WASHINGTON, Michigan — Many pundits predict that if Mitt Romney
wins Tuesday’s Republican primaries in Michigan and Arizona, the
momentum will carry the former Massachusetts governor to a sweep of
the Super Tuesday primaries a week later. But one veteran of the
topsy-turvy 2012 campaign expressed doubts Thursday about any such
prediction.
“Michigan matters,” said Herman Cain, who ended his own
bid for the GOP nomination in December. “There’s no question about
it — Michigan definitely matters, and Super Tuesday’s going to be
critical.”
Speaking to reporters after an event in Troy, where he
appeared with Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra, Cain
considered two alternative scenarios for Super Tuesday on March 6,
when nearly 200 delegates will be on the line.
“If it’s a three-way split, get ready for a long process,
folks,” the Atlanta businessman said. “If one of [the candidates]
gets the lion’s share of those [Super Tuesday delegates], then you
could start to see some movement in terms of who might be that
presumptive [GOP nominee]. But I’m not anticipating that, and
here’s why: Go all the way back to Iowa. Iowa couldn’t predict New
Hampshire, New Hampshire didn’t predict South Carolina, South
Carolina didn’t predict Florida. Florida didn’t predict the places
out west, Missouri and the others, and they’re not going to predict
Michigan or Super Tuesday. The electorate is still sort of all over
the place.”
The turbulent Republican primary campaign has seen
many ups and downs, none more spectacular than Cain’s. He made
a meteoric ascent to the top of the field after winning a Florida
straw poll in September, and moved ahead of Romney in October, only
to tumble in November in the wake of several highly publicized
sexual allegations that were never proven and which Cain still
firmly denies. Despite the disappointing finish of his presidential
campaign, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO remains popular with
conservatives. Cain was greeted with a standing ovation when he was
introduced Thursday evening at the American Polish Cultural Center
in Troy, where he appeared with Hoekstra, whom polls show likely to
win Tuesday’s Michigan primary for the Senate race against Democrat
Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
Cain has endorsed his fellow Georgian and former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has suffered his own ups and down during
the long Republican campaign. Gingrich made his own ascent to the
top of the GOP field in late November, only to watch his lead in
Iowa destroyed by a multimillion-dollar attack-ad blitz from
Romney. After finishing fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire,
however, Gingrich bounced back to beat Romney in South Carolina
Jan. 21. But Gingrich was devastated by another Romney ad-blitz in
Florida, stumbled through a badly disorganized campaign effort in
Nevada, and fell out of contention in the Feb. 7 primaries and
caucuses that saw former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum beat
Romney in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Low poll numbers and
sagging fundraising would seem to indicate little hope that
Gingrich can still challenge for the nomination, but his campaign
clearly got a boost from a strong debate performance Wednesday in
Arizona.
Cain offered his own assessment of the debate, which many
expect will be the last such televised meeting of the GOP rivals:
“Mitt Romney was on his A game. Newt Gingrich was on his A game.
Santorum got hit pretty hard by Romney and Paul. And so I think the
two that came out the strongest were Gingrich and Romney, in terms
of the debate and what the takeaway was. Romney’s still staying on
an attack mode. Gingrich stayed on solutions, and people noticed
it. [Gingrich] kept talking about the key issues, he kept talking
about solutions, and I was happy to see that.”
The impact of that debate hasn’t yet been measured by
polls, and the
most recent poll in Michigan showed Santorum leading Romney by
three percentage points. Both campaigns are making a strong effort
here: Romney can ill afford to lose his home state, and Santorum’s
campaign is pushing hard in Michigan, the kind of industrial “Rust
Belt” state where he hopes to benefit from his strong appeal to
blue-collar social conservatives. While Cain greeted supporters
after the Hoekstra event last night in Troy, a group of Santorum
volunteers waited outside the Polish cultural center, handing out
pamphlets, bumper stickers, and yard signs to those exiting the
event. “They were 80 or 90 percent with us,” one of the Santorum
volunteers said of the largely Catholic audience. Santorum’s
schedule Friday in Michigan — a parish fish fry and a rally at a
Knights of Columbus hall — suggests his campaign hopes that a
strong turnout of Catholic voters will boost his chances
Tuesday.
Should Santorum fall short here in Michigan, we can expect
pundits once more to begin talking of Romney’s “inevitability” as
the Republican nominee. But when a reporter asked for a prediction
of who will eventually win the nomination, Herman Cain answered
with three simple words: “I don’t know.” And nobody else knows,
either.
