Santorum’s poll numbers sink in PA making U.S. theocracy less likely

Rick Santorum’s early successes in the GOP primary have been worrisome. His determination to lead the nation toward a theocracy and his regressive opinions on the rights of women were scary. The impressive wins on Tuesday by the more moderate Mitt Romney were encouraging and the latest poll numbers from Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania (April 24, 2012 primary) should prompt a sigh of relief from thinking members of the electorate. Public Policy Polling reports:

Mitt Romney's taken the lead in PPP's newest poll of Rick Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania. Romney has 42% to 37% for Santorum with Ron Paul at 9% and Newt Gingrich at 6%. The numbers represent a dramatic turnaround from when PPP polled the state a month ago. Romney's gained 17 points, going from 25% to 42%. Meanwhile Santorum's dropped 6 points from 43% to 37%, for an overall swing of 23 points in the last four weeks.

Pennsylvania Republicans are expressing major doubts about Santorum's viability both in the primary and the general election. Only 36% of GOP voters think Santorum has a realistic chance at the nomination to 54% who believe he does not. And when it comes to matching up against Barack Obama in the fall only 24% of Republicans think Santorum would provide their best chance for a victory while 49% think that designation belongs to Romney.

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Romney projected to win Maryland and DC, leads in Wis.

Told ya I’d be back with the Mitt and Rick primary results. Mitt is projected to win in Maryland and DC, and he’s leading in Wis. From the Huffington Post:

The former Massachusetts governor went into the {Wis.} contest leading rival candidates Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, according to the latest polls.

HuffPost's Mark Blumenthal reports:

The Republican race enters April having just passed a significant milestone. As of the Louisiana primary on March 27, GOP presidential primaries or first-round caucuses have been held in 29 states and five territories, enough to account for just over half (52 percent) of the 2,286 delegates who will attend the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., in August.

Click here for a rundown on who's ahead in the race.

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Romney sweeps Illinois; Santorum has problems with numbers

The Loser: Ill. primary

The winner: Illinois primary

  On Romney’s double-digit win in Ill., the Huffington Post’s bright red, front-page banner headline shouts: EXIT POLLS: 39% 'HAVE RESERVATIONS' ABOUT THEIR CANDIDATE!

Keep in mind that although the Huffington Post has often expressed disillusionment with President Obama, the website served as a powerful megaphone throughout his candidacy while going all out in its attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton.

Now it appears that Arianna and her minions are calculating that Mitt Romney poses a tougher threat to Obama than any of his rivals for the nomination. But really, it’s not just the Huffington Post. The majority of the left-wing pundits and political reporters across the media are following Huffpo’s lead in seeking to take Romney down. I don’t know. Maybe they think Obama, the guy who has disappointed them so many times since he won his party's nomination, is the lesser of two evils?

For a balanced account of the Ill. primary results I turned to Politico. In contrast to how the Huffington Post headlined the story, Politico’s headline reads: Illinois primary results: Mitt Romney crushes Rick Santorum. Politico’s Alexander Burns reports:

Mitt Romney crushed Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary Tuesday night, padding his delegate lead and once again forcing his Republican opponents to find another moment to mount a guerrilla challenge to his campaign.

With 55 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had 48 percent of the vote to Santorum’s 34 percent, Ron Paul’s 9 percent and Newt Gingrich’s 8 percent. That puts Illinois on track to be Romney’s biggest win in a large state since the Florida primary in January.

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Delegate math still favors Romney in Republican primary race

The Christian Science Monitor sums up the delegate count so far in the Republican primary race, and it appears that despite Santorum’s wins in the south this Tuesday, March 13, Romney is still the frontrunner:

Out of 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination, Romney has 485, versus 246 for Santorum, 131 for Mr. Gingrich, and 47 for Paul, according to the Associated Press’s partial delegate count based on Tuesday’s results.

Get the complete results of Tuesday’s vote here.

