(From an opinion piece from Joe Scarborough posted in Politico)
Perhaps a political party that promotes state-ordered vaginal probes, re-litigates contraception, mocks higher education, attacks JFK and runs down rabbit trails irrelevant to most Americans’ lives is best suited to win back the White House.
But I doubt it.
I think it is more likely that Republicans are staying competitive against President Obama in spite of themselves. After all, the economy is still weak, the president appears emotionally aloof and Americans remain suspicious of big government.
But the Republican Party has candidates who are flawed, a message that is mush and a front-runner who is so weak that he struggled to win his home state last Tuesday.
As this long winter winds down, a cynic could be excused for calling the likely campaign between Obama and Romney a political race to the bottom. But I suspect Romney’s win in Michigan will set in place a political showdown that will take us late into the night on the first Tuesday in November. Then history will happen again and whoever loses will be left asking the great historical question Rick Santorum should be asking himself right now: What if?
Actually, Scarborough wrote this commentary about Santorum specifically. However, it speaks to the entire sideshow that has occupied our fall and winter. We have had one unlikely candidate after the other paraded before us as the next Rrepublican candidate, only to have one’s hopes on that candidate smashed to smitherines before the nation. Perry, Bachmann, Huntington, Caine, Johnson and some other ‘also rans’ were paraded out only to fall by the wayside. They affectionately got labeled the flavor of the week.
Tomorrow the polls open in Virginia to the tune of a $3 million dollar primary. That sounds with it and involved until we realize only 2 candidates are running in Virginia–the forerunner and a candidate who doesn’t have a ghost of a chance of winning the nomination. Romney, the presumed hair apparent and Ron Paul, who gins up the young crowd because his libertarianism allows him to breath the notion of legalized pot.
I don’t know many people even going to the polls. If I were a Republican, I would get on over there. I just think it is one’s patriotic duty to vote. However, I am Independent so I feel no obligation. Voting would put me on another Republican call list and I am already a marked person from last summer. I haven’t heard any talk of Democratic mischief making either. Maybe they feel it isn’t worth their time, with only 2 candidates.
I am one of those who would be too superstitious to make mischief. I feel if I went out and voted in a primary for the biggest jerk, just to sway an election, I would end up with that jerk in office. It would be a living, breathing lesson in really bad Karma. If there were competition in this election, I would be out casting my vote for Mitt Romney. I have always felt that he and Huntington were the only 2 Republican options. Since Huntington isn’t on the ballot, I guess that answers that one. Santorum is simply not electable. Romney is the best choice. Ron Paul isn’t really in the running.
Who will be voting tomorrow? Many eyes are on Super Tuesday. While Virginia is not so important, several other state primaries could be critical to who effectively controls the nomination. It makes the difference in a sprint to the convention finish live vs a long uphill trudge.
I will go out on a limb and predict Romney will win Virginia.
That’s risky business there, Starry.
I don’t think I’d be as brash as Starry, but I would be willing to predict that either Romney or Paul will take it by very strong margins over Gingrich and Santorum.
WaPost reports that voter turnout here thus far has been abysmal. That does not bode well for the repugs candidate for Virginia in November, whoever it may be.
It certainly should send a strong message to the Virginia General Assembly that our primary rules need a little revamping. The primary cost Virginians $3 million dollars. It is a bipartisan issue that needs to be fixed.
Can’t bring myself to trudge over to Metz to make the choice between Itchy and Scratchy. I was kind of hoping for some electoral drama, like Paul hiring some Black Panthers to patrol Metz, or maybe some Dobermans near the door, but the place looked dead empty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37OWL7AzvHo
Romney wins Virginia easily, but a tougher battle may lie ahead
Ben Pershing,
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the Virginia primary as expected, but the impressive returns of his lone opponent, Rep. Ron Paul, offered additional evidence of voter dissatisfaction with the Republican front-runner.
Paul won 40.5 percent of the vote, easily his strongest percentage showing since the Texas congressman began running for president in 2008, garnering more than 107,000 votes. Romney took 59.5 percent. Romney won 43 of 46 delegates available in the primary.
The limited competition made the contest one of Super Tuesday’s least suspenseful, but Virginia’s political significance will be demonstrated in the presidential contest in November.
Fighting a coast-to-coast battle against multiple opponents, Romney has barely campaigned in Virginia and has almost no infrastructure in place.
President Obama’s reelection operation, by contrast, has five offices and more than a dozen paid staff members in the state, with more on the way. Obama also has made frequent trips across the Potomac River; he will be back in the state Friday to deliver a speech on the economy in Prince George County, south of Richmond.
“There’s the irony,” said Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University. “Although [Romney] got an easy slate of delegates, probably it would have been better for his campaign in the long run to have had a competitive race in Virginia.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-wins-virginia-easily-but-a-tougher-battle-may-lie-ahead/2012/03/06/gIQAHowcvR_story.html?hpid=z3