Will Romney be the weakest nominee ever?

Let's begin with appropriate clarifications:

This is in no way, shape or form an attack on the former governor politically or personally. Personally, he seems like a pretty decent guy, and politically, as far as Republicans go, I actually liked him tolerably well in his original pragmatic, moderate form. This is, as you'll see below, an examination of cold, hard mathematical fact. As for "ever", well, it's always nice when you can slip some hyperbole into your headline. "Weakest ever" may be a little over the top, but again, as you'll see in cold hard numbers below, for Republican nominees after 1968, so far it's an accurate statement.

Let's start with some pictures. Nearly 1/10th of the states in the Union have now spoken:

Granted, these are mostly smaller states, adding up to less than 100 electoral votes in total. But a quick look at the tallies from these states is interesting (my figures, based on final tallies for all but Maine):

So far Romney is clearly running ahead of the pack, but somewhat underwhelmingly.

To get a sense of just how underwhelmingly, it helps to do some comparison. As I mentioned last week, Democrats, as a more fractious lot, often end up having nominees who barely clear 50% of total votes in their primary and caucus contests, or even fall under 50%. For Republicans, though, this is much more uncommon. Taking all contested nominations (i.e. not considering candidates like Reagan in 1984 or Clinton in 1996 who ran without any serious opposition for their nominations) since the modern primary system rules were substantially reformed after 1968, only one Republican nominee has received less than 50% of the total votes (figures from Wikipedia, so they must be accurate):

Think about these numbers for a second. John McCain in 2008, a candidate that the Conservative base of the party was very distrustful of and who was running when the party was having a major post-Bush crisis of confidence, is the only Republican in the modern era to get below 50% of his party's votes on his way to the nomination. And Mitt Romney, so far, is running below that level.  

"Ah yes," you might say, "so far!" Granted, you would expect Romney's totals to build as the race goes on. But maybe not by a whole lot, and maybe not terribly fast. We can, for instance, look at current national polls at Real Clear Politics:

Santorum is now the fourth (or fifth, if you count Gingrich as having done it twice) candidate in the last six months to jump to a national lead versus Romney. The latest polls indicate he now ties Romney for favorability among Republicans generally, and leads among Conservatives. On a state-by-state basis, the latest polls from Michigan show Santorum ahead for the February 28th primary there, and, moving in to Super Tuesday (March 6th), Gingrich has about even odds for taking Ohio according to fivethirtyeight.com, and leads in his native Georgia according to almost all polls there. Even in Arizona, where Romney is heavily favored to win on February 28th, he struggles to get to 50%.

So, at least through Super Tuesday, by which time almost half the states in the union will have held primaries or caucuses, Romney is very unlikely to rise above 40-something percent of the total cumulative vote. I would even submit that Romney may be getting close to the point where he can't sew up the nomination until June, and maybe not even by then. As Hillary Clinton can tell you, this point can creep up on you earlier than expected.

Again, a little math is in order:

2,043	Delegates remaining to be selected as of 2/14/12
1,046	What Romney still needs (1,144 total, minus 98  he currently has according to the Real Clear Politics tally)
51.2%	Percentage needed

Skipping back to the vote tallies by state earlier in this column, Romney's running at 39% so far. He's only topped 40% in two of the nine states that have voted, and hasn't reached 51% in any of them. The math is a little wrinklier than that, since there are several winner-take-all contests (though fewer than there were even as recently as 2008), but the point is, the math is already tilting towards this going on into June.

There's only been one Republican nomination contest like that in the modern era, when Ronald Reagan nearly outran the incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976. Ford, of course, went on to lose the general election. Further food for thought: At 39%, Romney is not only bringing in a lower share of the total than any Republican nominee after 1968, he's three spots from the bottom for any nominee of either party. Those spots belong to candidates who went on to lose 49 of 50 states in the general election.

I am not, of course, predicting that. While Obama's chances for reelection have definitely ticked up over the past few weeks, all signs still indicate a close fight. But it is still an extraordinary sight to see a Republican nominee going in to that fight with support this soft.      

