There is no shortage of articles insisting that by taking nearly 40 percent of the New Hampshire primary vote, Romney has already sewn up the nomination. He would even match up well against Barack Obama.
The only reason for others to stay in is a personal vendetta (Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry), a run for the libertarian nomination against Gary Johnson (Ron Paul), angling for a better ambassadorship (Jon Huntsman) or a misguided mission from God (Rick Santorum). Sorry Buddy Roemer? I got nothing.
But MIT Political Scientist Charles Stewart has a different theory. Unlike folks like me who write articles, he's crunched the numbers and run the regressions. Stewart's research reveals that Romney actually hasn't changed much from four years ago.
To summarize, he found that Romney largely duplicated his 2008 showing in the Granite State, bumping up about five percentage points in each town. Others in 2012 fought less effectively for the votes other received in 2008. Paul didn't totally rely on crossover voters and college kids; he appealed to some Mike Huckabee voters, concerned more with government size rather than morals. He wound up battling Gingrich and Santorum for those votes.
"These graphs help to make a distinction, lost in most of the instant commentary, between Romney's fast break out of the starting blocks and his success in broadening his electoral base since 2008," Stewart wrote. "From what I can tell in these election returns, his front-running status is primarily a story of the other candidates, not Romney. Thus far at least, Romney has almost nothing to show from five years of presidential campaigning." In other words, it's not all about Romney; it's a lot about the others.
In 2008, you had John McCain, Fred Dalton Thompson and Rudy Giuliani, all much better known than the 2012 crop of the other candidates. And while the others were united by loathing of Romney's style of criticizing rivals for supporting his former positions, there's little to unite the class of 2012.
But unlike those quirky New Hampshire folks, South Carolina voters don't like to shift their preferences around too much, right? In a Yahoo article leading up to the 2008 South Carolina primary, Romney was tied with Thompson at 21 percent, while Giuliani was in third with 13 percent and Huckabee was fourth at 12 percent. McCain, the eventual winner, polled at 9 percent, barely ahead of Paul, while Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter each got 2 percent. What a difference a few weeks can make.
Why couldn't Romney take South Carolina? Why did the top two finishers rate fourth and fifth in this poll? The South Carolina voters like to change their minds; nearly two-thirds of Romney voters said that year they could change their minds, while half of the other candidates experienced the same ambivalence.
So after that "drubbing" Romney gave others, why has only the mercurial Bachmann called it quits? Chances are these less effective campaigns still know there's a chance, even if the mainstream media doesn't get it.
plane crash plane crash kardashian christmas card lori berenson lori berenson the incredibles yu darvish
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.