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Originally Posted by nots in the Iowa thread
Couldn't possibly disagree more--let's remember McCain finished 4th in '08 while Huckabee finished with 38% of the vote in the caucus. It didn't matter in the least in the long run. Santorum has no money (he will get some now) and little organization--the two true hallmarks of failed Presidential bids. He hasn't been vetted much by the national media--read John Baer's piece at philly.com today. Wait until all of those questions pop up. Santorum was the last flavor-of-the-week for the GOP and he peaked at the best possible time, but this one is over.
PS- I have really, really grown to dislike Newt Gingrich during this cycle--much more than I even thought possible. Nice speech--classy.
Couldn't possibly disagree more--let's remember McCain finished 4th in '08 while Huckabee finished with 38% of the vote in the caucus. It didn't matter in the least in the long run. Santorum has no money (he will get some now) and little organization--the two true hallmarks of failed Presidential bids. He hasn't been vetted much by the national media--read John Baer's piece at philly.com today. Wait until all of those questions pop up. Santorum was the last flavor-of-the-week for the GOP and he peaked at the best possible time, but this one is over.
PS- I have really, really grown to dislike Newt Gingrich during this cycle--much more than I even thought possible. Nice speech--classy.
I mostly agree with you here. The one caveat is going to be how big a media buy Gingrich can muster for New Hampshire. He's going to go scathingly negative on Romney and started so this morning in what strikes me as a very intelligent way-- attacking Romney-- to conservative New Hampsherites-- as a "Timid Massachusetts Moderate". When I was in New Hampshire in '92 I was struck by how annoyed the locals on the GOP side got when they were lumped in with their larger neighbors from the Bay State; playing to that is an interesting opening salvo from Newt and much better than some broad based, unfocused attack. He'll also benefit tremendously from the Manchester Union Leader endorsement and the insanely negative coverage Romney will be receiving on every page of that paper as a result.
This leads to a couple of scenarios. Romney, Crossroads and the other Romney organs got a lot of bad mentions in broadcast for the tenor and severity of their attacks in Iowa-- when noted Newt nemesis Joe Scarborough rallies to his side in defense you know the media is noticing and objects. Last night Romney tried to completely ignore Newt & Santorum and went with the fait accompli narrative in focusing on the President rather than his more immediate rivals. If he does that in New Hampshire he could be in for a surprise-- New Hampsherites hate the fait accompli storyline as it takes their "god given right" to tell everyone else who to vote for away from them. Conversely, if Romney meets fire with fire and tries to punch it out with Newt he's going to open himself up to media criticism of his now five week old blisteringly negative campaign.
If we see open media warfare, Romney and (wait for it...) Jon Huntsman are going to be serious beneficiaries, especially if the negativity suppresses turnout as it may have in Iowa. If Santorum manages to find a win there going into SC, he's a big storyline although still a very unlikely nominee. The important upshot, however, is that he will drag Mitt farther and farther into a right lane that holds nothing good for him-- no matter what he says the conservatives will never buy him as a conservative but his right wing rhetoric will most certainly turn off centrists and indies when it reappears in Obama ads this summer and fall.
If Gingrich can capitalize on using Romney as a punching bag or (gack) comes off as a sympathetic character due to Romney's negativism, he could do well here. The real wild card from my perspective, though, is Jon Huntsman. He's been in New Hampshire non-stop for over a month now, he fits the New Hampshire storyline perfectly as they could "create" him as a real contender thus appealing to the huge New Hampshire political ego, his religion isn't as much a handicap in New England as it is in the South and Midwest and his politics aren't that far out of line with pragmatic New England Republicans.
The conventional wisdom says that Romney should take New Hampshire and he absolutely should; that being said there are an awful lot of possibilities for him to blow it. If he loses in New Hampshire to Santorum we'll see the GOP merry-go-round continue to search for new front runners, giving Newt another chance and tremendously energizing Huntsman. If he loses to Huntsman, we have the nominee and an Obama - Huntsman race that starts in February. Really if it's anything less than a Romney-by-five-plus this is going to be a bad ride; Romeny comes into this like Green Bay going into Minnesota-- he has little to gain from the expected win but everything to lose.
- Wonderboy
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