The battle for the GOP nomination moves to South Carolina, and there are signs that Romney faces a tougher path in the Palmetto State. I wrote last year of the South Carolina primary at PJ Media:
Pro-business mainstream conservatives who give no offense to evangelicals and mainline Protestants — and, ideally, who have demonstrable national security credibility — are the candidates who win the South Carolina primary. Everyone wondering who will be the GOP nominee in 2012 should read that last sentence ten times over. Failure on any point means failure in South Carolina.
South Carolina politics have a brutality unknown in New Hampshire or Iowa. I cut my teeth in South Carolina politics. I remember a political consultant there who spray-painted his own candidate’s signs with slurs to engender sympathy. And that’s just one of the milder things that happen.
It is a culturally and philosophically conservative state, and Romney has a number of problems there which I allude to in the quoted paragraph above. If the conservative vote wasn’t split among many candidates, I don’t believe Romney could win South Carolina. But for now, it is a close contest.
The action next week will be focused on the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Charleston at the TD Arena. You can watch the fight for the nomination in real time, culminating in a Thursday night debate. I will also be one of the speakers, talking about voter fraud, election integrity, the New Black Panther Party and the Holder Justice Department. I will also be signing copies of Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.
Eric Holder is conducting a war on southern election integrity. He blocked Georgia’s law to verify that only U.S. citizens are voting in American elections. He has sued Governor Bobby Jindal because not enough voter registrations were coming from his welfare agencies. He has blocked S.C. Voter ID. He will block the Texas law shortly. Florida seeks election integrity changes his DOJ wrangled over. Come to Charleston and learn what is happening, and what can be done about it.
I get a feeling that Romney just has to pull in about 30% of the vote to win, because Gingrich and Santorum will split the conservative vote. What’s left will go to Paul and maybe even Perry. The irony is, if there was one, strong, conservative candidate, I don’t think Romney would be winning at all. This is a year for true conservatives and one, popular, conservative candidate against Romney (instead of the four that are now running) would be winning hands down. Now Romney will probably sneak into a win because he has a steady support of a steady 25-30% of the voters. On the other hand, this will be the last gasp for Santorum and Gingrich. If either of them can’t win here, they’re never going to win at all.
Beg to differ on one point: Gingrich has good numbers in Florida.
IMPORTANT: As delegates this year are PROPORTIONALLY distributed in almost all states, don’t believe anyone who says “it’s over, it’s Romney” this soon.
“The issues in the election are Obamacare and debt. Focusing on them massively favors the GOP … except that Romneycare is the building block for Obamacare and, far from admitting error, Mitt has doubled down. As readers will see, I believe his federalism defense of Romneycare is fatuous. The Massachusetts program is indefensible. By nominating someone who vigorously defends it, I am very worried that we are giving away our best rationale for deposing the president and dispiriting the base whose enthusiasm is vital.”
From: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/288136/flagging-obamacare-andrew-c-mccarthy
exactly, when people is opposing tyranny, Mitt only says: let the tyranny to the states
Can’t help but think Perry, Newt, Santorum are Trojan horses for Romney. All came into the game late. Each one peels a different segment of Paul’s natural constituency. None but Huntsman do that to Romney. Perry and Newt have made neophyte blunders; something they’re not. Like they’re taking a fall. Santorum peels so-cons who should realize Paul’s liberty championing would give them free reign in the public square to espouse their views, unhampered by a hyper anti-religious government. This is exactly what they’ve been asking for. Santorum has some of them believing he can champion religious viewpoints from the bully pulpit. If he gets nominated, he’ll get creamed by indies and blue dogs, not to mention stab-you-in-the-back RINOs.
“Each one peels a different segment of Paul’s natural constituency.”
The crazy constituency is small enough I think it’s more likely Paul is peeling off a few from everyone else.
Conservatives/Tea Parties should start making primaries to present a unified candidacy; if the Gop doesn’t like it, they can go the way of the Wigs
Great media hype for the start of South Carolina week. Gingrich has shot himself in the foot with real conservatives, who are now leaning toward Romney. Perry will not poll 10% even though he sounds more familiar to SC voters(they know he can’t speak his mind). Santorum and Huntsman are just not familiar with, or to, Southern people. Ron Paul, who has a dedicated following everywhere, will be a threat to get 20% of the vote and Romney should be noticing that as he again can’t top 40%. Paul is doing well enough that the Republican platform will have to include real reforms of the Federal Reserve to limit its power to be subordinate to Congress and to advocate a REAL downsizing of the Federal Government. Paul is doing well with a decent percentage of Republicans because he wants elimination of the Fed and to limit the powers of the Federal Government to be ONLY what is given to them by the Constitution. Neither of these things can be done over the short term, but over the long term they will be necessary goals if we are to save this country from the Communism of the regressive Democratic party. Romney needs to buff up on what Ron Paul is advocating or he will lose way to much of the vote from the under 30 crowd in the general election. Republicans have to appeal to younger people if they are to have any chance in the future, after America’s worst generation begin to die off. Romney will be our guy, in my opinion, and the proverbial yellow dog will be preferable to the Communists now cluttering up our executive branch.
