The Surging Santorum Roundup

Two new polls show Santorum leading Romney in Michigan:

A loss in Michigan would be disastrous for the Romney campaign. Romney was born in Michigan, and his father was governor of the state for six years. In 2008 Romney won the Michigan primary by nine points against Senator John McCain (R-AZ), even though McCain later went on to win the Republican nomination. Given all these facts, Michigan should be a very strong state for the Romney campaign. Instead, Romney seems to have actually lost some of his support from 2008, and now is threatened by a Santorum campaign that has not even spent a lot of money in the state, yet.

Santorum may not have to spend as much money as would otherwise be necessary because of all the free media he's getting. One teevee ad is getting lots of circulation because it astoundingly shows him getting pummeled, paintball style, by a brown frothy mixture.



There's a fun bit of psychoanalysis at the link. Snark aside, the spot does a good job of making Romney look like the jerk he is without stooping to Romney's level of nastiness.

Santorum's corresponding rise in the polling nationally is making journalists question whether this latest surge might last.

Until his victories in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, many supposed experts viewed Santorum’s campaign as a curiosity or ignored it completely. Now things have completely turned around. The newspapers and political sites are full of articles treating Santorum as a credible contender. I’ve even written one myself. Last week, I pointed out that his message of social conservatism and economic populism clearly resonates with large parts of the Republican base, and also with some independents and Reagan Democrats.

All the evidence suggests that Santorum’s campaign still has real momentum. According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which was released (February 14), he is now leading Romney nationally among Republican primary voters by thirty per cent to twenty-seven per cent—a statistical tie. This finding follows two more national surveys released on Monday, which produced very similar results. The latest Gallup tracking poll had Romney leading by thirty-two per cent to thirty per cent; a poll from the Pew Research Center showed Santorum edging Romney by thirty per cent to twenty-eight per cent.

The response from both Mitt R-Money and Republicans in general to the Santorum Surge seems to be a stunned, mumbled 'WTF'.

Still, some Republicans are warning Mitt not to do to Rick what he did to Newt.

... National Review's editors accused Romney of "trying to win the nomination by pulverizing his rivals," adding that "his attacks on Santorum have been lame, perhaps because they are patently insincere." Richard Land, an evangelical conservative leader who hasn't endorsed a candidate, said Romney would be making a terrible mistake to go nuclear on Santorum. "Santorum’s a much more likable figure and a much harder figure to demonize than Newt Gingrich was," Land told Politico. "If he does that, there’ll be a backlash." And Byron York reports that late last week a group of conservatives at CPAC informed Romney that he should abandon his attack-dog strategy against Santorum.

And as you might have guessed, all this conservative discombobulation leaves Democrats with a wonderful opportunity to make mischief of the type Republicans know well.

It's time for us to take an active role in the GOP nomination process. That's right, it's time for those of us who live in open primary and caucus states—Michigan, North Dakota, Vermont and Tennessee in the next three weeks—to head out and cast a vote for Rick Santorum.

Why would we do such a crazy thing? Lots of great reasons!

Republican turnout has sucked, and appears to be getting worse by the contest. Unlike the 2008 Democratic primaries, which helped President Barack Obama and the Democrats to build a national organization, the GOP is an organizational disaster, with waning voter interest. That means that it takes fewer votes to have an impact than if Republican turnout was maxed out.

Several of the contests have produced razor-thin margins of victory. Rick Santorum won Iowa by 34 votes, Mitt Romney "won" Maine by 194 votes. It won't take many of us to swing contests the way we want them to swing.

The longer this GOP primary drags on, the better the numbers for Team Blue. Not only is President Barack Obama rising in comparison to the clowns in the GOP field, but GOP intensity is down—which would have repercussions all the way down the ballot.

The longer this thing drags out, the more unpopular the Republican presidential pretenders become. Just look at Mitt Romney's trajectory, which followed Herman Cain's trajectory, and Newt Gingrich's trajectory, and Michelle Bachmann's trajectory, and so on.

Rick Santorum will inevitably follow the same path once he gets properly vetted. Mitt Romney has been unable to stem the bleeding despite his tens of millions. Just imagine Santorum, with the far more radical record and a continued inability to raise real money.

I couldn't care less who wins the GOP nomination at this point because it doesn't matter. The Republicans running for president have, from the beginning, ritually self-immolated one by one. For its part, the Texas GOP has so screwed everything up -- from the redistricting mess to the next edition of the massacre of public education -- that the only people who believe what they say are the Fox-informed ... which pathetically remains a voting majority in this state. (Texas is in fact so hopeless that the kind of outrage being demonstrated in various media sources over proposed transvaginal ultrasound mandates in Virginia is something we have put in our rearview mirror, thanks to the 9th Circuit.)

