Posted by
Steve on Monday, February 06, 2012 12:31:36 PM
On Saturday, Mitt Romney, as expected, won the Nevada caucus. He received over 50% of the caucus votes, which gives him a decisive victory over Newt Gingrich. Newt came in with less than half of Romney’s total votes.
The win in Nevada gives Romney a record of 3-1-1 in the five contests. I give him a tie for Iowa because he was declared the winner once, then Santorum was declared the winner. The “winner” won by only a handful of votes out of thousands cast. In my mind, that means it is a tie. Purists will say that you only have to win by one vote. That is true in a real election. In a caucus, votes are not the same as votes in a primary. It is complicated and each state is slightly different, so I will just paper over the differences with the tie.
Romney’s wins were all decisive victories. His vote totals were more than his two highest challengers combined. That makes them decisive victories. Newt’s victory in South Carolina is not like that. Romney and Santorum have more votes than Gingrich, when they are added together. That means it is a clear win, but not the decisive kind like Romney.
The next votes are Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Colorado and Minnesota actually choose delegates with their votes. Missouri is just a straw poll. The delegates will be chosen later in the spring. All this is leading up to Super Tuesday on March 6. It is already clear who will be the nominee, but that will cinch things for Romney. That assumes that he wins all or nearly all of the votes leading up to and including Super Tuesday. After that, it would be nearly impossible for another candidate to come back and win. They would be out of money and access to the press.
The speech Romney gave after Nevada was fantastic. He laid it on pretty think about Obama. If he keeps the heat on like that through November, he will win in a landslide. If he goes wobbly and soft, he will probably lose. Romney needs to keep reminding the public that Obama is a failed President, no matter what Obama says in return. Obama keeps giving him new ammunition every week and nearly every day.
Obama also committed a major blunder by picking a fight with the Catholic Church just over a week ago. The Catholic Church is one of the larger denominations in the country. If the Bishops get a backbone and do what they should, Obama cannot expect any support from Catholics. That is, except for those who are not active or don’t believe. Other Christian Churches are banding together to support the Catholics. They are using the logic from the time when they came for the Jews. I cannot remember the saying exactly, but it says that first they came for the Jews and I did nothing. Then they came for another group and I did nothing. After a couple of more, the writer then says, they came for me and there was nobody to stand with me. The religious community remembers that saying and is standing together on this issue. If they do not, the Obama administration will pick them off one at a time. By banding together on the first assault, they have a chance to stop it in its tracks. It will also mean that Obama can’t win re-election if the Catholics and other Christians stand together. They make up a large majority of the voting population. This is a fight that Obama can’t win and has already lost. It just remains to be seen how badly they lose.