Sunday, April 15, 2012

Another Ridiculous Post From Right Wingnut

Right Wingnut posted a news item concerning the results of the Colorado Republican Convention, where delegates were selected for the Republican National Convention. RW’s point of the post (I guess) was to try to make the argument that Romney is not uniting the base and that this will result in him losing the general election. I have already given a detailed analysis of Colorado, but let me review a few points.

In 2008, there were 2,273,805 voters that went to the polls to vote in the general election in Colorado. Previously, the Republican caucuses featured 70,229 voters, slightly higher than the amount of voters in this year’s Republican caucuses. That means that Republican caucus voters represent about 3% of all general election voters. John McCain lost Colorado by 9% in the general election.

However, as I pointed out in obnoxious detail in my previous post, there is NO INDICATION that John McCain had any trouble getting the base to vote in the Colorado general election. In fact, the amount of self-identified conservatives actually rose slightly. Barack Obama did win a higher percentage (18%, Democrats usually get about 9-10% of the conservative vote) of these conservative voters than Democrats normally win, but I find it beyond believable that that extra nine percent of conservative voters were the ‘vote in Republican caucuses’ type, much less the ‘vote in the Colorado Republican Convention’ types. In 2008, the Republican base, led by Sarah Palin, was openly accusing Barack Obama of being a socialist and palling around with terrorists. Does anyone really think that the Republican ‘base’ was among that nine percent?

This, however, does not even begin to explain the lack of empirical evidence behind Right Wingnut’s assertions. His complaint is that Romney did not manage to win enough delegates at the Colorado Republican Convention. I could not find out how many voters there are at a Convention, but I can only assume that it is far smaller than the 66,000+ voters that participated in the Caucuses in February. Conventions feature members of the Republican Party that wake up on Saturday mornings to attend meetings once a month. Caucuses feature any registered Republican. If Republican Caucus voters represent about 3% of the entire electorate, I would imagine that Convention voters are under 2%. And that’s probably way too high.

Furthermore, Right Wingnut seems to glance over the fact that Romney, despite losing the beauty contest in February, actually has double the amount of delegates that Santorum has. Currently, Romney has 13 pledged delegates, while Santorum has six. There are another 17 delegates that are unpledged. So even among this 2% of the broader general electorate, there is at least a healthy chunk that are Romney supporters. Some of the unpledged delegates have raised hesitations about voting for Romney at the National Convention, but this does not mean that Romney will not unify the base. Many of these delegates (and the Republicans that supported them), who are the most passionate of Republicans in the state, were involved in the campaigns for the various candidates and are perhaps more reluctant to give in. Furthermore, even if they don’t vote for Romney at the Convention, that does not mean that they won’t vote for him in November. Regardless, who cares? They are such a small amount that it doesn’t really matter what they do. They can stay home in November and pout with Right Wingnut. If Romney loses the state by about 100 votes, then I will take back everything that I have written. However, the Romney campaign would be foolish to devote its resources and message to trying to convince a small handful of Republicans (who will probably vote for him anyway) that he is their guy. Instead, he ought to craft his message to gain moderate voters. Without them, he will lose. Period.

When a handful of the most passionate voters in the state express hesitation for a guy that they had spent the past six months campaigning against, it does not represent that Romney is losing the base. If Romney is going to win Colorado, he will need to win over the large chunk of Bush moderate voters that McCain lost in 2008 as well as a small chunk of conservative voters that voted for Barack Obama. The base will vote for Mitt Romney, much like they voted for McCain and every other candidate that the Republican Party has put forth. It is true that Romney could lose conservative voters (of which we have not yet seen any indication), so I wouldn’t recommend that Mitt comes out in favor of gay marriage or nationalized health care. But you will find Mitt to seem less ideological in the coming months as he focuses more on jobs and the economy and less on transmitting the kind of cultural cues that the base seems to interpret as “conservative.”

Sorry, Right Wingnut. Things didn’t turn out this year like you wanted. But if you are going to post another article out of context, try to bring some data and analysis along with it.

17 comments:

Right Wingnut said...

You didn't really refute anything I posted. I said he needs to unify the base, and you seem to agree. I'm not really sure what your point is.

By the way, my math was wrong yesterday. Romney got 13 of 33 delegates.

Yes, there are a large number of unpledged delegates, but that should sound alarm bells considering the only other options are Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. The fact that Santorum got any is astounding.

Also, you're making a false assumption that all of the Romney skeptics in CO were at the convention.

Right Wingnut said...

According to an acquaintance who is heavily involved in CO politics, most of Romney's pledged delegates are either current office holders, or are running for office.

The rank and file at the convention was for ABR.

Right Wingnut said...

Colorado activist, Firelight, just posted her knowledge of what went down in CO.

Ian, we Coloradans did unite earlier. Romney did NOT win our caucus in February. Santorum did and that was a coalition of many grassroots cooperating together.

As for the Colorado Assembly, don't believe the news. It was not good for Romney. He only received 13 of our 33 delegates and 8 of those are establishment super delegates. The Tea Party grassroots groups consisting of Ron Paul, Santorum, and Gingrich delegates united to make sure that they have the majority and not the establishment.

Trust me, our GOP Chair is at his whits end. He is die hard Romney and promised to deliver the state. When he didn't deliver the caucus win, he assured Romney that he would get our delegates. That didn't happen. The delegates don't care what our state establishment has to say and trust me the pressure was on. Phone calls, emails etc... from Team Romney pressuring delegates to pledge to him.