Honestly, there's not much to do but sit back and watch as the freaks in the circus try to put up the Big Top ... and not choke on my popcorn laughing.

Update: Choking on my popcorn laughing. Santorum's billionaire benefactor Foster Friess, today:

And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.

Redistricting skirmishes continue... among the GOP *updates*

Even as the judges ordered the parties in the Texas redistricting lawsuit to make a deal -- demanding they work late on Valentine's Day, for Jeebus' sake -- the Republicans continued feuding among themselves.

Jared Woodfill, chairman of the Harris County Republican Party, has stirred up a squabble around the GOP dinner table with an e-mail he sent out Saturday that, in essence, gigged Attorney General Greg Abbott and state party chairman Steve Munisteri for being wimpy about redistricting. (“Wimpy” is [Houston Chronicle reporter Joe Holley's] word, not Woodfill’s, who in a couple of conversations [Holley] had with him emphasized that he was trying to be polite, despite his consternation.)

What got Woodfill going was Munisteri’s willingness to go along with a map Abbott produced that would cost Harris County Republicans two seats in the state House. “Local Republicans feel like we’re being sold out,” Woodfill told me.

His Saturday e-mail — “a respectful e-mail,” he called it — urged Harris County Republicans to contact Munisteri and Abbott to register their objections to the map. “Unfortunately, my reasonable request has been met with finger-pointing, reassigning blame and simply passing the buck,” he wrote in a subsequent e-mail Monday morning.

By Monday afternoon, things had gotten testier. “This thing has blown up into a war,” he said over the phone.

A 'war'. Casualties include paper cuts and carpal tunnel injuries.

What flaming douchenozzles these people are.

We’ve worked to long and too hard for this to happen,” said Woodfill, who also said he had received hundreds of e-mails in support of his no-surrender stance. Paul Betancourt, Dr. Steven Hotze, Allen Blakemore and other conservative stalwarts were urging him on, he said.

“Any map which costs Harris County Republicans at least two seats is unacceptable,” Woodfill repeated. “Let’s continue the fight and let the San Antonio three-judge panel do what they will. If they refuse to accept the Supreme Court mandate, then we will appeal again. However, if we accept a compromised deal with the wild-eyed left, then we lose our right to appeal. Remember, we will have to live with these lines for the next 10 years, so we must get them right now. Then we can be about the business of defeating the Democrats in November.”

Ah, the real enemy is exposed. Exterminate the vermin using as much poison as you can pour on it. Grab your sprayers and charge into battle against the liberal pestilence with all the intensity and overblown rhetoric -- and success -- of Tom DeLay Pest Control, Inc.

That is, as soon as you can stop washing each other in your respective toxins.

Back in the real world, Michael Li summarizes where we are after yesterday.

-- A primary in April is history. There's no time left to pull it off. I reached this conclusion two weeks ago; it's nice to see everyone else catching up.

-- So is a split primary. (Texas is of course broke, so there's no money to pay for multiple elections.)

-- The primary may not be held until May 29 ... or June 26. (See Update II below.) Quoting Li:

Although a May 29 primary appeared to be the most likely fallback date, Judge Rodriguez suggested during the questioning that a June 26 primary would allow the court to wait for a ruling from the D.C. court. (A position supported by Congressman Joe Barton and several of the redistricting plaintiffs.)

-- State party conventions will proceed as scheduled on the second week of June -- because to move them would forfeit deposits in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for convention space and the blocs of hotel rooms reserved by the two political parties for convention-goers. Precinct conventions, usually held on the evening of the primary election, may now be held at the Senate District conventions ... which themselves may wind up at the state conventions.

There's another hearing with the litigants before the judges today. There may be some agreement that comes out of it -- since all they're arguing over is a few districts -- or there may not.

At this point, almost nobody who isn't a politico really cares. And see, that's the problem.

Update (1:30 p.m.):

Groups involved in the redistricting battle reached a deal Tuesday with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for a compromise state Senate map for the 2012 election.

However, little progress appears to have been made toward reaching a deal on maps for the Texas House or congressional seats, as the second day of a key redistricting hearing continues.

The compromise settles the dispute over how the state redrew Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis' Fort Worth district, returning the county to the shape it had before the whole redistricting process began, said Matt Angle, an longtime Democratic strategist and adviser to Davis in her redistricting suit.

Update II (2:00 p.m.):

First it was in March, then it was in April, and now Texas' primary elections have been delayed until at least May 29 as the state's redistricting battle rages on, a San Antonio court ordered Wednesday.

The ruling came after two days of hearings at which a deal was reached for a compromise Texas Senate map; however, the groups suing the state and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott have not been able to reach a similar deal for the Texas House or congressional seats.