Book Review: The Field Guide to Bigfoot and The Romminghouse Madrigals

Goals, I hear, help give life direction and purpose. And while I have to tone down my own relentless goal-orientation at times to rediscover the joy of just being, I do find goal-setting to be a useful tool.

One goal that I've taken up for this year is a self-challenge to read 52 books. I'm being fairly liberal in my definition of "book", including comic trade paperbacks, for example. I'm also being fairly liberal in my definition of "read in this year", including books I began in 2011 but am finishing in 2012. All appropriate disclaimers now aside, you can track my progress on my Goodreads profile, and so far I'm doing pretty well. With these two that I've just finished, I'm at 5 out of 52! And now, for the reviews...

The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates (Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe, Anomalist Books, 2006, 205 pp.)

I've had my eye on this book for a while, but after recently visiting the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine headed by the book's author Loren Coleman, it became even more of a priority. I'm glad I got around to it, because it's loads of fun. Originally written in 1999, and with two forwards now bringing it into the 2000s, the front section, in fine field guide fashion, aggregates worldwide reports of different kinds of mystery hominids to produce profiles (with track outlines and range maps) of nine "types" of possible undiscovered primate. This actually is very useful in that it clarifies how some dissimilar sightings that are lumped together as "Bigfoot" or "the Yeti" for example, may actually result from more than one species or variant. The bulk of the book then has two page descriptions of over 50 sightings, arranged by continent, one page being a full-page line drawing, and the other describing the details of the sighting, which subtype it corresponds to, and a general setting of related sightings, legends and fossil finds that resemble the case in question. The final section goes over the science of proving or disproving unknown primates, and makes some best guesses about which might soon be discovered. While one could certainly have a quibble or two (I, for example, would have liked range maps for the individual sightings, and was also left wondering why semi-legendary material about giants and mermaids was fair game, but equally widespread fairy lore was not) the book is fun and well-done. As with most books on the unexplained, it's worth further research on what you read, as some things mentioned turn out to be less than meets the eye after further reading. The authors have generally been careful with their facts, though, and there are loads of things here that even an aficionado of cryptozoology like me had never heard of before.           

The Roominghouse Madrigals (Early Selected Poems 1946-1966) (Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press, 1988, 256 pp.)

Speaking of goals for the year, one of mine is to finish putting together a collection of what I like to think is my best poetry from 2001-2010 and finding a publisher for it. As with many different kinds of writing and editing, one of the best things to do for inspiration is to read in the same genre, and I usually have a volume of poetry that I'm currently reading. Like this one that I just finished, which I LOVED. I've long been a fan of Bukowski, who is in the happy position of being an equally good poet, novelist and essayist. Interestingly, given the picture of him as a grizzled barfly, he's like a classic 19th century man (or woman) of letters in that respect. And the fact that he focuses his powers on the gritty facts of urban life and the inner blight of wrestling with bitterness and failure makes it all the more glorious. This volume features his early poems, from before his success and wider fame of the late 60s/early 70s. Anybody who has ever spent time in the roominghouses of rough streets and/or their own soul will find things here that they recognize in their beauty, ugliness and honesty. And isn't that what poetry, at it's best, can do for us?    

Will Mini-Tuesday mix things up?

For those of you just tuning in, 10% of the states in the union have now held primaries or caucuses. This is also known mathematically as five states:

One has to note that, with the exception of Florida, they're smaller states, collectively accounting for 54 electoral votes, only 1/5 the total someone would need to win this fall. That being said, the group to-date isn't a bad mix- Northeast, West, South, Midwest, and one large state with cross-regional and cross-cultural population groups are all represented. Based on the voting so far, where do the Republican candidates stand?

Let's take a look...

Looking at the numbers, I find a couple of things to be interesting:

• Romney is clearly ahead, but if you total his and Huntsman's votes versus 85% of the total so far for the conservative candidates (i.e. what you might expect a unified conservative candidate to have if there was one) it's pretty close- 43% versus 40%, rounded off. 

• If you're Gingrich, you probably think you deserve to be the last Conservative standing, since you've gotten more than twice as many votes as Santorum has.

• If you're Santorum, you're probably not totally convinced you should step down yet, since you're third, you may have a good day today (more on that in a moment), and...

