NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

Rick Santorum projected to win in Alabama, holding on to narrow lead in Mississippi

Rick San­to­rum is on a roll. Less than one hun­dred hours after deci­sive­ly win­ning the Kansas Repub­li­can cau­cus­es, he appears to have swept tonight’s con­tests in the Deep South, despite hav­ing to share the con­ser­v­a­tive vote with Newt Gingrich:

Rick San­to­rum scored a pair of pri­ma­ry vic­to­ries in Alaba­ma and Mis­sis­sip­pi, accord­ing to net­work pro­jec­tions, bol­ster­ing his cred­i­bil­i­ty as Mitt Romney’s top chal­lenger and deny­ing the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor an oppor­tu­ni­ty to solid­i­fy his sta­tus as inevitable nominee.

“We did it again,” San­to­rum declared at an elec­tion night ral­ly in Louisiana, say­ing his under­dog cam­paign was about “ordi­nary peo­ple doing extra­or­di­nary things.”

The races were among the first high pro­file con­tests in which both Newt Gin­grich and San­to­rum, who have alter­nat­ed wild­ly between surges and col­laps­es, were com­pet­i­tive at once.

San­to­rum’s twin vic­to­ries tonight will unques­tion­ably bol­ster his cam­paign in a big way. Up until just a few hours ago, San­to­rum has only been able to win in states from one region — the Mid­west. (He gave Mitt Rom­ney a run for his mon­ey in Michi­gan and Ohio, but could­n’t quite close with vot­ers in either state). By win­ning in Mis­sis­sip­pi and Alaba­ma, he has man­aged to strength­en his own can­di­da­cy whilst simul­ta­ne­ous­ly ruin­ing Newt Gin­grich’s plans for a comeback.

Gin­grich need­ed to win in both Alaba­ma and Mis­sis­sip­pi tonight to keep his cam­paign alive. He did­n’t. He can choose to stay in the race if he likes, but he won’t be able to com­pete with Mitt Rom­ney and Rick San­to­rum. He might be able to cause enough trou­ble for Rick San­to­rum to ensure that Rom­ney ends up get­ting the nom­i­na­tion, but he him­self isn’t going to end up as the nominee.

As of around 8:30 PM Pacif­ic; here were the results in Alaba­ma’s Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry (twen­ty-two of six­ty-sev­en coun­ties com­plete­ly reporting):

Michelle Bach­mann
0.27%1,178
Newt Gin­grich
29.45%127,692
Jon Hunts­man
0.18%765
Ron Paul
5.09%22,084
Rick Per­ry
0.28%1,226
Mitt Rom­ney
29.26%126,845
Rick San­to­rum
33.92%147,059
Uncom­mit­ted
1.54%6,676

And in Mis­sisip­pi, as of 8:30 PM Pacif­ic, with 1,800 of 1,889 precincts reporting:

Newt Gin­grich
31%86,068
Ron Paul
4%12,160
Mitt Rom­ney
30%83,278
Rick San­to­rum
33%90,386

Inci­den­tal­ly, in Mis­sis­sip­pi, the polit­i­cal par­ties them­selves run the pri­maries — mean­ing that Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can activists serve as poll work­ers and elec­tion super­vi­sors. How­ev­er, the Mag­no­lia State’s pri­maries are open, so vot­ers may par­tic­i­pate with­out hav­ing to reg­is­ter in advance as a mem­ber of a par­tic­u­lar polit­i­cal par­ty. Alaba­ma also has an open primary.

Over at FreeRe­pub­lic, one of the Inter­net’s best-known right wing mes­sage boards, the mood seems to be cel­e­bra­to­ry. Here’s a sam­pling of the com­ments left in response to the news that San­to­rum is pro­ject­ed to win Alaba­ma and Mississippi:

I’m a Newt sup­port­er, but if this pans out, I real­ly think Newt ought to put his sup­port behind San­to­rum and we sup­port­ers can hope/expect Newt to get a good cab­i­net posi­tion to effect change once elected.

risen_feenix

Newt looks like an dolt stand­ing next to his wife while she talks. No WAY can he win no mat­ter what! He should endorse Santorum.

Right­La­dy

Con­ven­tion­al wis­dom had Rick show­ing up 2nd or 3rd tonight. Not any­thing like this. The D.C. Belt­way types are very unhap­py tonight.

Lazloin­PA

Newt REALLY needs to pick par­ty over ego. He’s not polling well in any state that’s left. I am sure he feels he can win a bro­kered con­ven­tion, and the chance of that is unlike­ly. Very unlike­ly as the GOP sup­ports Mit­tens, and writes the rules. Newt knows this…

JohnD9207

Con­grats Rick.

Looks like the two races wasn’t quite close enough for Rove, Boss Hogg and the GOPe [sic] to steal, like they did in Ohio.

It also appears that Newt’s South­ern Strat­e­gy has failed. Even though he had tons of mon­ey from that Casi­no Owner.

ten­n­moun­tain­man

Judg­ing by the com­ments excerpt­ed above, it seems Rick San­to­rum has solid­i­fied his base of sup­port and is start­ing to win over Newt Gin­grich’s fans as well. San­to­rum real­ly needs Gin­grich to quit the race so that he can go head to head with Rom­ney in the states that haven’t held their nom­i­nat­ing events yet.

But Gin­grich has giv­en no indi­ca­tion that he is think­ing about quit­ting. At least not yet. Maybe if his sug­ar dad­dy Shel­don Adel­son decides to turn off Gin­grich’s cash spig­ot, Gin­grich will decide to throw in the tow­el. We’ll see.

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One Ping

  1. […] Rick San­to­rum pro­ject­ed to win in Alaba­ma, hold­ing on to nar­row lead in Mississippi […]

    Ping from Morning Rundown for March 14th, 2012 :: March 14th, 2012 at 9:39 AM
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