Mitt Romney’s solid win in Illinois on Tuesday placed him in an arguably unstoppable position for the GOP presidential nomination. He could claim formal victory perhaps as early as next month, and certainly, barring major mistakes, by June.
Along with his sweep of delegates in Puerto Rico, and the majority of delegates he claimed the previous Tuesday even as Rick Santorum got the headlines, Romney’s prize of 43 (out of 54) delegates in Illinois gives him a grand total (according to CNN’s estimates) of 562 out of 1019 delegates awarded so far; Santorum is more than 300 delegates behind. The “magic number” to clinch the nomination formally is 1144. Louisiana holds its primary this Saturday, and Santorum is a slight favorite; a loss could boost Romney’s sense of “inevitability” considerably. But in any event Romney seems certain to enjoy a big April, with very likely wins in DC, Maryland, Rhode Island, New York and Connecticut, and at least even odds in Wisconsin. Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania is also on the April calendar, but he’s hardly a cinch there, and the proportional allocation rules will limit his gains.
If Santorum survives April, May looks much better for him with primaries in North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Texas, along with Romney-friendly Oregon. All these primaries, however, provide for proportional allocation of delegates, which, again, guarantees Romney progress towards the magic number. The bigger problems for Santorum are whether he can attract enough money to take advantage of these opportunities, and whether his shrinking band of conservative opinion-leading supporters, tired of mathematically improbable odds and wary of the damage the extended primary season is doing to the party’s general election prospects, abandon him en masse.
Should Santorum sojourn on, June looks like a killer month for him, with winner-take-all primaries in New Jersey and Utah and a winner-take-all-by-congressional-district primary in ultra-expensive California.
Meanwhile, it appears Newt Gingrich’s big super-PAC benefactor, Sheldon Adelson, has closed his checkbook, and Ron Paul’s support seems to be fading, even as rumors continue that he has formed a tactical alliance with Romney.
But bright as prospects seem for Romney, his pattern of unforced errors and occasional bad luck continues. Tuesday, even as he basked in the Illinois win, his communications director appeared on CNN and suggested his candidate could pivot to a more swing-voter-friendly general election message like a child erasing pictures on an Etch-a-Sketch. The vivid image (immediately seized upon by Gingrich and Santorum on the campaign trail in Louisiana) not only reinforced Romney’s reputation as a morally casual flip-flopper, but also reawakened more specific conservative fears that Mitt would abandon right-wing ideology as soon as he was conceded the nomination. Moreover, a much-coveted endorsement of Romney by Jeb Bush, timed to begin a consolidation of support by party leaders across the ideological spectrum, lost some of its luster thanks to bad publicity for Jeb arising from the Trayvon Martin controversy (Bush signed the “Stand Your Ground” gun law that is apparently making it difficult for Florida authorities to arrest, much less convict, Martin’s alleged killer, a vigilante with a concealed-carry license).
In a parallel development, Romney has changed his economic message in a manner that reflects the steadily improving employment picture, and illustrates the challenges that poses to the GOP in the general election. Romney (like a growing number of Republican leaders) is beginning to concede that the economy is recovering, not wallowing in disaster, and now attacks the president not as the captain of a sinking or floundering ship, but as someone whose policies are limiting the power and speed of the recovery. In other words, Romney is admitting that he cannot frame the general election as a simple referendum on Obama’s performance, particularly on the economy, but must instead fight it out as a comparative choice between two candidates, two parties, and two very different agendas for the country.
This is a strategic development of great value to Obama, whose camp previously struggled to focus voters on their misgivings about Romney and the GOP. With Romney’s (and his party’s) unfavorable ratings steadily climbing during the nomination fight, a “two futures” election looks increasingly perilous for Republicans. And if the primary fight does indeed extend into late June, the damage could grow worse, even as the time available for a “rebooting” (or Etch-a-Sketching!) of the Romney campaign shrinks.
So it’s a highly ambivalent moment for Mitt Romney and his presidential ambitions.
Photo Credit: BU Interactive News
