Saturday night the voters of Nevada caucused to decide the recipients of their 28 delegates. Governor Mitt Romney won, as expected, and by about as much as predicted, as well as by as much as he won last time around. He won Nevada in 2008 with 51%. In 2012 it was 50%.
One has to wonder if Republicans have finally stopped buying into the “Romney is the most electable” when he fell prey to the Drive-By Media’s usual ability to turn molehills into mountains and then hammer that moutainized molehill as if it was actually news. This past week, it showed precisely what I’ve been saying for months: There is no candidate that is so clean as the wind driven snow that the Democrats and their willing accomplices in the Drive-By Media won’t attack them. If there aren’t major attacks to be launched they will magnify something very small as if it were big. If there isn’t anything small, they’ll invent something. (Just ask Herman Cain.)
Newt did just ok, with a second place finish of 21%. This state was always Romney’s to lose but I wanted to see Newt do better. He was polling higher than he finished, so this was a little bit disappointing. I also believe the lack of debates isn’t helping. Still, there’s hope for tomorrow’s primaries to do well for Newt, although he’s polling slightly behind Mittens in all of them and, in MN is actually a couple points behind Santorum as well. He needs another comeback. Again, if Rick Santorum would give up his lost cause campaign this would be a different story, but for now we’ve got Santorum splitting the conservative vote with Gingrich. Minnesota aside, if Santorum would get out of the way, we would be looking at a real race. But with Senator Santorum dividing the vote we are likely to find ourselves stuck with Mittens.
Ron Paul did fairly well for himself, as expected. I’ve said multiple times, caucus states do well for Paul and his scrappy band of very loyal followers. In the early returns, Congressman Paul was in second place, but as returns continued to come in he fell down to third. Given that the Congressman’s goal is most likely to garner as many delegates as possible, he made a decent showing for himself and picked up a few delegates to his name.
Finally we come to Senator Rick Santorum. Unfortunately for Senator Santorum, he again came in fourth. He has failed to gain the level of momentum he had in Iowa. I maintain that it is time for the Senator to end his campaign and let the conservative vote consolidate behind Newt Gingrich, for if we are to have a nominee other than Mitt Romney it is going to be Newt. Santorum does not have the support to mount a successful comeback at this late date. It’s time for Santorum to hang it up and I must respectfully call for the Senator to end his campaign.
Nevada has spoken. Three more states will speak on Tuesday. There’s a whole lot of votes to be cast, and regardless of what the liberals and the RINOs are telling us, a long campaign is not going to make a difference in the general election. As I’ve said before, look who the Democrats are running! So let’s have the best candidate. If it’s Romney, fine, make him sharpen his sword and practice his fencing against Gingrich. Or, let us have a conservative, and his name will be Newt Gingrich. Either way, the Democrats are running a poor candidate, a failed President who told us if he couldn’t right this economy in three years he’d be looking at a one term President, and we are here to collect. So let the fight continue into Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota.
