“No Acclamation For Mitt”: GOP Convention Floor Fight Starting To Look More Likely
Is it time to take the Republican convention seriously as a potential battleground?
Republicans should know better by now. Their still-putative nominee, Mitt Romney, lacks the conservative support to capture the kind of expectations-exceeding primary win necessary to capsize underfunded but motivated rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.
Romney didn’t do it in South Carolina, Colorado, or Tennessee. He proved unable once again Tuesday to claim victory in a state, Mississippi, that seemed tantalizingly within reach.
The months-long trend makes clear Romney will have to win the GOP nomination with math, not acclamation, steadily accumulating enough delegates in friendly contests until he reaches the nomination-clinching number of 1,144. But that path is fraught with risk. There is always the chance that he’ll fall just short of the magic number, which raises the possibility of a contested convention this August in Tampa.
The notion was mocked by many a month ago but now seems increasingly likely. “After last night, you have to start think it’s possible,'” said Republican political consultant Curt Anderson, a former political director of the Republican National Committee who advised Rick Perry before he quit the race. “It seems more possible than before, that’s for sure.” The Santorum and Gingrich campaigns are each eagerly embracing that very scenario.
In a memo released this week, the Santorum campaign argued that some delegates ostensibly pledged to Romney would switch to the onetime U.S. senator if Romney fails to win on the first ballot at the convention. Combined with a difficult remaining schedule for Romney, that dynamic ensures Romney won’t acquire enough delegates, the Santorum campaign contends.
“The reality is simple: The Romney math doesn’t add up, and he will have a very difficult time ever getting to a majority of the delegates,” the memo said. “The situation is only going to get worse for them and better for Rick Santorum as time passes. Simply put, time is on our side.”
That sentiment was echoed by Gingrich supporters, including Rick Tyler, an official with the Gingrich-allied super PAC Winning Our Future. “We’re in a position now where convention delegates are going to decide who nominee is,” Tyler told National Journal.
Whether Gingrich will be at the convention seems like more of an open question, even as the candidate himself vowed Tuesday night to make his case all the way to Tampa. “Because this is proportional representation, we’re going to leave Alabama and Mississippi with a substantial number of delegates, increasing our total going towards Tampa,” he said. “We’re going to take a much bigger delegation than we had yesterday.”
The former House speaker’s political base was supposed to reside in the Deep South, but the twin disappointments of Alabama and Mississippi will increase calls from some conservatives for him to step aside to let Santorum battle Romney one-on-one.
Gingrich’s viability could depend on his super PAC, which, with the benefit of multimillion dollar donations from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has kept him visible on TV and radio. Whether those funds will continue to flow to and from the outside group remains unclear — Tyler declined to comment. He did concede, however, that Gingrich had missed a chance Tuesday to “change the narrative.” He added, “That doesn’t mean it won’t change tomorrow.”
Tyler said Santorum, whose campaign has urged Gingrich to quit the race, actually would benefit from Gingrich sticking with it — that way, the two men can work together to gobble up enough delegates to prevent Romney from reaching 1,144 of them. As Gingrich put it Tuesday night, “the conservative candidates” (meaning himself and Santorum) “got nearly 70 percent of the vote” in Alabama and Mississippi.
The Romney campaign pointed out that despite the disappointing returns in the South, it still increased its delegate lead thanks to victories in Hawaii and American Samoa. The Associated Press delegate count Wednesday put Romney at 495. Santorum had 252 and Gingrich had 131 — well behind Romney even when added together.
“Our goal was to come in, take a third of the delegates,” Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said in an interview with CNN. “We’ll do that, and once the dust clears, you’ll be able to look and see that there really will be no ground that our opponents have made up against Mitt Romney, and as you look at the upcoming contest on the calendar, there are no opportunities for them to have significant wins that allow them to accumulate large numbers of delegates so they can close the gap with Mitt Romney.”
It may not be inspirational, and it may not prevent drama at the convention, but it’s a plan.
By: Alex Roarty, The Atlantic, March 14, 2012
“He’s Gone Far Enough”: Why The Republican “Establishment” Can’t Stomach Rick Santorum
While winning big in Alabama and Mississippi, Rick Santorum has also swept some other important primaries of late—the magazine primaries—picking up the enthusiastic support of Bill Kristol and other conservative editors and writers who think the former Pennsylvania senator is the real deal.
I am a conservative who has worked for Republicans in the Republican National Committee, Senate, White House, and California governor’s office. I guess that makes me an “establishment Republican.” To paraphrase Samuel Goldwyn, if Rick Santroum is what you want, then include me out.
