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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

News from the Campaign Trail

Its great to be back on Prawfs, and it is also great to be at ground zero for Election 2012 (well ground zero today at least).  Florida is a great state to live in if one is interested in politics.  It is a swing state; it is the first big primary state (no offense to New Hampshire or SC);  and we will always have Bush v. Gore.  What other state can claim that little bit of notoriety? 

The results of tonight’s primary should be interesting.  Gingrich won South Carolina by a landslide but has crashed and burned in the week and a half since.  In light of his slipping poll numbers, Gingrich has vowed to put a colony on the moon; pledged not to participate in future debates if moderated by journalists; and has been outspent 5 to 1 in Florida by the Romney campaign.  I suspect that it is this last factor that will determine the winner of today’s primary, which according to one group is the most negative primary fight on record.  

And this is true notwithstanding history to the contrary. 

In 2008, Romney lost Florida to McCain (36% to 31%), another candidate who the Republican base was also lukewarm about.  Romney is likely to do much better this time around (current polls have Romney beating Gingrich 43% to 31%), and it will be interesting to see what a Romney win tonight will mean for the race going forward.    

I can tell you what a Gingrich win will mean however – litigation.  Litigation over the RNC’s decision to penalize Florida of half its delegates for moving its primary up, and litigation over Florida’s allocation of delegates, which is currently winner-take-all and in contravention of RNC rules (which mandate proportionality for delegates awarded before a certain date).  If the race continues and Gingrich is able to build up a sizable number of delegates in those states that do have proportional allocation, then expect a challenge to the results of the Florida primary at some point in the near future. 

At the end of the day, I just don’t think that Gingrich will go quietly, despite the hopes of many in the Republican establishment.   In any event, I am looking forward to the next month and engaging with the Prawfs community on some of these issues.   

 

Posted by Franita Tolson on January 31, 2012 at 05:10 PM | Permalink

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Comments

"pledged not to participate in future debates if moderated by journalists"

When did Newt say this? The only thing I remember along these lines is him getting upset about the crowd being kept quiet, not the moderators being journalists. (Though, of course, he has been playing the anti-media card pretty well.)

Posted by: Andrew MacKie-Mason | Feb 2, 2012 7:07:45 PM

This post brings back memories. I was in law school at Florida State when Gore v. Bush was taking place. I used to walk up to the Capitol Building in Tallahassee in between classes to watch all of the madness. News crews and photographers camped out everywhere for a couple of weeks. I remember an incident with one of the more well known Fox News anchors. Apparently someone was standing in a parking spot trying to save it for a friend. The anchor started to pull into the parking spot where the person was standing. When the parking lot saver refused to move the anchor bumped her with his car. Like I said, it was crazy.

Posted by: M. Travis Robbins | Feb 1, 2012 9:20:58 PM

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