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The Nominee...
He
Beat the
Base. Now Will the Base be With Him?
Posted by
Erick Erickson
Wednesday,
March 21st
It is a
mathematical improbability that Rick Santorum will get to the magic
number of
1,144 — the number of delegates needed to be the Republican
Presidential
nominee. It is a political improbability that Rick Santorum will stop
Mitt
Romney from getting to 1,144.
Last night
in Illinois, Mitt Romney won his first victory without caveats.
Even in
Florida, a big win, there were plenty — counties that saw increased
turnout
rejected him. The northern part of the state rejected him. It required
an
amalgamation of voters not quite typical of the base to get Romney the
nod in
Florida.
In
Illinois, Romney won. Period. The Santorum campaign stumbled badly in
Puerto
Rico, gave up a lead in Illinois, and the candidate proved horribly
undisciplined. Like Dug the dog in Up getting distracted by every
random
squirrel, Rick Santorum loses all ability to focus when social issues
come up.
His lack of discipline and message focus steering those issues to
families as
he did so beautifully in the Mesa, AZ debate has hindered him and
solidified a
media narrative that he is more concerned with those issues than jobs
and the
economy. It is not fair. It is not even accurate. But fairness and
accuracy are
rare commodities in American retail politics and Rick Santorum has not
leveraged his strengths well.
On the
other hand, Mitt Romney’s win in Illinois still highlights his
struggles. Blue
collar voters are not fond of him. Staunchly conservative voters are
not
either. Evangelical voters also are not fond of him. The voters do not
feel
quite comfortable with their pick. But though evangelicals and social
conservatives are the base of the base of the Republican Party, they
are not
enough to stop Mitt Romney and a spending advantage some have estimated
topped
20 to 1 against Santorum in Illinois.
This is not
to say the race is over. Far from it. Rick Santorum will probably win
Louisiana. Conservatives will rally to Santorum and continue protesting
Romney
as the nominee. But it will not be enough. Romney will do well in New
England
and the remaining mid-Atlantic states. He will do well out west,
winning
California.
He will be
the nominee.
Theoretically,
Rick Santorum could keep Romney from getting to 1,144. But as Romney
piles up
more and more wins and neither the Gingrich nor Paul campaigns remain
factors,
let alone have pulses, the inevitable will set in. Conservatives may
not really
like Mitt Romney, but they do not want a fractured party too divided to
beat
Barack Obama. There will be no white knight, no dark horse, and no
brokered
convention. We have our nominee.
If, come
November, Mitt Romney wins, he will owe it to a lot of Republicans who
put their
reputation on the line and it will be payback time. If Mitt Romney
loses, party
leaders will undoubtedly try to blame conservatives as they always do,
but it
will be really hard to cast blame when Romney’s supporters have billed
him as
Mr. Electable since shortly after they they billed Harriet Miers as a
genius
conservative pick for the Supreme Court.
Either way,
conservatives have and no doubt will continue to make it very clear
that Mitt
Romney may be the standard bearer of the Republican Party, but he most
definitely is not the standard bearer of the conservative movement. The
disentangling of the movement from the party will continue. So too will
our
shared effort to oust Barack Obama from the White House.
Read this
and other columns at Redstate
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