Schadenfreude

Santorum happens to all of us on occasion, and now the Republican party knows the feeling. They went to bed hoping against hope that Colorado, which Romney won easily in 2008, would deliver them from a three-state sweep, but, like Minnesota, which Romney also won big in 2008, and Missouri, it went hard for Rick. What caused this unholy mess? Nate Silver sums it up:

Mr. Romney has had deep problems so far with the Republican base, going 1-for-4 in caucus states where turnout is dominated by highly conservative voters. Mr. Romney is 0-for-3 so far in the Midwest, a region that is often decisive in the general election. He had tepid support among major blocks of Republican voters like evangelicals and Tea Party supporters, those voters making under $50,000 per year, and those in rural areas. Instead, much of his support has come from the wealthy areas that Charles Murray calls Super ZIPs — few of which are in swing states in the general election.

Meanwhile, polls show that a large number of Republicans have tepid enthusiasm for their field. And this has been reflected in the turnout so far, which is down about 10 percent from 2008 among Republican registrants and identifiers.

These are not the hallmarks of a race with a dominant candidate. Nor, even, of a race with a candidate like John Kerry, the best of a somewhat weak lot of Democrats in 2004, but one whom the party settled upon fairly quickly.

Instead, this race bears more resemblance to something like the 1984 Democratic contest or the 1976 Republican race. There was a favorite in each of those contests — Walter Mondale in 1984 and Gerald Ford in 1976 — and they were ahead in the delegate count more or less from start to finish.

If you’re a mainstream Republican Romney backer, are you going to haul your ass out of your warm house, trundle down to poorly-run caucus, and face the wrath of some teabaggers when you raise your hand or stomp your foot or whatever caucus voters do to indicate preference? Mitt Romney’s only hope for the remainder of February is that the next two contests, in Arizona and Michigan, are primaries in states that should be sympathetic to either the Angel Moroni or the name Romney. As David Axelrod notes, Mitt’s Super PAC is going to be banging away at Santorum, but I don’t think he’s as soft a target as Gingrich, at least for Republicans. His weakness as a general election candidate is his bigotry, but that’s a strength among the 27 percenters, so Romney can’t mention it. Instead, the Romney campaign will be attacking Santorum’s earmarks when he was in Congress.  That’s a far cry from adultery and moon bases.

Let’s face it:  in their hearts, the Tea Party base has secretly wanted Santorum all along, but they held their nose and voted for Romney.   With 11 caucuses in March, they can come out of the closet and wallow in it.

Waking Up to SantorumPost + Comments (82)