U.S. CAMPAIGN BLOG | How ‘Rick Who?’ Santorum came back
Written by on February 8th, 2012 in Latest News.
Coming off a last-place end in Nevada, Rick Santorum was running the
risk of being the latest also-ran in what appeared to be Mitt Romney’s all-but-inevitable
surge to the Republican presidential nomination. .
Romney had just crushed main rival Newt Gingrich in Florida a few days earlier, following a blistering campaign that featured millions in negative ads and acrimony between the two top candidates.
Santorum left the state early to be at his sick three-year-ancient daughter’s side, but his campaign had already bailed on media-heavy and expensive-to-win Florida to focus on Midwest contests.
Now, Santorum, but fleetlingly, is the talk of the race again with three wins in one night, even though Tuesday’s victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado secure him a total of zero committed delegates at August’s national convention in Tampa.
How’d “Rick Who?” climb back into the race? Well, showing up helps.
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It’s not quite a game-changer, but last night’s caucus results remind
us, and particularly Mitt Romney, that he doesn’t have the credits
needed to graduate just yet.
Rick Santorum has now won more
states than Romney, long described as the front-runner. Romney still has
more delegates and thus a claim to the leader title. But it means there
are a much higher likelihood this race will continue for weeks, perhaps
all the way to the convention, as Newt Gingrich keeps promising.
What does it mean? Romney’s large operation will start targeting
Santorum with those attack ads, likely with the line he was in
Washington for 16 years and so is tanked by its broken status.
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If there’s one part of the American economy that’s not hurting, it’s Huge Politics.
Election years are always kind to campaign strategists, pollsters and, especially, television stations. Someone has to air those ever-more vicious attack ads.
The 2012 campaign will probably inject about $6 billion into the system for presidential, congressional and Senate elections.
Much of this will flow from the so-called super PACs, the free-wheeling and supposedly independent spending machines, often the tools of billionaire partisans, that even Barack Obama has now been forced to come around and endorse.
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In a U.S. election year, there is just no escaping politics. Just question the hundred million or so viewers of the Super Bowl on Sunday.
Along with the game and the traditional quick-food grub, Americans were questioned to chew on a batch of prime-time political pronouncements.
Some were direct, like the gun control pitch by the mayors of Boston and New York; some suggestive, like the Chrysler ad that could have been written by the White House.
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So Mitt Romney has emerged the clear winner in Florida, the first “real” state to hold a primary.
When his wife introduced him on stage Tuesday night as the next president of the United States, he indeed looked confident, at ease and – perhaps for the first time this primary season – rather presidential.
As Bob Martinez, the first Republican governor of Florida – and so a guy with considerable perspective – said, whoever has the money will win Florida. And Romney certainly had the money.
But for the first time since 1964, Martinez didn’t back a candidate. This, despite visits early on from the Romney folks and later on from the Gingrich crew.
Whats that all about?