“It appears based on all the things that are going on here that it is extremely unlikely there will be a primary in April or for that matter before May 29,” said Judge Jerry Smith.

“Based on the discussion we just had with the political parties, we asked that they start working on an election schedule.”

Happy Valentine's, you crazy in love kids

And starring Greg Abbott as Constipation

Only two things are certain in the Texas redistricting cluster: there will eventually be some elections this year, and Greg Abbott is the source of all the problems.

Rather than inch closer to a resolution over the weekend, both sides may have dug in their heels further. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott told the court that one deal-breaker is carving up the district currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, which would in turn help make Republicans more electable in heavily Democratic Travis County.

Abbott wrote in a filing Monday that while his office was reviewing new proposals to other changes on the map. But he also acknowledged that Doggett's district alone could prevent any chance of a breakthrough.

"The State cannot compromise on this district and that may prevent a global compromise on the Congressional map," Abbott wrote.

There's no legal justification for him to insist on shattering Travis County into five pieces, but who still believes the Attorney General of Texas knows anything about the law anyway? Particularly since he's suffering from a ten-year-old case of Doggett Derangement Syndrome?

Rather than going to the Justice Department, which had been standard practice, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott took the fight to federal court, entering largely uncharted legal territory.

“It's very unusual for a state to just sue” for preclearance, said Michael Li, an elections lawyer in Dallas who has covered the legal saga extensively on txredistricting.org.

Abbott pursued the high-risk legal strategy to get the Republican-dominated maps approved, he said. “Had it worked, it would have been brilliant,” Li said.

The aggressive stance was necessary because the Legislature's maps heavily favored Republicans. Under those maps, three of Texas' four new congressional seats were drawn in Anglo-dominated areas, even though minority population groups accounted for about 90 percent of the state's population growth.

Because of that, Democrats and minority groups quickly filed lawsuits, challenging the maps in the San Antonio federal court. [...]

Doggett managed to survive the 2003 Tom DeLay-backed redistricting that transformed his Austin-centric district into one that stretched from the capital city all the way to the Rio Grande Valley.

“Lloyd Doggett has been a thorn in their side for years and years,” said Harold Cook, a longtime Democratic consultant. “He is their one piece of unfinished business from 2003.”

Republicans tried again in 2011. The maps passed by the Legislature carved Austin into five different congressional districts, drawing Doggett into a heavily Hispanic district that stretched from San Antonio to Austin. State Rep. Joaquín Castro, D-San Antonio, also was eyeing the district, setting the stage for a tough primary fight. But delays in the preclearance trial in Washington forced the San Antonio court to draw a set of interim maps in an attempt to preserve the March 6 primary.

That congressional map restored much of Doggett's old district, icing the primary fight -- but the U.S. Supreme Court then threw out the interim maps. Doggett has continued to campaign in San Antonio, in case “the Perrymandered map” becomes law.

The entire process, he said, has been “really outrageous.”

The real problem for Texas Republicans isn't the jacked-up maps or even the stonewalling by the OAG; it's the inevitable separation of the primary elections down the ballot from the presidential.

A delayed primary is seen as a boon to challengers, especially in the U.S. Senate race, because they have more time to boost name identification and raise money.

Based on recent polling, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is the prohibitive favorite in the GOP race, Cook said, “but if I was his campaign manager, I would worry a little bit. If the election was held today and you'd win, you want the election held today. Every day that goes by introduces a little more uncertainty.”

A split primary could add even more pressure on Dewhurst.

There's no question that holding the presidential primary first, then the Senate race later, would benefit tea party candidates like Ted Cruz, Houston lobbyist Robert D. Miller said. The second primary almost certainly would suffer from lower voter turnout -- and those that do come out are more ideological.

“The later it is, the better it is for Ted Cruz,” Miller said.

Without even factoring in the diminishing country-wide enthusiasm, fewer Lone Star conservatives are going make it out for two different elections, the scheduling of which is still to be determined. Greg Abbott is going to disenfranchise Texas Republicans from having any meaningful say in who their presidential nominee is, just like he's screwed the pooch with his hare-brained legal strategies in pursuing a conservative super-majority in the state and national legislatures.

(Why am I concerned about Republican disenfranchisement? Hey, I'm an empathetic guy that way.)

His hubris means they will lose even bigger than they would under normal circumstances. Greg Abbott, in short, is the Kareem Jackson of the RPT. Every time he takes the field, you know it's bad and going to get worse.

But honestly, he reminds me more of the Colon Lady on that TV commercial.



You Republicans need to keep these failures of his in mind when Abbott runs for governor in 2014.

Update: Charles has a bit more to say about relevance and Texas Republican presidential primaries.