• Romney's lead is fairly weak, historically speaking.

To follow up on that last point, you'll see above that he's currently at around 41% of the total. Democrats tend to be a more fractious lot, and it's not at all unusual for even a candidate that ends up tying up the nomination pretty handily to be under 50% of the total. For Republicans, though, it's practically unheard of in the modern era. The lowest percentage I could find any Republican winning their nomination by post-1968 was McCain in 2008, who ended up with 46.5% of the party's total votes. That was a nominee that the party was very lukewarm toward, running in an election that they expected to lose going in, and Romney is beneath that level.

Granted, you'd expect his total to rise as we go on, as the field narrows. And another three states (Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri) vote today in what's being called Mini-Tuesday. Sort of. As Swing State Voter nicely explains, most of the voting today doesn't directly result in delegates being awarded. Still, news is news, and it's definitely an indication of where enthusiasm lies. So how's it looking?

Actually, pretty scattered:

The most recent available polls for Colorado show Romney ahead, but as one of three candidates polling more than 20%, instead of as a runaway favorite. In Minnesota, he may actually be slightly behind Santorum. Missouri hasn't attracted a lot of polling, but there's a decent chance that Santorum could win there as well, or at least place strongly. Indeed, 538.com is noting that Romney is generally weaker in the Midwest and both Santorum and Gingrich could have some upset possibilities there.

So how much could today mix things up? A Santorum victory (or two) would certainly breathe some new life into his campaign. Gingrich is less likely to get any great news today, but he could continue to field double-digit results across the board, which will encourage him to stick around as well. This could make Michigan interesting later in the month. It also probably holds Romney down below 50% of the total until Super Tuesday at the earliest.

Could he lose the nomination? Unlikely. Ultimately, he remains the only candidate with the funds and organization to compete across the country (poor Newtie didn't even manage to get on the ballot in Missouri for today!). But the longer Romney remains a circa 40% leader of a field that has three other candidates in double-digits, the longer the doubts that many of the Republican faithful have about him have to ferment. Which could leave the party less unified and enthusiastic than it typically is, making for a more difficult Fall campaign for them. Check back in next week!    

When Romney wins Florida it's...over? Beginning? In the middle?

First things first, Romney, as you'll see below, seems to be well-headed to victory in Florida on Tuesday:

As of Friday, his surge and Gingrich's drop were plateauing, but at levels that leave Romney 8+ percent ahead. With about 9% undecided, almost all of them would have to break for Gingrich for him to regain the lead, and given his uneven performance in Friday's debate, that doesn't seem likely. The latest models at fivethirtyeight.com are also forecasting a Romney victory of 8.5%.

So what will this probable victory mean? Just 11 days ago, when I was expecting Florida to mark four Romney victories out of four, I thought it would mean the end of the race. Then Gingrich surged, Perry dropped out and Santorum retroactively became the victor in Iowa, causing me to recant just before South Carolina. Romney has rallied in Florida, getting muscular with attacks, clearing up his hedging on financial disclosure, and drawing in the establishment, who were suddenly panicked by Gingrich's resurgence. Will a Romney Florida win knock Gingrich out and once again point us toward a quick sew up?

I think there are some reasons to be skeptical. For one thing, Santorum is just about out of money, and it's not clear how a Florida third place that barely clears 10% would help him. Which leaves us with some interesting math:

If you look at the votes so far for the seven Republican candidates that started out in Iowa, a few things stand out:

1. Elimination has been fairly rational, in the sense that everyone who only garnered single didgits is now gone.

2. If you are Gingrich, you're so close to Romney overall so far that only an ultra-shellacking in Florida would convince you that you have no chance long term.

3. Assuming that all Huntsman votes would have gone to Romney if Huntsman hadn't been in the race, and assuming that some, but not all of the conservative votes (I've taken 75% of totals for Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry and Santorum) would have gone to a single Conservative candidate if there was only one in the race, the hypothetical Conservative would lead Romney so far. If you assume even more Conservative overlap, and/or less than 100% Huntsman conversion to Romney, the Conservative would lead by even more.

