First Read: “What is his campaign about? He says he wants to ‘restore America’s greatness,’ but what does that mean? (Go back to the ’50s? The ’60s? The ’80s? The Bush years?) He says he’ll be able to turn around the economy, but what if it’s already slowly improving as the evidence currently suggests? And the campaign makes it clear that Romney is the inevitable nominee, but what happens if that inevitable nominee loses? Team Romney has had a message problem since this campaign began, and when you make your candidacy about electability and process, you’re going to pay a BIG price for losing to candidates. Why does Romney want to be president, an office he’s been running for the past six years? Has he really answered this basic question?”
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Most Voters Think Obama Will Win
A new Pew Research survey finds that 59% of American voters say that President Obama is likely to be re-elected if his opponent is Mitt Romney.
If the contest is between Obama and Rick Santorum, 68% anticipate an Obama victory.
Officials Named Despite White House Rules
The White House organized a conference call with “two senior administration officials” to preview an announcement by President Obama about a a China trade issue but told reporters that no one could be quoted by name.
However, the AP ignored the instructions — reporting the officials were U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and the deputy national security adviser Michael Froman — stating Obama promised his administration would be “the most transparent in American history.”
Why Obama Took a Foreign Leader to Ohio
President Obama took British Prime Minister David Cameron to a NCAA basketball game in Ohio yesterday and is rewarded with the front-page of the Dayton Daily News and this headline: “The heartland is what it’s all about.”
The full quote from a half time interview: “Sometimes when we have foreign visitors, they’re only visiting the
coasts. They go to New York,
they go to Washington, they go to Los Angeles, but the heartland is what
it’s all about.”
Quote of the Day
“I’m not sure I’m going to listen to a value judgment of a guy who strapped his own dog on the top of a car and went hurling down the highway.”
— Santorum advisor John Brabender, quoted by National Journal, hitting back at Mitt Romney for saying Santorum was “at the desperate end of his campaign.”
An Epic Battle in Illinois
The Illinois primary is next Tuesday and after last night’s victories by Rick Santorum it’s shaping up to be a very important contest in the GOP presidential race.
First Read: “Once again, the pressure is on Romney. And once again, Team Romney has a HUGE advertising advantage, with the campaign and Super PAC spending nearly a combined $3 million so far (versus $16,000 for Gingrich and zero for Santorum). But the pressure is on Santorum, too. Can he defeat Romney in a state that isn’t dominated by conservatives and evangelicals? Can he pull off what he was unable to do in Michigan and Ohio? Romney hasn’t won an ‘away game,’ but neither has Santorum.”
“And the delegate match is NOT kind to Santorum in Illinois either. He didn’t file full delegate slates in the congressional districts; he’s 10 short. And Illinois is not an allocation system, it’s DIRECT ELECTION of the delegates INDIVIDUALLY in the congressional districts. A total nightmare, to be honest, for those tracking delegates. But it almost guarantees Romney will likely win a majority of the state’s delegates even if he loses the statewide vote, which has ZERO delegates connected to it.”
DNC Slams Romney Over Planned Parenthood
The DNC turned Mitt Romney’s promise that he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood into a new web video.
Can Santorum Keep His Campaign Small?
Politico
delves into Rick Santorum’s “decentralized, cause-driven, low-cost
modern campaign” model and “guerrilla approach,” a sharp contrast to Mitt
Romney’s much more organized, professional, and top-heavy operation.
“Santorum
has battled concerns about his field and turnout machinery, suffering
from a series of stumbles that left him without access to the Virginia
ballot and ineligible for some delegates in Ohio. He leans on local
political networks, powered in many cases by grass-roots Christian
conservatives, as a substitute for Mitt Romney’s bulked-up organization.
The campaign maintains the tightest of inner circles, reserving
Santorum’s ear for a small list of longtime aides and supporters.”
“The
fact that the campaign is now playing out across 50 states, rather than
the three early battlegrounds Santorum’s effort was built for, is a
double-edged challenge. On one level, Romney’s structural and financial
advantages loom ever larger as the race moves into places where the GOP
hopefuls cannot run a months-long, hand-shaking, Santorum-style retail
campaign. On the other hand, it means that national-level messaging can
have a disproportionate impact in states like Alabama and
Mississippi…in which no candidate has been able to build up a daunting
organizational edge.”
