We knew there was a bit of mischievousness in primary yesterday in Michigan. We heard about it in the post-election coverages and interviews as well as Santorum's request for Democrats to cross over and vote for him instead of Romney. We are proven correct in the following article by Dick Morris. 100,000 Democrats voted for Santorum!
We think the Santorum request for Democratic votes was a grasp at a straw that will hurt him badly as he goes down the pike. Republicans across the nation will view this as a losers attempt to gain some traction. We do think that come Super Tuesday, it might be all over for the former Senator. He will be punished.
Whether it will be enough to prematurely terminate his campaign is yet to be seen. However, we expect that Newt will do OK in the South, probably second or third place in most elections with a "must win" in Georgia. We would not be surprised to see Santorum be third at best and will be beaten by Paul in most of the primaries.
The open primary which Michigan has, is dumb. You are either a registered Republican, Democrat, Green, Socialist, Bull Moose, Whig or other party member. To allow anyone to vote in any party's primary just does not make sense. The primary's purpose is to nominate that party's candidate who will face the other candidates so nominated in the November election. To do otherwise invites the games that were played in the Michigan primary.
Picking a Presidential candidate should be serious business and opening the system to abuse, it the last thing we should be doing. If you live in Michigan, contact your representatives and ask them to close the primary!
Conservative Tom
MICHIGAN DEMS POWER SANTORUM
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on February 29, 2012
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By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on February 29, 2012
Printer-Friendly Version
Did Romney eek out a victory in Michigan? No. He actually won by a hefty margin. Did he lose blue collar voters, showing weakness in that key sector? No. He carried them quite nicely.
So why don't the results reflect this? Because the primary was invaded by Democrats who largely voted for Santorum. Had the Democrats not done so, Romney would not have won a narrow 3 point victory in Michigan but would be celebrating a 7 point comfortable victory.
According to the Fox News exit polls, 9 percent of the 1.1 million votes cast in the primary were by Democrats who voted for Santorum over Romney by 53-18. 17 percent of these would-be spoilers voted for Paul and 3 percent backed Gingrich. The remainder voted for Obama or an uncommitted slate in the Democratic primary where they belonged.
Had these Democrats not cast ballots in the Republican primary for Santorum, Romney would have been hailed as the easy winner last night.
We have to give Romney credit for an overwhelming win in Arizona and a significant sized victory in Michigan in view of these results. But, more importantly, we have to ask why these Democrats voted for Santorum.
Some of these Santorum voters were possibly pro-life Democrats who crossed party lines because they feared that Romney might go back to his pro-choice ways. But this was a most unusually large Democratic turnout when their own party did not have a contest. (Witness that 90% of the Democrats who participated voted in the Republican primary).
The turnout was, undoubtedly, deliberately orchestrated by the unions and the formidable Michigan Democratic organization in the hopes of nominating Santorum and upending Romney in his home state. It takes quite a bit of effort to turn out 100,000 Democrats to vote in the Republican primary. Why were the Democrats so intent on beating Romney and helping Santorum?
Rightly or wrongly, they - and the Obama high command - must believe that Romney would be the tougher candidate to beat in November.
The opposition has clearly and unambiguously endorsed Santorum and indicated its fear of Romney.
Shouldn't we listen to them? Isn't it important to take account of which candidate the opposition fears? Do we want to give them a Republican nominee they feel they can defeat or one of whom they are afraid?
Obviously, the Democratic chieftains believe that Santorum's position on social issues will give Obama plenty to run against in a general election. His opposition to contraception (although he does not want to make it illegal) and to amniocentesis (which he says leads to abortion) would make inviting targets for negative ads in the general election.
The Democrats want to run against Santorum.
Who are we to second guess their judgment and give them what they want?
So why don't the results reflect this? Because the primary was invaded by Democrats who largely voted for Santorum. Had the Democrats not done so, Romney would not have won a narrow 3 point victory in Michigan but would be celebrating a 7 point comfortable victory.
According to the Fox News exit polls, 9 percent of the 1.1 million votes cast in the primary were by Democrats who voted for Santorum over Romney by 53-18. 17 percent of these would-be spoilers voted for Paul and 3 percent backed Gingrich. The remainder voted for Obama or an uncommitted slate in the Democratic primary where they belonged.
Had these Democrats not cast ballots in the Republican primary for Santorum, Romney would have been hailed as the easy winner last night.
We have to give Romney credit for an overwhelming win in Arizona and a significant sized victory in Michigan in view of these results. But, more importantly, we have to ask why these Democrats voted for Santorum.
Some of these Santorum voters were possibly pro-life Democrats who crossed party lines because they feared that Romney might go back to his pro-choice ways. But this was a most unusually large Democratic turnout when their own party did not have a contest. (Witness that 90% of the Democrats who participated voted in the Republican primary).
The turnout was, undoubtedly, deliberately orchestrated by the unions and the formidable Michigan Democratic organization in the hopes of nominating Santorum and upending Romney in his home state. It takes quite a bit of effort to turn out 100,000 Democrats to vote in the Republican primary. Why were the Democrats so intent on beating Romney and helping Santorum?
Rightly or wrongly, they - and the Obama high command - must believe that Romney would be the tougher candidate to beat in November.
The opposition has clearly and unambiguously endorsed Santorum and indicated its fear of Romney.
Shouldn't we listen to them? Isn't it important to take account of which candidate the opposition fears? Do we want to give them a Republican nominee they feel they can defeat or one of whom they are afraid?
Obviously, the Democratic chieftains believe that Santorum's position on social issues will give Obama plenty to run against in a general election. His opposition to contraception (although he does not want to make it illegal) and to amniocentesis (which he says leads to abortion) would make inviting targets for negative ads in the general election.
The Democrats want to run against Santorum.
Who are we to second guess their judgment and give them what they want?
I think the Michigan Dems are kidding themselves if they think Romney is much more "electable" than Santorum. So far, the data are not supporting the conventional wisdom about Romney. His "unfavorable" rating has increased substantially because of his negative advertising blitz against opponents. The RCP Average is perhaps the best poll. It calculates the average margins in 7 major national polling organizations (Rasmussen Tracking, Politico/GWU/Battleground, USA Today/Gallup, Associated Press/GfK, Quinnipiac, and CNN/Opinion Research). Through February 28, Obama is beating Santorum by an average of 5 points in these polls, and he's beating Romney by an average of 4 points.
ReplyDeleteBased on these numbers. I'd say Michigan Democrats went to a lot of trouble to get what is probably no more than a 1% difference between Romney and Santorum. What's worse (for Dems), Santorum has closed his gap with Obama from 10% on 2/12 to just 5% now. As the saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for."
Still, I agree that an open primary makes no sense. Morris, CNN, and many others have figured out from the exit polls that the margin in popular votes was closer to 8% than 3%. The greater problem with this system is that it can actually affect the number of delegates a candidate receives.
--David