Mittevitability is having a rough go lately. Last night Santorum — a Roman Catholic — took what might be called the hard evangelical states of Alabama and Mississippi. Any thoughtful student of American political history needs to say huh over that one at least a time or two. It took an administration jammed with Chicago pinkos to pull it off, but they did it. I mean, credit where credit’s due.
Newt Gingrich, a supernova of ego, is now heading into his dwarf star phase.
Ron Paul continues to accumulate delegates, in numbers large enough to be important . . . but only if they turn out to be important. In other words, depending on whether Romney falls short of the number of delegates he needs to cinch the nomination, and by how much, Ron Paul might be in a position to deal. If Romney falls short of the required delegate count, it won’t be by very much. Ron Paul would have the smallest number of delegates of the four, but those delegates would probably be enough to do the trick. But the problem here is not the math — given the hard convictions and principles of the Paul delegates, what could persuade them to support someone as mushy as Romney? It would have to be a pretty garish offer.
The same kind of backroom offer could be made to Gingrich and Santorum, of course, but they, having more delegates (and Gingrich, more chutzpah), would require much more in return, and hence would be more likely to see what might shake out after the convention had voted several times and the delegates were all released. Once the monkeys are out of the cage, lots of things might happen. Especially conservative Republican monkeys.
I continue to be pleased with how Santorum is doing, but let me make something clear here — if it were not clear already. Politics is not for perfectionists, and my support for Santorum is not that of a diehard partisan. In other words, I really like his moral courage, and I believe that moral courage on basic Ten Commandments stuff is the order of the day. I want that first, certainly. But that is not all I want. I can easily envision a scenario under a Santorum administration where some lunatic economic decision would be made, one that would have me dancing in a tight little circle in front of the television, yelling and waving the remote. I can totally see that. And then if I were to calm down enough to post my sentiments on the matter in this space, it would be totally beside the point for someone (yes, you) to post a comment along the lines of what gives, “didn’t you support Santorum?” All right . . . just so that is noted.
All in all, the race for the nomination continues to hold my interest.