Posted by
Steve on Thursday, January 05, 2012 9:56:23 AM
The Republican field is changing daily right now. Yesterday after the Iowa caucus, it looked like Rick Perry was going to drop out and Michele Bachmann was going to stay in the race. By the time the sun went down last night, Rick Perry announced he will stay in and Michele Bachmann announced that she will suspend (end) her campaign. That was quite a 24 hour period.
Newt Gingrich was very upset at the results in Iowa. He is so upset that he has made it a personal vendetta for him to knock out Mitt Romney. On the way home from work, I heard Mr. Morris interviewed, he used to work for Bill Clinton. Mr. Morris said that Newt has it all wrong. If he truly wants to be President, he has to knock out his not-Romney competition before turning the guns on Romney. His reasoning was that the not-Romney vote is currently split. Since it is split, Romney benefits. Romney benefits and picks up wins and delegates. If Romney continues to win thru Florida, the race is effectively over. Newt needs to knock out Santorum first as he is the current darling. The others, with the exception of Ron Paul, will fall unless something happens to Newt and Santorum.
Ron Paul is in the race to the end. I am not sure he truly wants to be President. I think he wants to get his message out to the people. He most effectively does that by staying in the race. If Ron Paul goes back to being just a Congressman, he loses the forum that he has as a Presidential candidate. He will stay in until the convention. I do not think Ron Paul will run as a 3rd party candidate because that would severely damage his son who has a very promising career ahead of him. For that reason Ron Paul will stay as a Republican.
Rick Perry staying in the race is also good news for Mitt Romney. As I mentioned above, it splits the not-Romney vote. The longer Rick Perry and Rick Santorum remain viable candidates, the more likely it is that Mitt Romney will be the nominee of the Republican Party. If Mitt Romney continues winning, the race will be effectively over by the beginning of March. The majority of the delegates will still need to be chosen at that time, but Mitt will have strung together victory after victory. Every victory makes him more likely to be the nominee. Every loss by the other candidates makes them less likely to be the nominee. The Republican Party is looking for someone to defeat Barack Obama. That person has to win. Stringing together a series of wins makes a candidate appear invulnerable.
The next show is New Hampshire. Mitt Romney will win this primary handily. If it is close, he loses credibility. But the polls have him in the mid 40’s and his nearest competitor at 16%. If that remains the percentages, the win will be decisive.
The next test will be South Carolina. That is where Newt is the strongest. With Rick Santorum and Rick Perry siphoning votes away from Newt, he will get weaker. If Mitt can pull out a victory in South Carolina it could be the knockout punch on Newt. Also the other candidates will be running short on funds by then. Romney should have money coming in to support him as long as he wins. My guess is that the not-Romney vote will continue to be split and Romney wins in South Carolina (or at least comes in a very close second). He then goes on to finish off the rest in Florida. After that, it is just a matter of playing out the string.
The question then becomes who the vice-Presidential candidate will be. Any Republican candidate should be able to make Joe Biden look like a fool. Joe is capable of doing that all by himself. My personal favorite is Allen West. He is feisty and has tons of integrity. Rep. West has said he will not run as a Vice-Presidential candidate. That is fine and dandy now, but when the offer comes and your patriotism is put on the line, I think he would take the opportunity. If not Allen West, then someone like Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum would be great picks.