Why do so many Republicans with political experience shudder so at the thought of Rick Santorum as our party’s standard-bearer?
After all, Rick Santroum is prolife. But then, so am I.
He’s prodefense? So am I.
Skeptical of the regulatory state? Check.
Budget-cutter? True, Santorum was an earmark enthusiast, but he makes an articulate case against the budgetary incontinence of the Obama administration.
Moreover, he generates real enthusiasm with his base and can connect with blue-collar folks in the Midwest we used to call Reagan Democrats.
Why, then, can’t I go there?
I couldn’t define it until I recently read Mark Twain’s account of his return to Hannibal, Missouri, in Life on the Mississippi.
Twain wrote:
The Model Boy of my time—we never had but the one—was perfect: perfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect in filial piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was a prig; and as for the contents of his skull, they could have changed place with the contents of a pie, and nobody would have been the worse off for it but the pie.
As for the contents of Santorum’s skull, I see not pie-filling but a zest for culture war. Launching a culture war now would fracture the Republican Party, while striking independent voters as massively beside-the-point with near 9 percent unemployment and an international situation pregnant with danger.
In the face of such a simple political target as President Obama, Santorum simply cannot stay on message. He and his people feel compelled to go beyond the issue of religious liberty to let us know that he believes contraception is morally wrong. I respect his right to that belief—and I join him in passionately upholding the right of the Catholic Church not to be coerced into acting against its doctrine on contraception. But that doesn’t mean I embrace that belief itself. I don’t. And I sure don’t want to hear about contraception from the bully pulpit of the White House—neither do tens of millions of other Republicans, many of them Catholics.
Or take Santorum’s strange denouncement of President Obama as a “snob” for wanting people to go to college. Or his odd diatribe against John F. Kennedy over his classic speech on separation of church and state. Both statements may contain many yeasty issues and fine distinctions—all of them are irrelevant to beating Obama.
And really, how tone-deaf do you have to be to launch an out-of-the-blue attack on JFK?
Like the Model Boy, Santorum is divisively pure. Such purity cannot win because it cannot command a coalition. And the key to a coalition is acceptance of people who share your basic objectives but who are not like you.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt repeatedly won the presidency by stitching together a coalition of Northern liberals and segregationist southerners who shared a belief in a stronger role for government. Ronald Reagan won two terms with his “big tent” of southern conservatives, blue-collar voters in the Midwest, and Western libertarians. Some avid Reagan supporters wanted to change the Constitution to re-establish school prayer. Other avid Reagan supporters legalized prostitution in Nevada.
The Reagan coalition may have frayed, but it remained together because everyone in the tent wanted smaller government and an end to Communism.
A winning Republican campaign today would have to bring together evangelicals, libertarians, defense conservatives, economic conservatives, and Tea Party enthusiasts united against Obama. Then it would have to move independents disaffected from Obama—but not if they are scared away by Rick Santorum.
Santorum, chastened by the loss of Ohio, is visibly struggling to stay on the economic message. But there always seems to be yet another strange observation suppressed behind those pursed lips. He can’t keep it under wraps. Count on it. A Santorum nomination would be guaranteed to blow up the party by focusing on the wrong issues at the wrong time.
Twain ended his riff on the Model Boy thusly:
This fellow’s reproachlessness was a standing reproach to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all the mothers, and detestation of all their sons. I was told what became of him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I will not enter into details. He succeeded in life.
Santorum has already succeeded in life. He’s gone far enough.
By: Mark W. Davis, U. S. News and World Report, March 16, 2012
GOP: “We Don’t Consider Violence Against Women To Be An Important Issue”
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is up for reauthorization this year, and for the first time since its original passage, it’s facing pushbackfrom Republicans.
Female senators are not happy about the sudden resistance to a usually uncontroversial bill. A few new provisions in VAWA add protections for undocumented people, the LGBT community, and Indian reservations, which have prompted a change of heart from anti-immigrant Republicans like Jeff Sessions, who said, “there are matters put on that bill that almost seem to invite opposition.”
In a Senate floor speech today, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) argued that our values should demand that everyone deserves protection from domestic abuse:
The bill includes lesbian and gay men. The bill includes undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse. The bill gives native American tribes authority to prosecute crimes. In my view, these are improvements. Domestic violence is domestic violence. I ask my friends on the other side: If the victim is in a same-sex relationship, is the violence any less real, is the danger any less real because you happen to be gay or lesbian? I don’t think so.