4. Bachmann and Perry are gone, and Santorum is running out of money. Gingrich is, effectively, the only remaining figure Conservatives dissatisfied with Romney will have to flock to after Florida.

The schedule between Florida and Super Tuesday on March 6th gives Gingrich several chances to steal a surprise victory or two and rally those still looking for an alternative to Romney, keeping things interesting until Super Tuesday on March 6th.

Sat., February 4, 2012	Nevada
February 4–11, 2012	Maine
Tue., February 7, 2012	Colorado
	Minnesota
	Missouri
Tue., February 28, 2012	Arizona
	Michigan
Sat., March 3, 2012	Washington

On the skeptical toward my skepticism side of the coin, it's a heck of a lot of time, and a heck of a lot of geography to cover, for a candidate as underfunded and understaffed as Gingrich. It's also worth noting that Gingrich's best chance is probably in the arch-Conservative Arizona, but they don't vote for four weeks after Florida. And the lightning rod issue there is immigration, just about the only issue in existence on which he is actually to the left of Romney. 

It will be interesting to see it all play out... 

Book Review: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (Edgar Allen Poe, 1838, 146 pp.)


When I got the Nook for Christmas and set about using my Barnes & Noble gift cards to download things to it, one of the first things I discovered was the joy of works that are beyond copyright protection. 99 cents can get you a lot, and if (as I would recommend) you spring for the extra few dollars to get to the $2.99-$4.99 category to get collections that have proper indexing for E-readers, you can find yourself with the entire works of William Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky or H.P. Lovecraft for under five dollars each. And, in this case, Edgar Allen Poe as well.

When I downloaded a collection of his stories, I discovered that it also included The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the only novel he ever wrote. Having just finished it, I can testify that it is a gem, albeit a somewhat baffling one. What starts off as an adventure at sea story, and then takes a decidedly Poeian turn to cannibalism, becomes a fantasy of Antarctic exploration that then ends without an ending. Poe didn't die in the middle. Publishers didn't pressure him to finish it. He quite deliberately ends with a mysterious final scene, and then writes an afterword explaining how the last few chapters (since it's written as a memoir that has been "discovered" by Poe) have been lost.

While this is consternating, it does produce a curious effect of mystery and wonder that I, and apparently many other readers, ended up appreciating. The language is a delight, as is the always self-obsessed narration of the main character as he stumbles through fantastical scenes of stowing away, mutiny, shipwreck, starvation and sailing ever southward through increasingly strange realms.

One of the things that I found most interesting in reading about it after reading it, is the profound effect this strange little unfinished book has had on other writers. I'd known that H.P. Lovecraft was influenced by it and makes repeated references to it in his Antarctic novel At The Mountains of Madness. In addition to that, though, it appears to have been a major, uncredited, influence on Herman Melville in writing Moby Dick, was admired and translated by Baudelaire, and also inspired loosely-related sequels by Jules Verne and another 19th century writer, Charles Romyn Dake. More recently the book inspired critiques of its racial depictions by Toni Morrison, which themselves became the jumping-off point of Mat Johnson's satirical 2011 novel Pym, in which an African-American literature professor becomes obsessed with finding the inhabitants of the islands described toward the end of Poe's novel.

I myself found the depictions of the "savages" in the book to be troubling in their early-19th century way. Perhaps it's my own post-modernity talking, but I wondered along the way if Poe wasn't slightly tongue in cheek about it. The narrator believes they're guilty of a brutal massacre, but there are subtle indications throughout the work that the narrator himself is somewhat incompetent and not entirely reliable in his recollections. Are the signs that he sees of what he believes is a deliberately set-up ambush actually totally misinterpreted? One of several interesting questions to consider while reading...       

South Carolina: This changes...Something!

Not in the long run, but still something.

Last week, I was thoroughly convinced that today's primary in South Carolina would produce a clear victory for Romney, setting him up for a win in Florida and de facto ending the Republican nomination contest by the end of the month. Well, I'm a big enough Blogger to admit when I'm (partially) wrong. To wit, view the latest polling average from Real Clear Politics over the last three days:

As you can see, going in to the home stretch, Gingrich is in the lead, has upward momentum, and Romney, which is even worse for his chances today, has downward momentum. The model at the eminently respectable FiveThirtyEight.com is forecasting a Gingrich victory of around 38-30.

