Santorum sweep shatters Romney’s ‘electability’

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Following his win in the Florida primary, the conventional wisdom of the media villagers and Beltway bloviators was that Willard "Mittens" Romney now had a clear path through GOP primaries and caucuses in February on his way to "Super Tuesday" in March, and the GOP nomination.

This is the problem with a corporate media that parrots GOP establishment talking points. Saying it over and over again doesn't make it so. The corporate media's "conventional wisdom" is almost always wrong.

On Tuesday, Rick "man on dog" Santorum swept caucuses in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado (albeit non-binding caucuses). Even without committed delegates, however, Santorum's sweep of caucuses that "front-runner" Romney had been expected to win shatters his "electability" as the GOP nominee.

Romney won Minnesota four years ago. He even had his vanquished opponent, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty "of nuthin'," working the state for him and he got creamed. Pawlenty is finished as a politician. It was another embarrassing loss for "Mittens" in Missouri. And every political pundit had given Romney Colorado in advance based upon the strength of a supposed "Mormon vote," yet he lost Colorado as well. Triple victory for Santorum again upends GOP presidential race – The Washington Post.

"Electability" was the only selling point that Romney had throughout the GOP primary process, that he could claim he is the most electable against President Obama. That is now gone after losing five primary contests, four to Santorum and one to Gingrich. Romney has nothing else to offer Tea-Publican voters who always questioned his conservative credentials in the first place. 

As I have said before, the more voters get to know "Mittens" Romney, the more they do not like him. Greg Sargent has Romney's upside-down negative numbers in Thumbs down for Romney. (See Update below).

Tea-Publicans may now feel liberated to turn to conservative "purity" between Santorum and Gingrich. The GOP establishment is about to go into full panic mode as GOP strategist Steve Schmidt predicted a couple of weeks ago.

The corporate media really does not want to talk about the naked truth of GOP primary politics: the evangelical Christian base of the GOP will not vote for a Mormon. This has been borne out in the exit polling of every contest held to date. After Arizona, which does have a "Mormon vote," the GOP primary is about to turn to Southern states and the rural Great Plains states where the evangelical Christian base of the GOP is dominant.

Gingrich and Santorum are going to pick up their fair share of states and Romney's "electability" will further erode.

Moreover, GOP voter turnout in primaries this year has been greater for the "Not-the-Romney" candidates than for "front-runner" Romney. As John Zogby observes, "Republicans cannot win without maximizing turnout at the polls and in on-the-ground support from their hard core base voters. Even where Romney has won, turnout by Republicans has been generally lower than in prior cycles, a bad sign looking ahead to November." Obama Only One Winning GOP Primary Fights – Forbes. See also Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog – GOP turnout troubles continue.

Finally, the GOP itself has made a total train wreck out of its primaries so far. Rachel Maddow provides an excellent summary of the "gang who can't shoot straight" in this segment (after the 2:00 minute mark).

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UPDATE: Charting Romney's negative numbers, from Talking Points Memo.