Numbers are numbers. Rick Santorum has done an incredible job running for this nomination. Incredible. With 10% of the money and maybe 1% of the organization of Mitt Romney, yet still he has been competitive or more in state race after state race. But numbers are numbers. Romney has the organization and the money to go all the way to the nomination and the numbers are stacked against Rick.
So Romney may be thinking that the nomination is all his and maybe he is right. But the fact that a candidate like the honorable Rick Santorum continues to make such a race out of this even while being outspent tenfold and with an organization deficit of the same magnitude should be a wake up call for Romney.
Romney is winning right now on the strength of his fundraising and the strength of his organization. This is not to be denigrated. Romney did the hard work of fundraising and putting together a national and well organized campaign. He worked hard and earned every vote. Yet, he is barely squeaking by in primary after primary.
People will understandably say “a win is a win” and this is true, to a point. But with the financial and organization advantage he has, Romney should have walked on cake. But he didn’t.
So, assuming the pattern holds an Romney gets enough votes to make in Tampa, then what?
Does he turn leftward and try to court the fictional middle? Or doe she try to get right with the unconvinced? I am still unconvinced. Romney still needs to win me and looking at the Republican electorate at large, I am far from alone.
Even if Romney looks assured of the nomination, winning the general is a whole ‘nother thing. If he wants me and my ilk, he has a lot of convincing still to do and frankly I liked him a lot better at the beginning of this process than I do now.
Winning delegates is not necessarily winning votes.
Convince me.
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