2012 GOP Primaries

[OldTrees]

Romney still has a lead over the other candidates.
Santorum and Gingrich continue to split the delegates.
Ron Paul no longer has a chance at the nomination but likely will play king maker and get policy concessions.

[darkrobe]

The only thing that really matters now is the final delegate count. If Romney gets the required 1144 (not very likely at this point) then what the others have makes no difference. If he gets slightly less than 1144 (more likely) then the party leaders can fanangle some of the unpleadged delegates and get him over the top. If he gets much less than 1144 (unlikely but quite possible), thats when people get to throw around politcal power and try to get concessions. However, I sincerely doubt ron paul will have much power, I think it would be more likely that Romney tries to get some ins with the very very conservative crowd by making nice with santorum (or to a lesser extent gingrich), maybe offering a place in the cabinet or something.

[Kynthea]

Realistically Romney gets the nomination at this point. While not the best out of the candidates he wasn't the worst either.

[YoungSot]

Realistically Romney gets the nomination at this point. While not the best out of the candidates he wasn't the worst either.

Hooray for the lesser evil! x(

[Belthus]

If Romney gets the required 1144 (not very likely at this point)

What makes you say that? He has more delegates than all three other candidates combined, and he is ahead by ~11% in the national surveys.

[OldTrees]

If Romney gets the required 1144 (not very likely at this point)

What makes you say that? He has more delegates than all three other candidates combined, and he is ahead by ~11% in the national surveys.

A 3 way split does not make it easy to maintain that lead.

[Belthus]

A 3 way split does not make it easy to maintain that lead.

I don't see it. Romney had a worse situation earlier, when he was second or tied for first, and yet he still managed to get a majority (not just a plurality) of delegates so far. Now that he has a clear lead in national polls, how is his situation worse than when he was second? Granted that national polls may not capture what happens state by state as the primaries occur, but I don't see Santorum and Gingrich turning things around. They had their moments in the spotlight, and the Republican base had second (or third or fourth) thoughts about those two clearly undisciplined candidates.

This is my dispassionate assessment. I would love for Santorum or Gingrich to be the nominee because both are unable to disguise their ideology to be palatable to the independents. I would love for Republicans to choose someone they admire as a "real conservative," who then loses by a landslide. However, I don't see an opening for Santorum or Gingrich at the moment.

[darkrobe]

If Romney gets the required 1144 (not very likely at this point)

What makes you say that? He has more delegates than all three other candidates combined, and he is ahead by ~11% in the national surveys.

It doesnt matter if he has more than the others. he needs more than 1144 delegates out of 2286. 22 states have already voted and out of that number he has only managed to pull 319 definite delegates (403 projected). That is only 35% of what he needs with almost half of the states already having voted. If everyone else  drops out today, and he wins every delegate from here on out. he wouldnt reach 1144 until may. And the others arent dropping out and many of the big prizes give out delegates proportionaly, it is quite possible that romney could win states and not reach the 1144 because the others in the race syphon off proportional delegates. 

[Belthus]

The number of states is misleading. Many of them are small states with few delegates. Romney has over 50% of the delegates awarded so far. Unless one of his opponents can shake things up, Romney is on track to continue getting over 50%, which will put him over 1144 by the end.

[darkrobe]

The delegate counts are also misleading. A few states did not assign delegates, the delegates are assigned later. and the next few states are southern and midwest states which newt gingrinch/santorum will win pull mst of the delegates, romney might not win another state for a while get over 50% of the delegates in a state for a while. just because he has over 50% now. does not mean he will have over 50% come the next few weeks.

[Belthus]

Nate Silver has a detailed analysis (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/how-daunting-is-santorums-delegate-math/#more-28081?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto) of the Republican race. According to Silver's predictions, even if most things break Santorum's way, he still wouldn't have 1144 delegates. It's Romney's race to lose. That could happen, but we would have to see a seismic shift.

[BluePriest]

If gingrich dropped out, there would be a major shift. It would either help santorum a small amount, or completely destroy him depending on who gingrich decided to endorse.

Im more of just posting to keep this thread in my new topics though. Im not very good at politics at all.