Bachus Survives Primary Challenge
Reuters
reports that Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), chairman of the powerful House
Financial Services Committee, defeated state Sen. Scott Beason and two
other primary challengers in a closely watched race amid an investigation into whether Bachus violated insider trading laws.
Gingrich Now Just Trying to Block Romney
Patricia Murphy notes Newt Gingrich tipped his hand last night at “his campaign’s real strategy, which is no longer to win to nomination outright but to make Mitt Romney lose by denying him the 1,144 delegates he needs to clinch the GOP nomination before the Republican convention in August.”
“Gingrich has grown increasingly bitter toward Romney throughout the campaign, as the former Massachusetts governor has unloaded a barrage of attacks against the former speaker and, Gingrich believes, hurt his showings at the polls in the process.”
National Journal quotes Gingrich: “Governor Romney will get at most one out of every three delegates. Once again he will fall dramatically short … I think that the odds against his being able to get 1,144 delegates is very, very high. I think he is more likely to be a front-runner who ends up not finishing the race.”
Romney Wins Hawaii Caucuses
Mitt Romney won Hawaii’s first-ever Republican presidential caucus Tuesday, taking 45% of the vote, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reports.
Romney was followed by Rick Santorum at 25%, Ron Paul at 19% and Newt Gingrich at 11%. The four were competing for 17 of the state’s 20 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa.
Hatch Says This Will Be His Last Campaign
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced that this
would be his last campaign and his final term in the U.S.
Senate, KCSG-TV reports.
Hatch is currently 77 and would be 84 in 2018, the year he would again be up for reelection.
Mitt Romney and the Dog Food Problem
Paul Begala: “Let me be the first to call on Mitt Romney to get out of the race. By placing third in Alabama and Mississippi, losing to Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich in both states, Romney has gone from inevitable to unelectable. Somebody strap him to the roof of one of his Cadillacs and drive him off to one of his many mansions.”
“One of the great legends of political consulting is the Dog Food Problem: an apocryphal tale of a company that had the best packaging, the best advertising, the best marketing. But there was only one problem: the dog wouldn’t eat it. Forevermore we should no longer call it a Dog Food Problem. We should call it a Mitt Romney Problem.”
Now and Then
Romney Would End Planned Parenthood
In an interview with KSDK-TV, Mitt Romney said he would eliminate any federal funding of Planned Parenthood in an effort to reduce the national debt.
Said Romney: “Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that.”
Tonight’s Primary Results
Polls close in Alabama and Mississippi at 8 pm ET. Caucuses in Hawaii begin at 2 am ET.
A win by Mitt Romney in either or both of the two Southern states voting today would seriously undermine his two primary rivals, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.
Nate Silver notes Southern states “have a reputation for counting their vote slowly.”
This is interesting: The Washington Post reports Romney is not holding a celebration tonight and is instead watching results from a hotel room in New York City.
Exit polls show Santorum leading by five points in Alabama, Romney leading by five points in Mississippi. No network is willing to make a projection based on these numbers.
Washington Examiner: “Newt Gingrich’s campaign has just sent out a memo that reveals (to no
one’s surprise) a defiant determination to stay in the race until the
end. If you read between the lines, it looks like he’s almost conceding
tonight’s races in advance.”
NBC News projects Santorum will win in Alabama.
Fox News projects Santorum will win in Mississippi.
Expect the narrative that Romney can’t reach the 1,144 delegates to gain steam in the coming days.
The Illinois primary on March 20 will be an epic battle between Romney and Santorum.
Poll Finds Obama Approval Up
For the first time since early July, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds more Americans approve of the job President Obama is doing than disapprove, 50% to 48%.
Some other polls have shown a recent dip in Obama’s approval rating, and linked that to rising gasoline prices.
A new Bloomberg poll shows Obama’s approval at 48%.
Bill Would Require Candidates to Take Drug Tests
Candidates for Oklahoma state or local offices would have to take a test for illegal drugs before they could file for the posts under an amendment to a bill passed by the state House of Representatives, Tulsa World reports.
“The measure was the Democrats’ response to a Republican-backed bill that would require adults receiving welfare assistance to undergo drug tests.”
