They just are not that into you Mitt
Although the media and the Republican establishment have been long trying to feed the narrative that Mitt Romney will be the inevitable Republican nominee, voters on Tuesday had other ideas. The resurgent thunder on the political far right was evident as Rick Santorum coasted to convincing victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. From the hills of Branson to the conservative suburbs of the Twin Cities to the evangelical core of Colorado Springs, voters soundly rejected Romney in favor of the more conservative Santorum.
A Beauty Contest Turns Ugly in the Show Me State
To be fair, Missouri's vote had no delegates at state and was just a preference primary or a "beauty contest". Republican voters may have decided they do not want to take Mitt to the dance after all, choosing instead to reconsider Rick Santorum as their beauty queen. In the beauty contest, Romney was defeated by Santorum in each of the states 114 counties. He failed to carry a single county. The supposed Republican front-runner failed to carry a single county in Missouri. So if he was the leading model for the GOP nomination, the voters just declared him ugly in no uncertain terms. He was trounced 55-25%, finishing closer to Newt Gingrich's zero votes (Gingrich failed to qualify for being included on the ballot) than to Santorum in the race.
The Caucuses that Counted did not go Much Better
In Minnesota and Colorado where the votes actually counted, Romney was still soundly beaten. In Minnesota he also failed to register a win in a single county, and he finished a distant third place with 17% of the vote, behind Santorum and that old crabby guy who wants to legalize heroin, repeal the Civil Rights Act, sell our National Parks and return to a gold standard. In Colorado, where thank God for Mitt, he had some Mormon voters to stave off total humiliation, Romney still lost to Santorum, although the margin was closer. The problem for Romney is that the more voters see him, the less they like him. In this day of campaigning that is a big liability, since money is exposure and exposure costs Romney support. Now with Santorum beating him silly, he will have to drift further to the right to placate the Republican base, making him look even more inauthentic than he already does.
The Ugly Narrative: A Rich, Arrogant, Out-of-Touch White Guy Who Likes to Fire People
Rick Santorum is now in danger of doing something Romney's old nemesis, serial adulterer and egomaniac Newt Gingrich could not do, which is unify the evangelical base to defeat Romney. Serial campaigner, prolific complainer and Ayn Rand acolyte Ron Paul is merely a footnote at this stage. Santorum's latest accomplishment was serving as a sitting US Senator who lost by 18 points in his last re-election bid. Yet this loser had enough stamina to defeat Romney soundly up and down the map, despite Romney recently being endorsed by Donald Trump.
Trump's endorsement was of course critical, because what Mitt really needed to soften the narrative about him being a rich, arrogant, out of touch white guy who likes to fire people, was an endorsement by a rich, arrogant, out of touch white guy who really likes to fire people. So now Mitt must lick his wounds and prepare for Michigan, where he has the home field advantage. Of course, this is a no win situation for him, because he should be expected to win which means the best he can do is match expectations. If he should be humiliated again by Mr. Santorum, it may be time to strap his dog onto the top of his campaign bus and head back to the private sector, because it is hard to win an election when nobody likes you, not even in your own party. If its any consolation for Mittens, at least the voters thought Newt Gingrich was ugly too.
Keith Darling-Brekhus - Keith Darling-Brekhus is a political and social analyst. He has an MA in Sociology from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
