Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Thoughts Post New Hampshire Primary

A thought just occurred to me and I had to blog about it and ask the general populace here.

Why is Jon Huntsman staying in the race after New Hampshire?

He showed no indication of dropping out. Even though he camped out in NH for the past month and a half, spending most of his money there, and, arguably, doing well in the debate; despite all that, he generated a third place finish, over 50,000 votes behind Mitt Romney; over 14,000 votes behind Ron Paul. He has failed to get on the VA ballot, IL ballot, and the AZ ballot.

I realize the Republican party is a "big tent" party, but his points of view seem so Democrat, I'm not sure where he fits in on any of the 3 legs of conservatism. I could be wrong, but I assumed that if a person felt they were a Republican, they also matched at least 1 leg of conservatism. I suppose fiscally, sort of. He has a decent idea for a tax plan.

The results were immaterial for Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, except for the disappointment of not even picking up a single delegate. They needed to break 10% to get that, and they will both finish with less than 9.5%.

If Rick Perry is to have ANY hope beyond South Carolina, he'd better finish a VERY respectable third place, if not a second place. I just don't see that happening. He might stay in it just to go on a FL vacation on his supporter's dime. I mean, if I could get 1000s of people to donate thousands of dollars so that I could meet & greet people around the state of SC or FL, I'd be on top of that!

Despite what some in the media will say, Mitt Romney had an excellent night. With his 94,252 votes for a 39.4% result (with 95% reporting), he becomes the first non-incumbent to take Iowa and New Hampshire. He broke his percentage from 2008, and he smashed the number of voters McCain got in 2008. McCain had 88,571 votes for 37.1% of the total. Romney had 75,546 for a 31.6% result. (For completeness in 2008: Huckabee (11.2%), Giuliani (8.6%), and Paul (7.7%) rounded out the top 5.)

Can Mitt take a 5 state sweep? The Intrade market thinks so at 76.0%. It all hinges on South Carolina. Whether or not he takes that state, he nearly has Florida locked up with all of the prep work he has done in the state. As you all have heard, good luck follows those who prepare well, and Romney has been the luckiest candidate this cycle.

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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

He will dropout soon

Anonymous said...

Sad, but it sure seems like he's only in it to hurt Romney at this point. Same for Newt. It's sad to see true natures revealed.

I remember the day Romney dropped out in 08, and how much I respected him for doing it, although I was deeply disappointed. The writing then was on the wall.

But as it is, I don't see the harm for Newt, Perry and Jon to stay in a little longer. It helpss Romney, and hey, if they want to waste donors money, far be it from me to stop them.

The outcome is already pretty much in the bag, though.

-Martha

Anonymous said...

I had the same thoughts regarding Huntsman.

One thought is that he truly is working for the Obama campaign and he is trying to cut into Romney's moderate vote to prevent Romney from capturing the lead since Romney is a true threat to Obama.

My second thought is that Huntsman will be the third party candidate selected by the "America Elect" group and this is a way to give him additional publicity to get his name out there.

I did have one observation...why is it that Murdoch owned enterprises like the Wall Street Journal,Fox News etc...continue to present the majority of Romney stories with a negative slant while giving Huntsman raving reviews on his economic plans and his tenure as governor in the conservative state of Utah.

They say nothing about the fact that he signed cap and trade for the conservative state of Utah. They say nothing about his support for instate tuition for illegal immigration and driver licenses for illegal immigrants or the fact that he significantly increased the spending in Utah.

Huntsman success was not earned it was bought and paid for by Huntsman's billionaire father.

I read that Huntsman quit high school to join a band and then earned a GED after which he earned a business degree where he learned Chinese.

His father gave him a high position in his company and then his daddy bought the governorship for Huntsman and then Huntsman gets appointed as an ambassador....

One other piece of information I read is that Huntsman's family company's business has been quite profitable when it comes to business with China....no wonder Huntsman prefers a policy of appeasement with China. I really wish some young investigative reporter would do more investigation in this matter.

Anonymous said...

Leighrow, Huntsman learned Chinese when he served an LDS mission to China.

-Martha

Anonymous said...

I was shocked Hunstman didn't drop out. He got a distant third place after campaign living in New Hampshire. Those are really bad results, in my opinion. For example, Rick Santorum campaign lived in Iowa, but he got a very, very respectable second place. It makes sense he has continued.

Hunstman is not running on logic, just a very large ego.

Anonymous said...

Huntsman's harmless...he worked realy hard for the opportunity to have a passion filled speech to give at the end of the night and leave the impression that his candidacy wasn't in vain. He acheived that and I'm happy for him.

Obviously second would have been the icing on the cake to his candidacy, but holding onto third when just a week ago everyone was expecting him at a distant fourth or fifth is a great way to go out.

Now Huntsman needs to look in the mirror and decide how far he's willing to let his pride take him. I'm hoping he'll surprise me and bow out gracefully...I really think that's his best bet to walk away with everyone having an improved impression of him.

Gordon

Teemu said...

In 2008, 12 SC delegates (2 delegates per district) were to district winners and 12 delegates went to the state popular vote winner. This year the split is 14 to district winners (2 delegates per district)and 11 to popular vote winner, but that doesn’t make it that much more proportional. In 2008, 3.3% McCain's victory margin over Huckabee brought him 75% of the SC delegates, 18 to Huckabee’s 6.

So since the system is basically the same, few percentage units can make dramatic difference. This offers some nice opportunities to be a party pooper. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Huntsman decided stay in the race…

Teemu said...

Though I think Huntsman's father was somewhat holding back his money, he knows that if Jr. can't succeed without him giving him tens of millions and being source of 90% of their funding, his campaign isn't strong enough to survive in general election either.

So I hope Sr. will not give too much money to his SuperPAC, being third in NH when your whole campaign strategy has been based on almost living in that state for months and months, and being 22.5 points behind the front runner and 6 points behind Ron Paul is not that impressive performance.

Alan said...

Why do candidates who have no hope of winning the nomination stay in the race?
The answer is obvious.
They want to be the next in line in 2016 (should Romney lose to Obama) or 2020. The fight over who will be the non-Romney candidate is no more than a fight to be next in line for the next election.

Except for Newt, of course, who is embittered and is simply running to destroy Romney no matter the consequence.

Anonymous said...

Alan...there will be no one from this cycle who will be able to claim the "next in line" status for the GOP from this particular field. Had one of them showed staying power for more than a month or so, we might have been able to see Bachman and...maybe Santorum??? throw their hat in next time. But they will be going up against All stars and so unless Romney's pick is picture perfect and already on the "favorites" list for 2016...we will not have a next in line candidate next time.

Gordon

Teemu said...

Becoming next in line doesn't always work. Of 1996 field the top 5, except for the 1996 nominee) everybody else ran in 2000 also. Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Lamar Alexander and Alan Keyes. Lamar Alexander seems to be about as skilled and qualified as any non-Romney in this field but he didn't go anywhere, despite making it to 3rd in both Iowa and New Hampshire in 1996. Of course the field might not realize that none of them is capable to claim the next in line spot. February is going to be very dry for anybody but Romney and maybe Paul manages to achieve something in the caucuses also.

Alan said...

Gordon and Teemu, you are right, of course, but that doesn't stop the non-Romneys from trying to be next in line.