If a family comes to the country and the husband beats his wife to a bloody pulp, do we say, ‘Well you’re illegal, I’m sorry, you don’t deserve any protections’? 911 operators, police officers, don’t refuse to help a victim because of their sexual orientation or the country where they were born, or their immigration status. When you call the police in America, they come regardless of who you are.
Feinstein added, “To defeat this bill is almost to say ‘we don’t need to consider violence against women — it’s not an important issue.’ It is.” Indeed, with all the recent attacks focused around women’s issues, Feinstein had a larger suspicion about blockage of the bill: “I hope that this bill is not part of a march. And that march, as I see it, over the last 20 years, is to cut back on rights and services to women.” Watch it: http://youtu.be/2MyEPpl3AHY
In a show of general strength and support, the women of the Senate took to the floor today to fight for passage of the bill. Among the floor statements were both Democrats and Republicans, though no men spoke.
By: Annie-Rose Strasser, Think Progress, March 15, 2012
“Pregnancy, Men And Gumball Machines”: Texans Fight Back Against Cuts To Women’s Health programs
It’s hard to overstate just how dire the situation is around women’s health care in Texas. The state has the third highest rate of cervical cancer in the country and one in four women are uninsured. After cutting family-planning funding by around two-thirds last legislative session, conservative lawmakers are now standing by their decision to cut off Planned Parenthood from the state’s Women’s Health Program, a move that ended $35 million in federal funding. (Here’s a timeline of the fight.) Governor Rick Perry, who bragged about the decision at the recent CPAC conference, has said he’ll find the money to keep the program—while still barring Planned Parenthood. No one seems to know exactly where he’ll find the money, given that the state has already underfunded Medicaid by $4 billion last session.
In the meantime, Planned Parenthood, which serves 40 percent of the 130,000 who rely on the Women’s Health Program, has already had to shut down more than a dozen clinics. Non-Planned Parenthood clinics, which may still be eligible for the program if the governor finds the money, are also struggling due to the drastic budget cuts to the program, and soon they may face increased demand. In spite of it all, women’s health advocates promise this fight is just beginning.
More than 300 protesters arrived on Tuesday to welcome Planned Parenthood’s “Women’s Health Express” bus (or as the organization’s president Cecile Richards calls it, the “don’t-throw-women-under-the-bus bus.”) After stopping at cities around the state, the entourage arrived across from the state capitol to protest new policies. It was diverse, both in terms of age and ethnicity, as were the speakers on stage, almost all of whom were female. It was also the second protest of the day—100 women showed up earlier as part of a weekly protest against the decision called “Seeing Red.”
The signs were quite creative. Planned Parenthood had some stating “Don’t Mess With Texas Women” or “No to metas con las mujeres de Tejas.” Then there were the homemade ones: “Dump Anita’s Husband” “Perry screws 130,000 women so who’s the slut?” and, possibly the funniest, “If men could get pregnant, birth control would be available in gumball machines.”
The program featured women who used the Women’s Health Program. At first, Delia Henry read nervously from a script, telling her story of relying on Planned Parenthood for information about her sexual health when her single father was too embarrassed to talk to her. Later, as part of the Women’s Health Program, she discovered she had diabetes during a routine blood test. “This program saved my life,” she said to applause.
In the crowd were women with similar stories. Sarah Jeansonne was there with her two daughters, explaining to them that politicians were trying to take away health care for women. The issue was hardly just politics for her. “It was a public clinic that told me I was pregnant with this one,” she said, caressing her daughter’s blonde hair. “It wasn’t planned. What if that wasn’t there?” She began to tear up.
“We all used Planned Parenthood at one time,” Jeansonne’s friend Kelly Taggle said. “Something has to fill in the gaps.”
The program featured everything from country singers to the Austin mayor, but undoubtedly the crowd favorite was state Representative Dawna Dukes, in red patent leather pumps to show she was “seeing red.” Dukes began with a story of getting excited to speak at her church, founded by her grandmother and where all her siblings had been married. Then she was told she could not speak. At first it was out of fear the church would appear to favor one candidate over another. “I’m unopposed,” she told the crowd.
Later, she said, the church called her back to tell her the U.S. Congress of Bishops barred her from speaking because she supported the Women’s Health Program on her website.
“I’m mad as hell,” she thundered. “I have not the time to go round and round and neither do Texas women.”
