The Mittster seems to have decided to accept a third place finish in South Carolina and will focus on Nevada instead which has been a big deal on the Democratic side, but largely overlooked among Republicans. Nevada's probably a good state for Romney, since Nevada contains a lot of Mormons and relatively few Protestants.
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Romney Heads West
17 Jan 2008 10:32 am
Comments (10)
the guy who's won the most small states (he's dispatched his sons to places like Alaska and Montana, too) and delegates can make the best argument for the crown.
Just to draw out the implications here...
In a situation of a brokered convention, Romney's victory could be plausibly attributed to the hard work of the Bus of Dorks?
As much as bloggers and the press are having a field day with Mitt jokes, I'm starting to respect his attitude, politics aside. The guy just takes all the crap people dump on him and keeps on going, focused just on building up the delegates and getting himself to the next leg of the race.
Matt, the map you link to gives an exaggerated impression of the Nevada Mormon population, since almost everyone in the state lives either in the Las Vegas area or the Reno/Lake Tahoe area: the Mormon-dominated east and center is empty desert, one of the few places you'll see a "last gas for 190 miles" sign on a freeway, and realize a couple hours later that they meant "last sign of human life".
adherents.com gives a figure of under 8% Mormons in Nevada, but it's from 1990.
While the actual percentage of Mormons in western states looks a bit lower, the influence of those numbers can be disproportionate. For one thing, Mormons tend to be politically active. Secondly, the mere fact that one in ten people in the neighborhood is Mormon, means that westerners tend to be used to Mormons to an extent that other Americans perhaps aren't. The view tends to be more positive.
This may play well in Romney's favor in Nevada, much as it did in Wyoming.
Still, one would think the 8% of Mormons will be likely voters. Romney wins Nevada but McCain will be a close 2nd.
As Wiegel notes there are some potential paths to a brokered convention. Candidates like Thompson and Guliani might face a lot of pressure from true believers to stay in the race and take delegates away from McCain. For example, Romney needs Guliani to stay in the race through the Feb. 5 primary or McCain will pick up too many delegates in Cali that day.
It will be interesting to see if the right-wing media embraces McCain or goes full throttle for Romney in the coming days.
This just seems so weird to me.
I mean, it was uncomfortable enough to have two (or in the case of Republicans, three) very small and unrepresentative states decide the election for us all, but in prior elections, there's been this "swept up" feeling that kind of comes out of those early primaries. So, by the time they got to the bigger states, it was like "yes! We validate this silly choice."
But now, we've got candidates picking and choosing which states they compete in, skipping-but-not-skipping others...rather than go head to head, they're just slicing up the map.
And I guess inasmuch as the electoral college means the Presidential race is really 50 state races, that's fine. But I think if we're not willing to get rid of the Electoral College, the smart party should set up primaries in the 15 closest states in the last election--closest race-to-least-closest-race and just be done with it. I mean, if the point of parties is winning, let's play to win.
I think any talk of actual Mormon population in NV is somewhat beside the point. NV is better for Romney because it's Western and not Southern. The Mormon factor is part of this -- more Mormons in the West, thus less stereotype-driven negative attitudes toward Mormons. But I think the West is better for Romney because overall it's better educated, more affluent, and more business-minded than the South. I'm speaking in generalities, of course -- but this is Mitt's base: the well-educated, upper-class, business-oriented Republicans. The South is more typically made up of the working-class, less-educated, Christianist Republicans -- the ones who don't like Mormons and prefer Huck or Fred. It only makes sense that NV is better for Mitt than SC, even without any consideration of the Mormon factor.
OK sorry but I can't let this pass without saying that Joost is indeed toast.
Funny the media hasn't picked up on Nevada and how important it is for Republicans. Every cycle it gets more important because it is the fastest growing state. This year, some unique dynamics are at play.
1. Because S Carolina moved up, the RNC penalized S Carolina for it, took away half their delegates. So Nevada has 10 more delegates this year,
2. Nevada borders John McCain's home state. A loss in Nevada will show McCain is possibly weak out West and only loved on the East Coast.
3. A win in Nevada will minimize the press's howling about S Carolina and keep Romney looking like someone with good strength with voters in several regions of the country...and Romney will go into Florida with an even larger delegate lead.
[If he wins. But right now, talk radio is savaging McCain. The latest is former Senator Rick Santorum saying that McCain talked one way to the media and the public, but acted another way behind closed Senate doors. Santorum said the public only learned about McCains successes, not all the knives he tried slipping into conservative causes that McCain got defeated on private, then went out and voted with the majority.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucmg/20080116/cm_ucmg/mccainnomoremrstraighttalk]
Comments closed January 31, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Romney's pretty clearly hoping on grabbing a plurality of delegates in case this thing goes to a brokered convention - it's either going to be a McCain win or brokered, the way things are going, and the guy who's won the most small states (he's dispatched his sons to places like Alaska and Montana, too) and delegates can make the best argument for the crown.
Posted by David Weigel | January 17, 2008 10:51 AM