This Republican race for president is looking increasingly like
a hybrid of the races of 1976 and 1980. This thing has a long way
to go.
In 1976, it was a two-man race. Gerald Ford won eight of
the first nine contests, but Ronald Reagan won six of the next ten.
Ford then won seven of 12 — but, as in Michigan this week, several
of his wins were nail-biters, with mere four-point wins in Kentucky
and Oregon and a one-point squeaker in Tennessee. After each Reagan
defeat, the naysayers pronounced him finally vanquished for good,
with the establishment Michigan native supposedly firmly in
control. (Sound familiar?) Then Reagan would bounce back again,
though — often with the help of crossover votes from conservative
Democrats, which he openly welcomed — and when he won a huge,
winner-take-all hoard of 166 delegates in California on June 8 of
that year, he entered the summer with, if anything, a narrow
delegate lead. Only the power of the White House, with pork and
perks to offering wavering delegates, was able to secure President
Ford a narrow nomination victory.
In 1980 — more like this year at the start — it began as
a multi-candidate race, with seven major contestants, plus
a never-ending drumbeat from some establishment types for yet
another late entrant (in that case, Ford) to make up for the
supposed deficiencies of the original filed. Again, this should
sound familiar.
But again, just as is happening this year, the contest
eventually settled down, for all intents and purposes, into a
two-man race: Reagan versus George H.W. Bush, with Ford (like Chris
Christie?) still standing in the wings. This has obvious parallels
with what really is a two-man battle this year between Mitt Romney
and Rick Santorum.
Granted, a third actual candidate, John Anderson,
continued to compete quite hard in selected events through the
first 13 states in 1980, but after a while he represented no real
threat to win the nomination. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul together
are playing that role this year.
Anyway, Bush kept fighting well into May of that year,
earning his last primary victory in Michigan (there’s that state
again!) on May 20.
These historical parallels are appropriate because, for
the first time in three decades, party rules (combined with
campaign-finance restrictions and opportunities) now actually
encourage a lengthy process rather than a quick knock-out. Every
pundit this year who rushes to proclaim Romney (or, earlier,
Gingrich) the inevitable victor misunderstands the very nature of
this race. This is a race in which voters are very engaged, very
concerned — and very willing to change their minds about
candidates as the process wears on. Party rules awarding fewer
delegates to early-voting states (and thus a greater proportion of
delegates awarded late) mean that these changes of mind can have
relatively large effects on the ultimate outcome.
The punditry might want a nice, neat narrative, but the
voters refuse to provide one. They will continue to refuse. This
week we can expect yet another round of “Romney is in the clear”
media analysis — and, as was the case after New Hampshire and
after Florida and Nevada, that analysis will be wrong. Romney
emerges from Michigan far lower on cash resources than he has ever
had, and enters elections in a series of states where he has little
or no natural advantages — and with the stigma not of a solid
winner, but merely a hair’s-breadth survivor in his own native
state.
Here’s what is likely to happen going forward. On
Saturday, watch as Rick Santorum edges Romney and Paul to win the
Washington caucuses and regain a bit of momentum. On Tuesday,
Santorum will win Oklahoma easily, will edge Gingrich in Tennessee,
will be competitive for the wins in North Dakota and Alaska, will
finish second to Gingrich in Georgia, will do pretty well in Idaho,
and will be trying to protect a lead in Ohio. Like Reagan did in
Texas, Georgia, Indiana, and Nebraska (and later in Arkansas and
Idaho) in 1976, Santorum will thus show, again, that he’s in it for
the long haul, even after suffering losses.
Gingrich, for his part, will indeed win his congressional
home state of Georgia, but that will be his last hurrah. He has
nowhere else to go. Ron Paul has even less of a path to the
nomination.
Then there’s Romney. He’ll win Virginia, contested only by
Paul. He’ll win his adult home state of Massachusetts, plus
Vermont. And he’ll be competitive in Ohio, Idaho, North Dakota, and
Alaska.
In short, after Super Tuesday, the two front runners each
will have won a significant number of primaries. Romney will enjoy
the edge in delegates won, but it will be less of an edge than Ford
once owned over Reagan in 1976. Gingrich, if he will finally
acknowledge he can’t win, could well endorse Santorum and ask his
pledged delegates to vote accordingly. If so, it will be this
cycle’s most significant endorsement yet. And it would mean that
Santorum and Romney move forward on a relatively equal playing
field — especially if Santorum follows up with decent showings in
following contests in Kansas, Wyoming, the Virgin Islands, or
particularly Alabama or Mississippi, which would be ripe for the
picking if Gingrich withdraws. Looming in the future will be other
Santorum-friendly states such as Pennsylvania, Indiana, North
Carolina, West Virginia, Nebraska and Kentucky.
Key battlegrounds, meanwhile, will be Illinois and
Louisiana in late March, Wisconsin on April 3, and, tentatively,
Texas on May 29. Somehow, Santorum will need to create enough
momentum through this process that he makes California and New
Jersey on June 5 into competitive events. Conventional wisdom says
that both should lean towards Romney, but conventional wisdom is
often wrong.
Clearly, Romney is the favorite. Nobody sensible would
claim otherwise. But it would be crazy to start planning his
coronation. Santorum is likely to dog him all the way into the
summer; and the longer his challenge continues, the more Romney’s
air of inevitability will be fouled. The less he looks like a
definite winner, the more he could look like, yes, a
loser.
In short, anything could still happen. Because even though
Rick Santorum is no Ronald Reagan, Mitt Romney has no power of the
Oval Office behind him. The playing field is almost
level.
