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