Santorum Blows Out Romney, Beats Him In MN, CO, & MO

Posted by Ashish on 02.08.2012

Is Romney the weakest Republican frontrunner in history?

Rick Santorum blew out Mitt Romney tonight, beating him in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri. Some thoughts:

* It's been said but needs to be said again: Romney is one of the weakest Republican frontrunners in history. The guy has a massive financial advantage, has the entire Republican establishment supporting him, has the biggest Super PACs supporting him, has what is supposed to be the biggest ground game in the Republican primary, and has the sniff of inevitability, and yet he trips all over himself every chance he gets. How does a frontrunner in his position finish THIRD in Minnesota?

* Romney can make all the excuses he wants about getting his ass kicked so badly in Missouri, but the fact is, in a bellwether swing state in the heart of America, where we finally got a glimpse of what a one-on-one race would be like since Gingrich wasn't on the ballot, Romney got absolutely destroyed. There is no way to spin that. Yes, Romney didn't campaign there, but Santorum didn't really do much there either. Romney dominated in Colorado in 2008 and got beat there this time around. He outspent Santorum in Minnesota and finished third. These aren't the types of results the frontrunner usually sees at this point in the process.

* It was an embarrassing night for Romney who will now again have to go ultra negative with gobs of money in the next few states to regain his footing. It's starting to become pretty clear that Romney can't win unless he floods a state with money and negative ads. He won't have the luxury to do that in the general election.

* Romney isn't a guy who wins because people actually want to vote for him. He wins wherever he outspends his opponents by huge amounts and runs non-stop negative advertising. Every time he has tried to let his message and his personality speak for themselves, he has lost. Again, he won't have a money advantage in the fall. How does he plan to win then? He better come up with something.

* This was the first night since Romney's "poor" comment that we got actual votes -- the results seem to indicate that the comment hurt Romney very badly. Expect the Obama campaign to play that comment on ads non-stop during the general election.

* Newt Gingrich had an embarrassing night, losing everywhere and finishing dead last in Minnesota. Because the Republican electorate is so divided and so unhappy with all these candidates, he'll still have a chance to rebound when we get to more Southern states. But it's hard for him to paint himself as the main Romney alternative now. The reality is that Gingrich has now lost 7 out of 8 states. Santorum can now claim four wins (IA, MO, MN, CO), more than Romney's three (NH, FL, NV).

* Santorum's victory speech was his strongest yet. Unlike Romney, who badly needs a new stump speech, Santorum actually has some heart in his speeches. He has a populist tone and tries to connect with people. Romney's been repeating basically the same speech for so long now that he seems to run through the words without any emotion.

* Santorum has the highest favorability rating of any of the Republican candidates which is important to note going forward, because that's the number that will probably result in him doing better than Gingrich, who has seen his favorability sink in the last few weeks.

* The problem for Santorum is that he will now face an onslaught of attack ads from Romney. Gingrich has learned how dirty Romney's campaign plays, and Santorum will too.

* Turnout, again, was down everywhere compared to 2008. This Republican primary process seems to have wrecked the Republican enthusiasm that existed in 2010 and after. Turnout has been down in most of the states thus far, a sign that these candidates aren't getting Republican voters out to the polls in big numbers. John McCain was getting bigger turnouts in the Republican primary in 2008 at this point. These turnout numbers indicate a major lack of enthusiasm in the party behind Romney, who is the face of the party right now. Just how bad has turnout been? Obama turned out half as many voters by himself in an unopposed caucus with no campaign in Colorado as all the GOP candidates combined.

None of this should really impact reality -- Romney is very likely to be the Republican nominee. What it does impact is that this race will drag on longer, more of Romney's flaws will continue to get exposed, and these candidates will continue to attack each other to the delight of the Obama campaign. The infighting among Republicans has done damage, as we have seen in Obama's rising approval ratings and the fact that Obama is now defeating Romney in virtually all the general election polls that have come out in the last few weeks.

The other thing to note is that Romney's inability to wrap things up may force him to go further to the right in order to appease Republican primary voters and secure the nomination. Moving to the right will hurt him greatly in the general election, and that is what Obama is hoping for -- to get Romney locked in on some far-right positions that he can then use against him in a few months.

We now have a few weeks before voting resumes in Michigan and Arizona on the 28th (Maine is on Saturday, but unlikely to get a lot of media attention due to how small a caucus it is -- expect Ron Paul to win), giving these candidates time to tear each other down more. Expect Romney to return to the formula that won him Florida -- outspending everyone by millions and saturating the markets with attack ads. Santorum should get a fresh boost of momentum and money while Gingrich really stumbled badly. How he responds will be interesting, mostly since it's impossible to predict what Gingrich will do. Romney is the favorite to win Michigan and Arizona, but we'll see how polls change following Santorum's three wins.