South Carolina and Florida, then?
In the wake of Romney’s 13-point trouncing by Gingrich last night, Ol’ Mitt’s campaign did, at least, get to issue one of my favorite press releases of all time. When you’re starting from a place called “I Think Grandiose Thoughts,” and go on to remind the media that Gingrich has compared himself, variously, to: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Henry Clay, Charles De Gaulle, William Wallace, Pericles, The Duke Of Wellington, A Viking, Thomas Edison, Vince Lombardi, The Wright Brothers, and Moses.
All of that stuff is good, but the viking is the best, obviously, as it highlights exactly how abstractly Gingrich thinks of himself as something big and weird and — yeah — grandiose — out to fuck people up. If the Romney people were a little more savvy, you have to think that they’d have included a Photoshopped picture of Gingrich wearing a Viking helmet for people to make memes of. The spread of that shit on Tumblr alone over the ten days between now and Florida would probably be worth half a percentage point…
In any case, wow, is Romney lucky that Florida happens in ten days and not four or five. If Gingrich takes Florida, you have to expect that he becomes the odds-on favorite, right? Romney can probably buy that election with ten days to go, though (Viking Newt commercials all week long, Mitt! Call me!), which will keep this thing drawn out for a while longer, probably at least through Super Tuesday.
Anyway: the real takeaway from all of this for me personally is that I’ve suddenly acquired a rooting interest, now that the prospect of President Newt has jumped to 11/2 on Paddy Power. I still very much want Barack Obama to win, but I’d take an unprincipled scion of privilege with no dignity or moral compass like Romney every day over Newt Gingrich, because that guy terrifies me. I just watched Ron Paul give a speech about “state’s rights” in front of a confederate flag, and was struck by the fact that he’s still only the third-most racist candidate currently campaigning. Romney and Paul may not give a shit if people I care about live or die, but Gingrich — all ginned up on Culture War and Southern Strategy bullshit — is positioning himself as the guy who actively hopes that they do.
I know Paul decided not to play in Florida — a good decision, as he won’t get any delegates out of it, he doesn’t have the budget to go for first, and his rabid grassroots support means that even barely participating, he’ll probably pull around 10% of the vote — but he’s got to be pulling for Mitt there, too, because his only path to relevance (if not the nomination) is if those dudes just keep trading body blows and everything is muddy for as long as possible. If he can hustle up a significant number of delegates in the four caucus states to follow, then as long as neither Newt or Romney look to have things sewn up, he’s a player. That’s a Good Thing, because Ron Paul is the only candidate in this thing who has the power to push Obama into “constitutional professor” mode, so the longer he is relevant, the better.
Meanwhile, does anyone have any idea what Santorum’s plan is? He’s obviously polling better than Perry did (past week three of his campaign, anyway), but his path to the nomination seems as hard to figure out as the erstwhile Governor’s — which is probably why his odds at being elected President in November are, according to the bookie, 100/1, or twice as bad as Hillary Clinton’s…
Anyway. I’ve been kind of half asleep on politics for most of this campaign, because it is depressing as fuck and I wanted to see what my life would be like if I wasn’t obsessed with American Presidential Politics for a little while, but the thought of President Gingrich has me developing a rooting interest in the Republican primary. Football season is nearly over, after all…
The playoffs versus the primaries: At least the NFL requires you to be good before you can win →
[W]hile parity rules in the NFL, random arbitrariness isn’t usually the way things work: losers, typically, are exposed as losers in the playoffs. The football-watching establishment may be nearly as bored with the long-presumed favorites in Green Bay as the Republican base is with Mitt Romney, but that boredom doesn’t mean that they’ll randomly select the St. Louis Rams — the football equivalent to Rick Santorum — to advance in the playoffs just because it’d be kinda neat.
Which is the point: America, especially in the conservative worldview, likes to see itself as a pure meritocracy. “Jim Abbott,” they like to say, indicating that hard work and determination are enough to make anyone a success. But the Republican primaries, whoever ultimately wins them, indicate something else. You don’t necessarily need to be good in order to win. In the end, it looks like a tight three-way that resulted in Santorum — but that doesn’t make him a winner. It only makes him the person who did less badly than everybody else, because someone — statistically speaking — had to.
So, I filed this week’s Down And Distance last night before Romney pulled off his decisive eight (8) vote victory after every precinct reported. Still, the point seems to be more or less intact (though I’ll lose the super mature Santorum pun) — this is as arbitrary a primary season as has happened in my lifetime, to say the least. While it’d have been hugely unexpected for something as competitive and fascinating as ‘08 to occur a second time, especially with an incumbent as one of the guys in the race — but geez. This makes the loser class of ‘04, which at least had a clear narrative (outsider obviously torpedoed by establishment in favor of their favored Massachusetts empty suit), seem positively high-concept.
You have to assume that, if the primary season had lasted just another 2-3 weeks, and the Santorum surge had been pushed against by some negative ads, the 75.4% who’ll never vote for Romney would have ended up giving Huntsman some love. This isn’t really even anybody but Romney, it’s anybody but everybody, and that’s not how America is designed. Or, at least, not how America sees itself working.
The playoffs are how we wish America worked. The primaries are how it is at its most depressing. That’s never been more clear than this year.
