Mitt Romney finally has a real win under his belt. It came in the state where he grew up and where his father was a three-term governor. The bad economy in Michigan played a part. Romney is the CEO candidate and could run as just the technocrat to get things fixed up. He also has the deepest pockets in the field, and can outspend his rivals wherever he decides to concentrate his efforts. With all these factors going for him it would have been a very bad sign for his candidacy if he failed to come out ahead in the Great Lakes State.
Romney won about 39% of the vote to John McCain's 30%, a fairly decisive margin. Mike Huckabee came in a respectable third with about 16%. Nobody else had any support worth talking about. This worked out to 12 convention delegates for Romney, 9 for McCain and none for anyone else. That's not a significant difference, but the fact he got the win restores the buzz about his campaign and makes people question McCain's. It also underscores an approach Romney might be well advised to keep following. He can't out-conservative the rest of the Republicans, given his shifting positions on many of the social issues they hold dear. He tried that earlier and kept losing. He finally got a win running on competence and business sense. For Huckabee, his third place showing in a Northern industrial state further separates him from the bottom pack and solidifies his standing, especially as he now heads for South Carolina and other Southern and rural states where his conservative social message finds the most adherents.
Here are some predictions:
South Carolina will kill Fred Thompson's candidacy. Huckabee will emerge as the clear choice of Southern evangelicals over him, and there will be no point in Thompson's going on. McCain will remain a factor in many states and may be able to continue after Super Tuesday, February 5. I think Rudy Giuliani has missed the bus. By putting all his eggs in the Florida basket on January 29 most people have forgotten about him. It looks like a tight race there at the moment among four candidates. If he doesn't win there you can likely kiss him good bye. And I don't think he will.
Huckabee will win several Southern states and do well enough elsewhere. McCain will win a few states and finish second frequently. Romney will start winning the majority of states outside the South. Romney is the one to watch; he is the most likely to win the nomination outright.
But it's completely possible they may get to the convention with no one holding the majority. If so that would make Mike Huckabee the kingmaker. He'd throw his support to McCain and probably be McCain's running mate or fill another important post in the Administration should McCain get elected. Huckabee and McCain have already been working together to slow Romney's momentum and they both personally despise the former Massachusetts governor.
4 comments:
As much as I analyze all the candidates (with your invaluable background information) I'm still struck with how little we actually can predict what a candidate will do once in office. We can see some personal qualities, but what we can't predict is how that qualities will intersect with some other factor - say, who they choose for their closest advisors. It wasn't too hard in 2000 to see that George Bush was stubborn. What was harder to predict that he would fall under the sway of Cheney and other neo-conservatives who managed to get him to be stubborn about the wrong things. Who, Steve, do you think will surround Romney, McCain, and/or Huckabee?
I remember when Jimmy Carter was running for President and comments were being made about who he might bring in for advisers. I can remember reading in Time Magazine a quote from one of Carter's advisers stating something similar to, "if we have people like Zbigniew Brzezinski in our cabinet, then we've done the wrong job. We need fresh new faces."
And yet, Brzezinski was Carter's National Security Adviser. I think we'll see some similar faces with any of these guys, but we'll also see new faces.
This is what scares me the most of a Hillary Clinton Presidency. We've already had 20 years of either Bush or Clinton. We could conceivably have another 8 years of Clinton, with probably very few new faces at all. I really think we need some new faces at the top of our government. It really is time for a change and Clinton represents the status quo in my opinion.
Don: I don't have info on names Romney would tap. My sources say he has an excellent record of picking people of accomplishment and getting a lot out of them through effective managerial leadership. His entourage is populated by a mix of longtime loyalists and experienced political operatives. Business people would figure prominently.
McCain would no doubt choose people from among the legions he has gotten to know through his long tenure in Washington. He made a lot of bad choices to begin his campaign and undertook a wholesale housecleaning to clear up the rifts among squabbling factions. In the last few Weeks He has spent a lot of time on the campaign trail with Joe Lieberman.
Who would surround Huckabee would be important, given his lack of Washington and national security experience. I'd expect a mix of old Republican hands leavened with religiously-oriented figures.
Webfoot: Both parties have a stable of experienced people who have served in the previous administrations of their parties. There are about 10,000 jobs to fill at all levels when administrations change and no matter who wins, the majority of this small army of functionaries will be these former undersecreataries and assistants to the assistants brought back again. There will of course be high and lower profile new people too, and some from the states. Yes, I'd expect a lot of repeaters in the Clinton ranks from her husband's tenure, though quite a few would also find spots with Obama or Edwards. Any of the three would represent huge changes from Bush. Bush's years in office scare me too. The last Clinton years in office don't. The country did rather well, actually. But would there be more change with one of the others in office? Yes, I think so.
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