Well, I know most of our list of 33 delegates and those I don't know, I have friends that know them. Let's just say that Colorado is sending a rich, vibrant, solid slate of Palinistas to Tampa. We are sending FAR MORE Palinistas to Tampa than Romney is sending. They may be supporting Santorum, Paul or Gingrich in the past but they are Palin friendly if not part of our O4P. I am proud.

Now that Romney didn't fair well from our Assembly, they are spreading the rumor that it was due to bigotry and hatred against Mormons. That is the furthest thing from the truth and the report is completely false. This is just Romney's way of covering his ass for not getting the support he should have gotten. The opposition to him is plain and simple, it is small government, anti-Obamacare/Romneycare, anti-debt conservatives who don't believe Romney is a conservative. It has NOTHING to do with religion.

Tampa is going to be fun!!!!



http://conservatives4palin.com/2012/04/open-thread-275.html#comment-498322517

Terrye said...

RWN: I will refute what you wrote..you took a handful people from Colorado and turned that into Romney not uniting base...that is ridiculous. It really is.

And by the way, what is their plan? To vote for Obama? To stay home and let him win?

It is not Romney's fault that these people are not capable of coming up with a viable alternative who can win..to continue to beat this dead horse just makes you look delusional.

Pablo said...

Right Wingnut,

I am still waiting for you to address the actual points in my post. I will address your one point.

"Also, you're making a false assumption that all of the Romney skeptics in CO were at the convention."

No, I am not. What I am saying is that the handful of voters who voted in this state convention are a tiny, miniscule portion of the entire state. And according to recent polling, Romney is getting about the same level of support that McCain got. There is NO EVIDENCE that either McCain (in 2008) or Romney (currently) have failed to get Republican Party support. John McCain got 12% of the vote in the Colorado caucus last year and he managed to get the base out to vote in the general election.

Pablo said...

"you took a handful people from Colorado and turned that into Romney not uniting base...that is ridiculous. It really is."

Yep, exactly. Anecdotal Evidence. I give him hard numbers, he gives me Firelight from Conservatives4Palin! Lol. It's the proverbial, "How could Nixon have won, I don't know anyone who voted for him?"

Right Wingnut said...

Pablo, I confident that Firelight has a better handle on Colorado politics than you do. Just sayin'.....

Right Wingnut said...

Pablo, Can we at least agree that CO will be an awfully tough nut to crack? Matching McCain's performance does not inspire confidence.

Pablo said...

"Can we at least agree that CO will be an awfully tough nut to crack?"

Absolutely! I have written two posts on Colorado explaining that. But it is not because Romney is not conservative enough. Colorado is a tough nut to crack because it is becoming more urban, moderate, and multicultural while the Republican brand is going the opposite direction.

Romney can win Colorado, but it will be very difficult and it will depend on his ability to address the economic concerns of urban and suburban voters.

Right Wingnut said...

A similar story is playing out in Washington.

http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2012/04/14/ron-paul-leads-in-delegates-from-yakima-county-gop

Pablo said...

Pablo, I confident that Firelight has a better handle on Colorado politics than you do. Just sayin'.....

Maybe so. But I would like to see numbers and overall trends, not anecdotal evidence. I do not doubt for one moment that there are conservative voters in Colorado that dislike Romney and will stay home in November. I just see no evidence to suggest that there are that many of them. Furthermore, there are way fewer of them than the large bloc of moderate voters that Romney must win in order to win the state. It is not worth chasing a handful of votes at the risk of losing the middle.

Terrye said...

Why would I believe that some guy who calls himself Firelight has a handle on anything? Nothing he says has anything to do with who rank and file Republicans will vote for. It just does not.

Anonymous said...

Nothing like the Republican Party destroying itself from within. If that's what CO wishes to so, that is fine, just don't expect the country to get better in 4 years. There won't be a cohesive group to oust the Democrats in 4 years.

However, once people realize that Romney is not establishment (a meme put forward by Palinista establishment group, like Limbaugh), he is a man of integrity, character, and resolve to improve the country. If people want to continue to stop their ears and believe the lies, the country cannot improve and the people will get the likes of Obama and worse.

Right Wingnut said...

Terrye, Firelight is woman. She has been very active in Colorado politics for years. She didn't say anything about whether people will or will not vote for Romney in November. She was just sharing what she knows about the convention.

If you want to hash it out with her, you can visit her at palin4america.com, and post on the most recent open thread. She's the main front page writer there.

Anonymous said...

Numb Nut at it again.

Joel2012 said...

So here are the issues:

"The opposition to him is plain and simple, it is small government, anti-Obamacare/Romneycare, anti-debt conservatives who don't believe Romney is a conservative. It has NOTHING to do with religion. Tampa is going to be fun!"

Romney has a track record of success as being a fiscal conservative who opposed big government. He was a hawk with regards to eliminating waste and balancing the budget, turning a budget deficit into a surplus when he left office. His healthcare law is significantly different than the incumbent's national one, and he has repeatedly stated he will begin work to repeal it from day one. He also masterfully worked with a legislature that was 85% democratic which governing as a conservative. And I am sure we are all pleased to know that opposition to his candidacy has nothing to do with his religion.

So what exactly is the problem? Did they believe the rhetoric from the other candidates who ran on ultra conservative issues? Did they not know this was a losing proposition from the beginning? Did they not know where to look for the facts on their own? Or are they simply not logical or rational individuals?

The good news is none of their actions really matter. In the end they did nothing to change the inevitable. If they think what they accomplished is going to in some way affect things at the convention, they are in for a huge surprise. Wishful thinking, but it will not affect the outcome. All of this is much ado about nothing.

Anonymous said...

Romney sucks but to think that Colorado republicans voted for the blasphemous Rick Santorum is absolutely disgusting. OBAMA 2012