Unlike Mad Men, the GOP presidential primary is not entering its fifth season. It only seems that way. The grim numerical inevitability of Mitt Romney’s nomination advanced on Tuesday with his win in the Illinois primary. The mainstream media is portraying this is as a blowout, and it is, in the sense that using tactical nuclear weapons to get rid of crabgrass would be a blowout. Romney and his allies outspent Romney’s nearest rival, Rick Santorum, by a ratio of 7 to 1. Put it another way, Romney spent approximately $14 per winning vote against a candidate so inept that he spent the day before election day explaining that he didn’t really believe that non-Christians had to leave the country, as one evangelical supporter proclaimed to a crowd, while Santorum applauded. (No points for guessing that the minister in question, Dennis Terry, has a long history of attacking gays.)
At this stage, the GOP presidential race has all the interest of an actuarial table. The odds remain stacked for Romney. Mathematically it’s virtually impossible for Santorum, let alone Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul, to amass enough delegates to prevent Romney from winning the nomination outright. Santorum’s only chance was to come up with a game-changing strategy. Instead, he decided to tell the world he wants to be president so he can declare war on pornography, while struggling with ballot problems in his home state. And yet it seems the only way Romney can vanquish Santorum is by burying him with money.
Santorum can probably count on a few more victories in the South, where Mormonism and Massachusetts don’t play well. But the only reason he remains in the race is that the GOP base just can’t warm up to Romney. In the end, they may have to, but given the way the primaries have gone so far, the end may still be a long ways off.
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Casey
You know nothing about politics. Stop writing about it.
Jim Hlavac
Oh, well, Obama spent nearly a Billion Bucks for his election — raised from the 1%ers mostly. Cheap, eh? He plans on spending another Billion Bucks for his re-election campaign, because, well, his supporters are so enthused they needed every vote buying gimmick he can muster. “Evolution” being but one.
Jewed Law
Yes, Mitt Romney needs a campaign slogan to sway the less-than-intelligent crowd out there . . . something vague and meaningless like “Hope & Change” ought to do it. Apparently any moron will buy into that garbage.
tjr101
@Jim Hlavac: Nice try, 98 percent of Obama’s campaign contributions are less than $250 from grass roots supporters while Willard gets his contributions from his Wall street friends. Willard has no grass roots support.
Willard is vaporous and only true conviction is that he believes he should be president. The corporate hack from MA will flip flop and say anything to get elected. Not even the majority in the bigot GOP base is buying it.
Flight Cub
If Queerty’s goal is to point out how superficial a candidate is who pours gazzillions into his campaign, they need look no further than our current campaigner-in-chief. Talk about buying an election.
Malky
Romney is only out for Romney. He’s a flip-flopper supreme, has no values or convictions, comes across like a robot, makes too many gaffes and insensitive comments and only seems to want the power of being president, he’s ruthless and heartless. There’s no way for him to win without buying the election, he connects with no one but the wealthy and connected. The prospect of him in the White House is scary.
ousslander
@tjr101: Like the 10 thousand a plate fundraiser Biden Held or the 37 thousand a plate that tyler Perry hosted? They must have pooled their 250 to get the ticket
tjr101
@ousslander: That’s nothing compared to the vast majority of his donations from small donors. Romney however, its only the fat cats, no grass roots support.
1equalityUSA
Romney’s staccato speech pattern and the combo grin-grimace expression in his eyes makes him look like a fear-biter yapper dog who’s been left on the roof of a car too long. The guy looks nuts.