As you have probably heard, Mitt Romney is the projected winner for Florida's GOP primary.
1144 delegates are required to win the Republican nomination; after today, Romney will have 80, Gingrich 18, Santorum 13, Paul 3, and Huntsman 2. Looking at these figures, do you think any of the other candidates will begin considering suspending their campaigns?
The Romney team has declared that he will almost certainly win the GOP nomination and that it would take an incredibly dynamic event (or series of events) to reverse this course. It was also stated that Romney is in a comfortable enough position to take his focus off of Gingrich and concentrate his rhetoric on Obama. On the one hand, if Romney really does have the nomination in the bag, I can see why he would want to focus on Obama: to minimize the division within his own party and get a headstart on uniting Republicans against the incumbent president. However, it might also be wise to continue keeping Gingrich at bay so as to shorten the competition and secure the nomination as quickly as possible. What do you guys think?
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3 comments:
My take on this is to only go after Gingrich when Gingrich goes after you. Gingrich is the kind of person that will not stop no matter what you do. So saying, I think that it is in the Republican party's best interest to start going after Obama. This fight within the party is only making the Republicans look incompetent and unable to successfully campaign. With his latest win in Florida, Romney can really go after Obama because he is at a strong point right now instead of the situation he was in with his tax returns after the South Carolina Primary. All he has to do is act like he is the best candidate and let the others, like Gingrich, rant and rave and make themselves look like they are not presidential material. Meanwhile, Romney should spread what he truly believes in and stop switching his position on a dime, and he should be looking at the road to the nomination
I think Patrick makes a good point to only go after Gingrich when Gingrich prompts or attacks him. While Gingrich's attacks seem to be more prevalent and constant now, keeping his focus on Obama and November is a good strategy for him. A lot of the recent banter between Gingrich and Romney seems to to focus not on issues and their positions regarding the issues, but on proving that the other is incapable and incompetent of becoming the next president of the United States. While this makes sense during a primary campaign, if their fueding continues to escalate, and the Republcain nomination process becomes even more ugly, permanent divisions within the Republican primary could result, which would not bode well during the general election. Keeping his focus on Obama will allow him to contrast his policies with Obama, thus focusing on the issues at hand.
By the time the Nevada caucus arrives this weekend, I am sure we will be able to see how well this strategy works.
I think Romney made major mistakes on focusing too much on Gingrich. His campaign in Florida was made up basically of attack ads, a case that may not go over well with the public if he faces Obama in the general election. That being said, I feel that many Republican voters are going with Romney because they feel that they just can't vote for anyone else. The voter turnout in the important Florida primary was extremely low, a case which may distort the actual number that supports Romney. Obama certainly has a lot of good information to target Romney for now, after this battle between Gingrich and Romney.
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