“Paul is doing well enough that the Republican platform will have to include real reforms of the Federal Reserve to limit its power to be subordinate to Congress and to advocate a REAL downsizing of the Federal Government.”
Exactly why I will vote for Paul in our primary. We need his voice at the table speaking about the size and reach of government.
If the mad-dash toward centralization is not checked, nothing else will matter. All other issues will be decided by some nameless government bureaucrat.
Paul is the only one I’ve heard using that outdated phrase “private property”.
“Gingrich has shot himself in the foot with real conservatives”
How do you define “real conservative”, Jim?
I mean, other than people who agree with you.
But no need to answer, anybody eqotisticl enouugh to use “real conservative” in a post is so hopelsssly clueless that we can easily anticipate what your answer will be. You’re a Romney guy. He’s your real conservative.
Wrong on both points, proreason. A real conservative, in my opinion, is someone who believes in private sector free market enterprise and who respects private property rights. I don’t think Romney has ever been close enough to the daily marketplace to be sure he believes in free markets or private ownership of the means of production. But venture capitalists certainly support and have a valuable place in the marketplace. I hope was able to clarify that was talking about economic conservatism. I also know that Gingrich’s PAC used the usual collectivist economic claptrap to help his campaign against a political opponent. They richly deserved the several Pinocchio awards that they received for this hatchet job. Maybe I took offense because I am a Matt Kenseth fan and I didn’t like the crap he had to endure last year from a now unemployed driver who decided that he couldn’t win but that he could prevent Kenseth from winning anyway. I don’t know. I also don’t know whether your word was egotistical or egotistic, but it is your choice to support whomever you like, and my choice to decide who I like. I gave my opinion about how South Carolina will come out and why and I pointed out that these were only my opinions. If that was egotistic of me, thanks for that judgment. Maybe you and I can at least agree that whomever the Republicans nominate will be better than Obama. If your opinion is different from mine on the topic of this article, I might be interested to read about it.
I disagree that Gingrich is out. I believe he still has a chance in both SC and Florida. What the other candidates say they can do, Newt has already done it. Newt is the only one who has proven he work across the isle.
ABO 2012
“Paul is doing well enough that the Republican platform will have to include real reforms of the Federal Reserve to limit its power to be subordinate to Congress and to advocate a REAL downsizing of the Federal Government.”
It’s too bad Paul wasn’t in the House when Gingrich was Speaker. With Newt’s help, he might have actually accomplished something instead of spending his 20 years in the House looking for something to do.
Of all the GOP candidates, one has managed to balance the Federal budget for the first and last time since 1957. That man, Newt Gingrich, has been punished by the GOP establishment ever since. Hardly an ‘insider’.
Of Romney and Gingrich, it must be said that both have spoken positively of progressive ideas. It could be said that they were, as politicians are wont to do, speaking of things that would attract votes. Once push comes to shove, Romney passed RomneyCare and Gingrich balanced the Federal budget.
Real conservatives, in my opinion, would do well to prioritize their agendas.
Romney is the only one who has been respectful and deferential to Paul.
If you watch him in the debates, he is always respectful to Paul.
I hope Romney wins – I do think he has the business acumen which will help the country.
Romney is questioned about creating jobs,well, if staples had 1 store to begin with and now they have many stores around the country which probably employ 20 people for each store, plus all the stores which supply them, then at the pizza business, plus sports authority, plus the rest = way more than 100,000 jobs.
Do we not want him to go after the fed gov and get rid of duplicates and hangers on, etc?
Romney has flip flopped on several matters of principle. He was against Reagan, now he’s a Reaganite. He was pro-abortion, even for teenagers without parental notification and consent, now he opposes abortion. He was for socialized healthcare in Massachusetts, now he opposes socialized healthcare in America. He was pro gun control, now he’s a champion of the Second Amendment.
So, there is some question about which principles Romney will have should he get elected.
And then there is his record of winning elections. Lost to Ted Kennedy and John McCain. He’s what? 1 for 3?
He seems like a good man, they’re all good. Any of them are preferrable to the current office holder.