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February 8, 2012

'Anybody But Romney' Wins Everywhere, as GOP Turnout Tanks

By John Nichols

Rick Santorum may have won beauty contests Tuesday in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, but he won't even be on the ballot for delegate-rich contests in states such as Indiana and Virginia. He's still running for vice president, or maybe a cabinet post.

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Cross-posted from The Nation

The big winner Tuesday? Anybody But Romney.

After eight states have held Republican primaries and caucuses, the ordained front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has lost the majority of contests. Mitt Romney has won three races (New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada) but he has now lost five (Iowa, South Carolina, Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota).

Here's the even more unsettling fact for those who would make Romney a nominee: Rick Santorum, who was supposed a footnote to the 2012 contest, has won more states than Mitt Romney. But let's not succumb to Santorumania just yet.

Yes, yes, of course, the sweater vest had a good night. But the big deal is that Republicans rejected the empty suit.

Santorum is a story. But he is not the story.

The story is the fact that Mitt Romney lost so very miserably in three battleground states.

Romney finished second in Colorado and Missouri and, remarkably, barely mustered a third-place finish (behind Santorum and Ron Paul, barely ahead of Newt Gingrich) in Minnesota.

But the place on the list is less telling than than overwhelming levels of opposition to Romney.

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In Colorado, 65 percent of Republican caucus-goers voted against the man who started the week as the all-but-declared nominee of their party.

In Missouri, 75 percent of Republican primary voters backed someone other than Romney.

In Minnesota, 83 percent of Republican caucus-goers rejected Romney. That's particularly striking, as Romney won Minnesota in 2008 with 41 percent of the vote.

In many Minnesota counties, Romney finished fourth, behind Santorum, Paul and Gingrich. Some of the former Massachusetts governor's worst losses were in collar counties around the Twin Cities, an essential base for Republican presidential contenders in the fall.

Several Minnesota counties recorded less than 5 percent support for Romney. In western Minnesota's Norman County (Red River Valley), no one caucused for him. Mitt got 0 percent.

His finishes in the Republican heartlands of rural Missouri and Colorado were almost as bad.

Even more unsettling for the Republicans has to be the fact that, despite intensive campaigning in the three states, turnout collapsed.

In Missouri, a classic bellweather state, there was a stunning drop in primary participation. In 2008, GOP primary turnout was 589,289. In 2012 ,GOP primary turnout was 251,496. That's way less than half the turnout just four years ago.

In Minnesota, caucus turnout four years ago was 62,828. This year, it will be under 50,000. That's an almost 20 percent dropoff.

In Colorado, 70,229 Republicans caucused in 2008. This year, turnout was 64,000. That's close to a 10 percent dropoff.

Of course, there were some differences between the 2008 contests and the 2012 contests in these states. The Romney people want you to know that this year's races were "non-binding beauty contests." But isn't your likely nominee supposed to be attractive enough politically to win beauty contests? And isn't this supposed to be the year when conservatives are all excited to pick a nominee and go after the dreaded Barack Obama?

Something isn't adding up here for Mitt Romney.

But that other candidate, Anybody But Romney, is going from strength to strength.

So, too, it would seem, is the prospective Democratic nominee, if Barack Obama is lucky enough to get Mitt Romney as an opponent.

In Missouri's Republican primary on Tuesday, where all the attention and campaigning was focused, Romney secured 63,826 votes.

Running essentially unopposed in the extraordinarily low-profile Missouri Democratic primary, Obama won 64,405.

Authors Bio:

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.

Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.

Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas' "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.

Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."

With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.

Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."

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