Bye-Kus for Mitt Romney (in before Best of the Web!)
Romney’s defeat in
California stained his
Holy Underwear
West Virginia
Politics ain’t beanbag, son
Quit yer whinging, Mitt
McCain Derangement
plus Rushbo and Hannity
Couldn’t stop John’s win
Line of the night:
“I’ve got to say that Mitt Romney was right about one thing – this is a two man race. He was just wrong about who the other man in the race was. It’s me, not him,” Huckabee told The Associated Press, emboldened by wins in West Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Arkansas.
UPUPDATE RCP now has McCain up 320+ delegates over Romney. Latest: McCain 511 / Romney 189 / Huckabee 143. Very rough counting shows about 1100 delegates outstanding with 1,191 needed to win: that means. mathematically, Romney has to take 1000 out of the final 1100 or so to beat McCain, and that’s without Huckabee getting any either.
As Roger Simon says: Big surprise: As of 10:30PM Tuesday, McCain leads Romney in California by 18% – a blowout in a state in which Romney was supposed to be surging. Romney should do the graceful thing and drop out. All those millions could be used for cancer research.
UPDATE 2: A little reality for all the state counters: McCain won 227 delegates to 36 for Romney and 24 for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. A total of 1,023 delegates are up for grabs in 21 states.
Overall, McCain led with 331 delegates, to 129 for Romney and 69 for Huckabee. It takes 1,191 to win the nomination at this summer’s convention in St. Paul, Minn.
UPDATE: via Powerline: Fox News projects that Hillary Clinton and John McCain will win in California. McCain’s victory is the more meaningful of the two, as it makes him the prohibitive favorite for the Republican nomination, in my view.
The morning after [Mark Steyn]
I think John O’Sullivan is right. There was an explicit anti-Romney vote in the south. A mere month ago, in the wake of Iowa and New Hampshire, I received a ton of emails from southern readers saying these pansy northern states weren’t the “real” conservative heartland, and things would look different once the contest moved to the south. Well, the heartland spoke last night and about the only message it sent was that, no matter what the talk radio guys say, they’re not voting for a Mormon no way no how.The rationale for Romney continuing his campaign is that he’s the conservative alternative to McCain. The message from Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee is that he will never be accepted as such by the conservatives’ electoral base. With the loss of California, it’s hard to see the point of Mitt pushing on. On the other hand, given the ongoing vote-softness of the “frontrunner”, it’s mind-boggling to think the GOP can’t produce a viable alternative.
Die Hard Romneyorons, political junkies all, would know that how many states you “win” means jack shit, RCP has McCain up 200+ delegate over Romney, and that’s before California, where Romney is having a bad night (down -13 to McCain last time I checked). So far, McCain has 550 delegates to Romney’s 220, which gives McCain 60% of what he needs.
Unless Romney pulls off a miracle in CA, its nearly mathematically impossible for him to catch up. Although I don’t much like Huckabee, I could stomach him as VP, which is all he’s going for now anyway, and with support like this he may very well get it, it would be a good move politically, evangelicals (who, it has now been shown, will not support Romney, contrary to assertions of those whistling past the graveyard).
The question now is, when does Romney drop out, immediately, or try to capitalize on a few more states where he’s already spent money and could pick up a few delegates, strengthening his rep. But its over guys. Polls had shown him surging, I was a bit nervous, but McCain won where he had to and Huckabee was more competition than Romney, and Huck has shown he is not hostile to McCain, knows he can’t win and can be counted on to back McCain in the general (unlike Romney, who clearly detests McCain and has zero chance at the VP position).
Good night, no gloating, just what I expected. The Republicans almost always reward the “next in line”, Romney had a strategy to try to upset that, but bungling in Iowa and NH did him in. It was basically over after those stumbles, and Guiliani (the other “establishment” candidate) failure to compete in early states. McCain ended up being more “inevitable” than Hillary.
Now for 8 or 9 months of carping by the far right. Face it losers, Romney never could have won the election if he can’t win a SINGLE FUCKING SOUTHERN STATE primary.