Mr. Santorum Withdraws. What's Next?

Former Senator Rick Santorum has bowed to reality, and withdrawn
from the Republican contest for the party's presidential nomination.
This in itself is to be applauded, and the presidential campaign can now
move more appropriately to its next stage.

Mr. Santorum won in eleven relatively small primaries and caucuses, all
of them in the South and Midwest. He did have the second highest number
of delegates to date, but he was not ever truly in a position to win the
nomination. What he did win he gained through hard work, especially in
Iowa, and primarily with his appeal to a particular range of social
conservative voters.

Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul remain in the race, and will probably continue
until Mitt Romney, now the prohibitive frontrunner, actually reaches 1144
delegates, the number necessary for his to win the nomination on the first
ballot. That will probably take place some time in late May or early June.

Mr. Gingrich now rightly claims to be the last major conservative person in
the race, and when the totals are made, will now probably come in second to
Mr Romney. He might even win at least three remaining states, and thus
qualify to be nominated at the convention in Tampa. Mr. Romney and Mr.
Gingrich were the two candidates of the highest stature to actually run for
president this year, so this conclusion makes sense. Furthermore, by casting
himself as the true conservative remaining in the race, and by suggesting Mr.
Romney is the "moderate," I think Mr. Gingrich actually is helping his
opponent by reinforcing Mr. Romney's acceptability to independent and
centrist voters (perhaps as high as one-third of all voters) in the general
election against Barack Obama. That is perhaps not Mr. Gingrich's intention
at this point, but that is, I believe, the real result.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gingrich and Ron Paul, the other remaining candidate, can
continue to offer their ideas for the party platform. Mr. Gingrich, as I have
often pointed out, is the best Republican "idea man" of his generation, and
Mr. Romney and his team would do well to welcome and incorporate the
best of Mr. Gingrich's ideas into the platform in Tampa and in their campaign.

It is true that Mitt Romney did not start out as a "movement conservative,"
and came later in his political life to some of the most cherished conservative
ideas, including opposition to abortion and calling for complete repeal of
"Obamacare." But it seems to me that he is now irrevocably committed to these
and other conservative principles, and if elected president, would be a genuine
conservative president. Whether he would be the strong "reform" president
that many in the conservative base want to take office in January, 2013, will
depend on how successful Republicans are in keeping control of the U.S.
house and winning back control of the U.S. senate in this autumns elections.

With their presidential nomination all-but-settled, Republicans would be
well-advised to turn their attention to the many close races upcoming in the
congressional elections. Is 2012 to be a continuation of the conservative
landslide national elections of 2010, or a return to the Democratic control of
the Congress won in 2006 and 2008?

There is no question, their bravado public optimism notwithstanding, that
serious Democratic and liberal political strategists are very worried about the
autumn campaign coming. The economy remains unsettled, unemployment
extraordinarily high, gasoline prices rising to politically unacceptable levels,
the stock market quite volatile, and the public statements by the incumbent
president increasingly out of touch with the electorate. This does not mean
necessarily that the Democrats will lose in November, but it does mean that
independent and centrist voters are less and less inclined to go their way in
the balloting.

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Copyright (c) by Barry Casselman
All rights reserved.