lose” Afghanistan. The discussion then degenerated into depressing war talk that led to an abrupt end of the session

Post-Super Tuesday Meeting 3/7/12

Paul suggested that we start our discussion with what happened last night – Super Tuesday. Two of us thought that Romney had a very good night. Others suggested that he did what he had to do but the results were mixed. Also, when most of the East Coast went to sleep, Romney was behind in Ohio with results from Idaho and Alaska still out. Thus, Romney missed the good headlines, but headlines may not be as meaningful with the Internet and television.

We reached no consensus on the implications of Super Tuesday. At this point there are no debates scheduled as Mitt Romney and Ron Paul opted out of the CNN Ohio/Georgia debate scheduled last week, and CNN cancelled it. At this point Romney has no incentive to get back in, but there might be pressure applied to him if Gingrich should drop out and it becomes a one-on-one Santorum/Romney race. There was talk of a brokered convention as described on CNN in a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but Paul is not buying it. He proposed two scenarios: (1) Romney keeps on winning delegates with Gingrich and Santorum eventually dropping out for the good of the party when it becomes obvious that Romney is going to win and (2) Gingrich (or Santorum) drops out after next week’s contests and the race comes down to a one-on-one competition. It will be interesting to see if the not-Romney candidate (presumably Santorum) actually starts picking up Tea Party endorsements. The Norrander proposition on when the last challenger drops out as we discussed last week will probably come into play when one candidate amasses a substantial number of needed delegates.

Then we moved on to Romney’s major gaffe last week on being against the Blunt-Rubio amendment before he came out for it hours later. The gaffe reinforced Romney’s predilection to flip-flopping, whether he really is really a conservative and whose team he is on. His gaffe, however failed to get much attention as it shifted to the Rush Limbaugh comments. Rush appeared to step on the Republican message on freedom of religion making it more about contraception. We then got into a heated discussion as to whether the bishops would close the Catholic hospitals in protest of the Obama policy and the possible reaction by the public. 

Moving on from that discussion we talked about the Obama press conference which not so coincidentally was held on Super Tuesday. He is definitely in full campaign mode. Obama put the Republican candidates on notice to be careful on their statements on Iran. Foreign policy appears to be a strength for Obama, but there are many hot spots that could blow up on him. It was generally agreed that there would be a rallying around him if there was a national crisis, but he could become vulnerable if he is not decisive or if things start going badly. When something happens like an Israeli bombing of Iran, it is not clear how long a honeymoon period he would get. Gas prices will be a factor and whom you really trust will be critical in November if we are still in crisis mode. 

Barring an international crisis, November still will come down to the economy. The unemployment numbers coming out on Friday will be an indication. If it is a Romney/Obama race, neither one will probably be able to capture blue-collar workers. All three primary Republican candidates are sitting at 14% of the Hispanic vote. Many Republican strategists suggest that their candidate has no chance of winning with less than 35% of the Hispanic vote. This situation helps the potential VP candidacies of Susan Martinez and Brian Sandoval. Then why are the candidates are making statements that are alienating the independent voters? The answer probably is an appeal to the base to get the nomination. The old Nixon strategy that you run to the right during primary season and then run like hell to the center for the fall campaign appears to be appropriate, but can Romney pull it off? To paraphrase a classic debate line “I knew Dick Nixon. Dick Nixon was a friend of mine. Governor, you are no Dick Nixon.”