A new Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll in Illinois shows Mitt Romney leading the GOP presidential field with 35%, followed by Rick Santorum at 31%, Newt Gingrich at 12% and Ron Paul at 7%.
However, 46% of voters said they could still change their minds before the March 20 primary.
Mitt Romney “won the presidential delegate vote at Wyoming’s county conventions, picking up seven of 12 delegates after local party meetings that also delivered at least two delegates to Rick Santorum,” the Casper Tribune reports.
Wyoming will send a total of 29 delegates this year to the Republican National Convention — “more than such larger states as Connecticut, Oregon and Nevada. Under Republican National Committee rules, Wyoming gets additional delegates for having a Republican governor, Republican congressional delegation and Republican majorities in its state Legislature.”
Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) and Rep. John Larson (D-CT) have introduced legislation that would let Americans vote on the first full weekend in November instead of the first Tuesday, ABC News reports.
“Tuesday was chosen as Election Day in 1845, when Congress decreed it the most convenient day for farmers — they needed three days to travel to their voting place without interfering with three days of religious worship. Reformers say the law is outdated and now interferes with workers’ plans, particularly people working more than one job or single parents who have responsibilities that might eclipse voting.”
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California’s filing deadline passed for November elections and Richard Winger reports “there are only fifteen minor party candidates running for U.S. House of Representatives and state legislature. This is the lowest number of California minor party candidates for those offices since 1966, when there were no parties on the ballot in California except for the Democratic and Republican Parties.”
Google has a nice map of the Kansas caucus results as they come in.
There are 40 delegates are at stake: 12 are
congressional-district delegates awarded on a winner-take-all basis, 25 are awarded proportionally
based on the statewide vote provided the candidate breaks 20%, and an additional three delegates go to
the statewide winner.
Complete results are expected by 6 pm ET.
Update: The AP reports Rick Santorum “appears on his way to taking most of the state’s 40 delegates.”
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) will announce today that he is resigning from Congress to devote time to his run for governor, the Huffington Post reports.
“The move should allow the long-serving Washington Democrat to up his name recognition across the state, which has been one of the difficulties facing his gubernatorial campaign. The trans-continental commute from D.C. to Washington has severely limited the amount of time Inslee has been able to campaign in the state.”
Alan Colmes has an interesting interview with Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, who commented on the viral video of Derrick Bell and Barack Obama, saying, “Of course we hid this throughout the 2008 campaign. I don’t care if they find it now.”
He says he was joking, but it’s lost on those who insist the tape is a smoking gun that will help torpedo Obama’s re-election chances.
Despite previous indications that Newt Gingrich might quit the presidential race if he does not win in Alabama and Mississippi this Tuesday, Gingrich put that speculation to rest and committed to staying in the race to the convention, according to ABC News.
Said Gingrich: “We’ll clearly do well enough to move on and I think there’s a fair chance we’ll win. But I just want to set this to rest once and for all, we’re going to Tampa.”
A new Alabama State University poll shows Newt Gingrich surging into the lead in Alabama’s GOP presidential race with 21%, followed by Mitt Romney at 20% and Rick Santorum at 17%.
Said pollster Thomas Vocino: “According to our poll results that ended last evening, Gingrich is coming on strong in Alabama and his numbers are still rising. His support was declining five weeks earlier and now Gingrich appears to be the comeback candidate at the expense of Santorum and Romney.”
The New York Times looks at Mitt Romney’s “sometimes awkward style and aloof manner” which as governor affected his relationship with lawmakers he needed to pass legislation.
“For officials used to the glad-handing and alcohol-lubricated culture of local politics, Mr. Romney was an unfamiliar breed: a data-driven chief executive used to delivering unquestioned orders, a political newcomer who cast the legislature as a foe, a delegator who preferred working with just the leadership and an emotionally remote figure who tended not to socialize — and because of his Mormon religion did not drink. Even though he worked just a few hundred feet from them for four years, Mr. Romney displayed little interest in getting to know lawmakers and never developed real relationships with most members of the Democratic-dominated body.”
Interestingly, President Obama is also frequently criticized for his equally aloof governing style.
“We got 435 members. It’s just a slice of America, it really is. We got
some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of
the dumbest. We got some of the best people you’d ever meet, and some of
the raunchiest. We’ve got ’em all.”
— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in an interview with Peggy Noonan, on his House colleagues.
Premiere Networks is circulating a list of 98 radio advertisers who want to avoid “environments likely to stir negative sentiments… They’ve specifically asked that you schedule their commercials in dayparts or programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).”
John Avlon notes “the irony is that the same market forces that right-wing talk-radio hosts champion are helping to seal their fate. Advertisers are abandoning the shows because they no longer want to be associated with the hyperpartisan — and occasionally hateful — rhetoric. They are finally drawing a line because consumers are starting to take a stand.”
Ross Douthat: “While there are still scenarios in which the frontrunner ends up 50-100 delegates short of the magic number at the end of primary season, it would take a truly extraordinary turn of events (a huge scandal, say) to deny Romney the nomination at this point. The chaos-at-the-convention scenarios were almost plausible pre-Michigan, but they only made sense in a world where the leading candidate ended up well short of the necessary delegates. Now Romney is on track to win at least a clear plurality, and if he goes to the convention with over a thousand delegates, Jeb Bush isn’t going to sweep in and swipe the nomination out from under the man who won the most primary-season votes. It just … isn’t … going … to happen.”
Mitt Romney won nine delegates each from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands after Republicans there met Saturday at their state conventions, National Journal reports.
“I’m not really a politician.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by National Journal, then correcting himself: “I
guess I kinda am, because I was governor for four years and I’ve run for
office. But my heart is a conservative businessman.”
Mitt Romney and some of his top aides used private email accounts to conduct state business at times when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, the Associated Press reports.
“The communications were legal, even though Romney’s own administration warned state agencies against the practice due to cyber security concerns. The state archives in Massachusetts — which learned about Romney’s emails from the AP — now says the private emails should have invoked rules about preserving copies of state records.”
There have been no polls ahead of Saturday’s GOP caucuses in Kansas, but the consensus is that Rick Santorum is the favorite.
Katrina Trinko: “Kansas is the first state to vote after Super Tuesday — and it looks likely that Rick Santorum will score another victory here… In fact, Santorum and Paul are the only ones campaigning in the state right before Election Day.”
Nate Silver: “The betting market Intrade has Mr. Santorum as a 97 percent favorite in Kansas. I certainly agree that Mr. Santorum is the front-runner there, but that’s an absurd degree of confidence, especially given the poor track record of the betting market in prior caucus states… To repeat, Mr. Santorum looks like the favorite in Kansas, but there’s a wide range of outcomes.”
All political campaigns tout their newspaper endorsements, but Ryan Lizza notes Mitt Romney’s press office “has no better friend than the ellipsis” and often removes “sensitive” phrases. A few recent examples:
“In fact, this newspaper does not embrace many of his ideas on taxation, which give too great a reward to the wealthy and not enough help for the poor and middle class.”
— Times Daily of Florence, Alabama, March 9, 2012
“That has been just one example of some of the shape-shifting Romney has done to appeal to conservative primary voters who believe he is too moderate. So, it’s not unfair to wonder who the real Romney is.”
— Birmingham News, March 7, 2012
“Perhaps that is why he sometimes appears so awkward in public, especially when talking about himself and, in particular, his personal wealth.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 3, 2012
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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