Southern primary results reveal weaknesses of whole GOP field
OPINION - Mitt Romney's clumsy mismanagement of the expectations game is what gave Santorum's wins in Mississippi and Alabama a bigger bump than they maybe deserved....
Are we really surprised at this week’s results in the Super Southern GOP primaries?
Examine the folks who voted last night and it’s no wonder that Rick Santorum prevailed once again. White, working-class, far right conservatives, who relish social issues and less government intervention, dominated the electorate.
However, Mitt Romney’s clumsy mismanagement of the expectations game (he predicted he would win one of the primaries) is what gave Santorum’s wins in Mississippi and Alabama a bigger bump than they maybe deserved.
While it is huge that Santorum beat Newt Gingrich in the former Georgia congressman’s own backyard, that is basically the equivalent of defeating a political corpse. More on that later.
As a Deep South political operative with roots in Alabama, I can tell you a few things about our politics. If you’re not from the South, don’t try to fake it. We hate phonys and can smell them a mile away. Also, outsiders rarely appreciate the nuances of Southern primaries of either party. Ask Hillary Clinton, who had the money and establishment in 2008, but lost the Alabama primary.
Finally, even with polling, Southerners are reluctant to announce their actual choice in political contests. We have to wait until Election Day for the big reveal.
Romney may have actually hurt himself coming south of the Mason Dixon line and talking about grits and saying “y’all” (another silver foot in mouth moment). To say the polls got it wrong is a dramatic understatement. The one thing Romney needed most in the South he had the least: authenticity.
This year’s Super Southern primaries may have revealed more about the candidates and the state of the race than Super Tuesday. Several things are very clear right now. While Romney may own the minds (and establishment) of the Republican Party, it is clear that Santorum is rounding up more hearts (and the base) of the party every day. Santorum went into the regional base of the GOP and defeated not only the presumptive frontrunner, but the native son in Gingrich.
No small accomplishment for the former Pennsylvania senator, and a real boon as we make the shift into the third stage of the primary campaign.
Anyone who has observed politics at any level is aware of the three M’s: message, money and momentum. A candidate generally needs all three to win. However, for this discussion I’ll add a fourth: mechanics. It’s argued that once all of the factors are on your side, your campaign really begins to take off. The problem with the GOP field right now is that the M’s are split among the candidates.
Romney has the money, which is allowing him to run a mechanically competent campaign giving him the delegate argument — an eventuality argument that sounds weak at best and defeating at worst. However, he is starving for a message — a simple, credible justification for his campaign. Ultimately, Romney’s campaign is one in search of a soul, which contributes to his failure to make the leap from presumptive to prohibitive nominee.
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Let’s be frank. The Deep South is where political moderates go to die. Just ask seemingly promising politicians like former Congressmen Harold Ford, Jr. and Artur Davis, and Hattiesburg, Miss. Mayor Johnny DuPree, who was the 2011 Democratic nominee for governor, all men who lost in their attempts to win statewide races.
There are those who will say it was the ghost of racism that eventually did each of them in. However, Tea Party favorites Tim Scott and Allen West, both members of Congress from North Carolina and Florida respectively, have seen great success since their arrival in Washington. So our recent electoral history tells us that in the Deep South, ideology wins over the historic demons of race, and moderates can find no home there.
Romney failed to clear conservative hurdle on Tuesday in the most conservative region of the country. Combine these results with those in previous contests, and Romney has won only one Southern state, and anyone will tell you that Florida really doesn’t count. This staggering lack of support with the Republican base is bound to have a hangover effect in the remaining primary contests this cycle and well into the fall.
Santorum has a message that connects with the Republican primary base, but continues to be hamstrung by the backbencher status he held for so long in this contest, lingering on the edge of the primary debates while also-rans from Michele Bachmann to Herman Cain had their time next to Romney in the limelight. The result is little money in his campaign coffers.
However, if anyone is said to have momentum right now, it is Santorum with the tea party, ultra-conservative base of the GOP; the folks who vote in primaries. Despite Santorum’s lack of resources and being outspent by both candidates once again in Mississippi and Alabama, as he said in his victory speech, “We did it again.” Santorum’s grassroots campaign is nothing less than extraordinary.
We knew it on Super Tuesday, and it was confirmed this week that Newt Gingrich’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination is over. His single donor, sporadic issue campaign enters an official zombie-like state today where everyone realizes he is dead except him (and his wife Calista).
We should also note that Gingrich’s not so subtle southern strategy, which included demeaning African-American children and denigrating the community’s collective work ethic, was a miserable failure. As MSNBC’s Alex Wagner recently noted on Hardball, Gingrich is clearly running a vanity campaign to increase sales of his books and documentaries. The only remaining question is when will someone put the zombie out of his misery.
Finally, along with the lackluster field of candidates, the new Republican proportional primary delegate system is contributing to the ever increasing enthusiasm gap between Republican and Democratic voters. There will be no knock out moment in this year’s race by design, to allow more states to have their voices and votes count for something in the process. For those who say all of the disaffected, unenthusiastic conservative voters will come home in the fall, that is the same bet Republicans made in 2008, and we know what that got them.
Thanks to the results in the Super Southern primaries, we now have a de-facto two-man race for the GOP nomination. As long as the hearts and minds of the Republican primary electorate are split between the Romney and Santorum, the specter of a brokered Tampa convention continues to linger. Stay tuned.
Corey Ealons is a former congressional aide and Obama White House communications advisor who is now a senior vice president with VOX Global, a Washington-based communications firm.