What happened? Gingrich has had some clear pluses this week: momentum from a strong debate performance Monday, Perry dropping out and endorsing him (which I did not foresee), and another strong showing on Friday night. He also had some pretty clear minuses in the last few days: Santorum's endorsement by the Evangelical establishment, Santorum's belated recognition as the victor in Iowa, and a decidedly unflattering interview with his ex-wife on national television Thursday night.

The pluses seem to be outweighing the minuses. Goes to show you what I know! I also realize that I made a fundamental error in my mathematical noodlings from last week in only considering reallocation of votes among candidates and not the additional factor that there were about 10% undecided who might break Gingrich's way as well. Even so, I wouldn't have called it, since I thought Perry would hang in there, and in addition to the votes from Perry, Santorum and undecideds going to Gingrich, Romney has been dropping the last few days.

Color me contrite! And, to clarify my above statement that I was partially wrong, I am probably, in fact, going to be completely wrong in my short term predictions from last week. If Gingrich wins today and Santorum is fourth, Florida becomes a real contest. And if Santorum is fourth there as well, Gingrich has an excellent chance of being the last Conservative standing and pulling in enough resources from that status to hang in there for many primaries and caucuses to come. As most everyone notes, Romney retains every advantage over the medium/long term. In that sense the "inevitable Romney" theory is probably still correct. But this could at least keep it interesting through Super Tuesday!

And it also has some bearing on Romney's ultimate prospects, as the longer the competitive race, the more focus on him seems to be eroding his favorability rating. Everyone pulls together for their nominee eventually, of course, but enthusiasm matters, as does the opposition seeing what avenues of attack are likely to be most fruitful. Those of us who still believe in civility should put up the blast shields, because this fall could get nasty on both sides...            

South Carolina update: This Changes...Nothing

Mind you, there are a few things afoot that could affect this Saturday's primary in South Carolina. Such as the fact that everybody else in the field finally realized Romney is about to walk away with it, and targeted him relentlessly in last night's debate. Not to mention which, they are spending heavily in the state with advertising that focuses on him, rather than each other. Santorum certainly got a boost when the evangelical conference this past weekend decided he was their last best hope for a conservative alternative to Romney, and backed him with surprising unanimity. Meanwhile, in the pro-Romeny camp, Hunstman has decided to drop out and back Romney.

The net effect of all of this? Just about nothing. To see why, you have to look no further than the latest Real Clear Politics averages for South Carolina:

Gingrich is not getting any upward trajectory for all his spending, but neither is he dropping. Santorum has similarly plateaued after a weak New Hampshire showing. The state is friendly to them, but they both have limitations in field strength, and are competing with each other for the same votes. Perry is meanwhile making his last stand, but clearly not getting any traction out of it, and any hope he held onto that evangelicals would rally around him is clearly dashed after this weekend. Santorum could get some boost from the evangelical backing, but no recent poll has him closer than 15 points behind Romney, and that's way too much to make up in 5 days, especially with Gingrich and Perry continuing to unroll their remaining advertising riches. And the considerable anti-Romeny advertising money that has been floating around is meanwhile largely focused on attacks on his business record that have actually caused conservatives to come to his defense, rather than on the social issues where he is much more vulnerable.

All of this combines to pretty much hold in place the following math, which you can see above:

Romney+Huntsman=37.3%
Gingrich=22%
Santorum & Paul=14.3% each
Perry=5.5%

Hypothetical united Conservative would win, narrowly, about 41%-37%, but neither Gingrich or Santorum will get that high unless almost all of the other's votes plus Perry's flow to them in the next five days. Which, absent a candidacy-ending scandal, isn't going to happen. Meanwhile, Perry has insisted he'll stay in through Florida, and Santorum and Gingrich have already spent so much money ahead in the state that they'll be heavily tempted to as well no matter how South Carolina turns out. Which makes it very likely that another split field will hand Romney four in a row.