Dukes excoriated the governor, pointing out that the state’s Legislative Budget Board, the independent board that runs the state’s calculations, had called the program the most cost effective in Texas and recommended it be expanded. While Perry blames the Obama administration for the change in rules, Dukes was quick to point out that the rules for the program were conceived in 2007, under then-President George W. Bush. “Don’t blame Barack,” she said as the crowd cheered. “Blame your stupid recommendations under the Capitol dome!”
By the time Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards took the stage, the clapping was pretty much nonstop. Richards kept her remarks short. “We do more to prevent unintended pregnancies than any organization in the country,” she said, a frequent point among the speakers.
Then she moved to politics. “We’re the biggest tent,” she said. “By God, women’s health care does not come with a political label.”
“A Campaign Of Denial”: Mitt Romney Meets “Peasants With Pitchforks”
Political revolutions leave chaos in their wake. Republicans cannot shut down their presidential nominating contest just because the party is in the midst of an upheaval wrought by the growing dominance of its right wing, its unresolved attitudes toward George W. Bush’s presidency, and the terror that the GOP rank and file has stirred among the more moderately conservative politicians who once ran things.
When Pat Buchanan ran for president in the 1990s, the conservative commentator lovingly referred to his partisans as “peasants with pitchforks.” The pitchfork brigade now enjoys more power in Republican politics than even Buchanan thought possible.
Mitt Romney is still the Republican front-runner by virtue of the delegates he relentlessly piles up. But Romney keeps failing to bring this slugfest to a close. No matter how much he panders and grovels to the party’s right, its supporters will never see him as one of their own.
One senses that the conservative ultras are resigned to having to vote for Romney in November against President Obama. They are determined not to vote for him twice, using the primaries to give voice to their hearts and their guts. They will keep signaling their refusal to surrender to the Romney machine with its torrent of nasty advertisements and its continuing education courses in delegate math designed to prove that resistance is futile.
The more they are told this, the more they want to resist.
Rick Santorum is a superb vehicle for this cry of protest. He is articulate but unpolished. He has pitifully few resources compared with the vast treasury at Romney’s disposal, but this only feeds Santorum’s David narrative against the Goliath that is Team Romney.
Santorum’s purity as a social and religious conservative is unrivaled, and his traditional family life — he’s always surrounded on primary nights by a passel of kids — contrasts nicely with Newt Gingrich’s rather messy personal history. It is no accident that, while Gingrich narrowly carried the ballots of men in Tuesday’s Alabama and Mississippi primaries, he was routed among Republican women who were decisive in Santorum’s twin triumphs. It was the conservative version of the personal being the political.
And while Republicans shout to the heavens against class warfare, they are as affected as anyone by the old Jacksonian mistrust of the privileged whose football knowledge comes not from experience or ESPN but from their friendship with the owners of NFL franchises. In Mississippi and Alabama, Romney again prevailed among those with postgraduate educations and incomes of more than $100,000 a year. He was defeated by those with less money and fewer years in school.
The revolt of the right-wing masses means that Romney stands alone as the less than ideal representative of a relatively restrained brand of conservatism. The growing might of the conservative hard core, reflected in its primary victories in 2010, led other potential establishmentarians to sit out the race in the hope that the storm will eventually pass.
But having decided to run, Romney must wage a campaign of denial. He buries his old Massachusetts self and misleads about what he once believed. He even tries to run to Santorum’s right. Recently, he denounced Santorum for voting in favor of federal support for Planned Parenthood, a group to which Romney’s family once made a donation. It is an unseemly spectacle.
Bush’s efforts to craft a “compassionate conservatism” friendlier toward those in the political middle collapsed into ruins years ago. This year’s Republican candidates almost never speak Bush’s name. It is to Santorum’s discredit that he did not dare defend his perfectly defensible vote in favor of Bush’s No Child Left Behind education program. Santorum, too, fears the pitchforks wielded by those who see any exertion of federal authority as leading down a road to serfdom.
And so it is on to Illinois, the next place Romney has to win to keep the resistance at bay. The Land of Lincoln would be a fine setting for a stand in favor of a more measured form of conservatism. But it won’t happen. Romney is anxious about the power of the Republican right in downstate Illinois — the very region that opposed Honest Abe in his celebrated Senate race 154 years ago.
Once again, Romney will take the moderates for granted, ignoring the last remnants of the old Lincoln party as he chases after an elusive right. And once again, Santorum’s battle cry will challenge conservatives to have the courage to complete the revolution they started the day Barack Obama took office.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, March 14, 2012
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