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.”
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