Romney takes Michigan and Arizona

Okay. My curiosity about the battle between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in the Mich. primary got the better of me. I went to bed early, but awoke later and couldn’t get back to sleep. So here I am posting Romney’s decisive win in Ariz. and his slim victory margin in Mich. – still, it was a victory margin sufficient to prevent Santorum from full-throated gloating over a win in the Romney family’s backyard. And in my opinion, the Republican Party lucked out as far as the odds in the general election are concerned.

Here’s the scoop from Politico's Alexander Burns:

TOLEDO, Ohio — Mitt Romney took a big step toward setting himself back on a path to the Republican presidential nomination, thumping Rick Santorum in the Arizona primary and fending off the potential nightmare scenario of a loss in his native state of Michigan.

Romney was the projected winner in Arizona as soon as the polls closed at 9 p.m. ET. Shortly after 10 p.m., The Associated Press and television networks called the tighter race in Michigan. With 67 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had 42 percent to Santorum’s 37 percent. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich trailed with 12 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

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Gingrich takes South Carolina

Photo courtesy of newtgingrich360.com

Here’s the tally with 26 percent reporting (NY Times):

Gingrich    60,572      40.7%

Romney    39,261      26.4   

Santorum  26,672      17.9   

Paul           19,590     13.2   

Jim Rutenberg at the NY Times has the story:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Surprising his rivals and upending the highly unpredictable Republican race for the presidency, Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, just 10 days after a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire left the impression his candidacy was all but dead.  

Mr. Gingrich rode to victory by winning a plurality of voters among a wide swath of important Republican voting blocs, outperforming the rest of the four-person field among evangelical Christians and Tea Party supporters, men and even women, who had been expected to vote by comfortable margins in favor of Mitt Romney, the man who was presumed to be the front-runner as of just a few days ago. 

Mr. Romney’s defeat is sure to raise new questions that have dogged him from the start of his campaign over whether he could win over the many conservatives, Tea Party adherents and religious voters who have viewed him with suspicion over his Massachusetts health care initiative and past support for abortion rights. 

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Huntsman hits his stride in NH

Photo courtesy of Real Clear Politics.

Just hours ago, in my two previous posts, I was lamenting our media’s ignorance in essentially excluding Jon Huntsman in its coverage of the Republican primary. I found it necessary to point out that Huntsman was obviously the best qualified of the Republican candidates to assume the presidency.

As the polls opened in NH this morning, however, the media’s tune had changed, and a potential Huntsman surge is adding excitement in a race hitherto assumed to be all Romney, all the way.

Richard Benedetto at Real Clear Politics is measured in his expectations of where Huntsman will finish in NH, but he summarizes well Huntsman’s newly energized campaign:

KEENE, N.H. -- If today's New Hampshire Republican presidential primary produces a surprise, it could be Jon Huntsman.

The photogenic former two-term governor of Utah and ambassador to China in the Obama administration has a long-shot chance at finishing third behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

That would be a shock. Huntsman has been campaigning in obscurity for the past six months, choosing to make a do-or-die stand in New Hampshire, but gaining little steam.

However, as the pre-voting days in this no-snow winter capital dwindle to the end, the low-key Huntsman seems to be hitting his stride. Although he continues to bill himself as an “underdog,” his crowds are bigger, his smile is wider, his voice is stronger and his step has an extra spring.

“New Hampshire loves an underdog!” he shouted to a cheering crowd of about 500 Sunday night at Keene State College.

Buoyed by the cheers, he still resisted the siren song of the grandiose prediction. That would be uncharacteristic of a man who has built his reputation on modesty. “We’re going to do well here” was as far as he would go.

His wife, Mary Kaye, who has been campaigning at her husband’s side and making speeches for him for months, was a little more optimistic, though not too much. “Every day the energy gets stronger and stronger. We’re going up, not down,” she declared in the tradition of Huntsman restraint.

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