Romney Wins a Tripleheader     Permalink

As expected, Mitt Romney won the primaries in D.C., Maryland, and Wisconsin yesterday. There was never any doubt about D.C. since Santorum didn't qualify for the ballot there. Maryland is a very blue state and thus is prime Romney territory. He won it by 20%. The only place Rick Santorum had a chance was in Wisconsin, which is not as blue as the others. There Romney won by only 5%, but it still adds to his collection of victories in the Midwest, which include Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Here are the results.

One interesting note about the results is in D.C. With Santorum off the ballot, one might have expected his votes to go to Gingrich or Paul. They didn't. They all went to Romney, but the demographics of D.C. are so atypical (the majority of District residents are black) that this doesn't mean much. What is significant, however, is that in the contests other than D.C., Romney once again failed to break 50%. So far, the only state primary where all the candidates were on the ballot in which Romney has gotten more votes than not-Romney is his home state of Massachusetts.

In the delegate count, Romney now has 655 to Santorum's 278. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul trail with 135 and 51, respectively. To win the nomination, 1144 delegates are needed. According to at least one model, Romney will not quite make it to 1144 by the end of the process, but will come up 22 delegates short. However, with 598 delegates unbound, Romney will have no trouble coming up with those 22 to clinch the nomination before the convention starts.

Nevertheless, Santorum has vowed to soldier on, at least until April 24, when Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island, and most important, Pennsylvania, vote. Romney is expected to win the first four easily, all of which he will lose in the general election by wide margins. The real battleground that day will be Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania. If Santorum loses that, no one will take him seriously any more. If he wins it, he may continue on into May when a number of conservative states, including Texas vote. A big Santorum win in Texas wouldn't give Santorum the nomination, but it would be an embarrassment to Romney.

Obama to Run Against Ryan     Permalink

Despite the near inevitability of Mitt Romney's nomination, President Obama has decided to run against Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his budget. In a (campaign) speech to the media yesterday, Obama attacked the Ryan plan, which Romney has backed, as "social Darwinism" and said it would hurt the middle class. Most voters have never heard of Ryan, despite his importance to the Republican Party, giving Obama the chance to introduce him and his plan to the public. A key provision of Ryan's plan is to end Medicare and replace it with a program in which seniors are given vouchers to buy private insurance.

The great irony here is that in the case argued before the Supreme Court last week, the Republican Attorneys General were saying that the federal government cannot order people to buy private insurance. Yet the Ryan plan gives people vouchers and tells them to buy private insurance. The difference between taxing people and then giving them vouchers to buy private insurance and telling them to go buy private insurance directly is a subtle one. It may be lost on many people. Nevertheless, Obama's team is likely to be mass producing bumper stickers that read: "Republicans want to end Medicare" and distributing them in senior-heavy Florida. If Obama follows through and charges hard to the left while the Republicans are running as fast as they can to the right, we may have the most ideological general election campaign in decades.

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