Rick Santorum says his supports can out-organize Mitt Romney (Steve Marcus/Reuters)
In a new memo
distributed by Rick Santorum's campaign, Santorum is making a somewhat convoluted case that Santorum is the favorite to win the Republican nomination because Mitt Romney will have difficulty obtaining the majority of delegates he needs to win the nomination—and that if Romney fails to secure that majority on the first ballot, his support will quickly fade as Santorum steps in to fill the void. From the memo:
Majority Needed for Romney, Not for Santorum
Mitt Romney must have a majority on the first ballot in order to win the nomination because he will perform worse on subsequent ballots as grassroots conservative delegates decide to back the more conservative candidate. Subsequently, Santorum only needs to be relatively close on the initial ballot in order to win on a later ballot as Romney’s support erodes.
Romney Difficulty in getting 50% of Remaining Delegates
Even Romney’s own counters admit that he needs to earn almost 50% of the remaining delegates in order to win the nomination. We believe this number is higher than 50% for the reasons described in this memo. Regardless, this is going to be very difficult in a three or four person race, especially as he loses delegates at state conventions such as Iowa.
The memo says the Romney campaign's claim that it would take an "act of God" for Santorum to win was a "smokescreen" designed to conceal the "fuzzy math" of delegate counting. By fuzzy math, Santorum is referencing the fact that many delegates are unbound and that media estimates ignore the fact that party activists are likely to dominate the county and state conventions where delegates are actually selected. Thus, the memo argues Romney doesn't have as many delegates as he or the media claims. The memo says the key question for Romney is whether he can hit the magic number of 1,144—and that because of delegate selection rules, it's unlikely that he will. The memo not only argues that Romney's delegate totals are overstated, it makes the case that Santorum's is effectively understated.
Conservative Majority of Delegates: Public vs. Actual Delegate Counts
There is a “Conservative Majority” of delegates emerging as county and state conventions elect their actual National Convention delegates. This “Conservative Majority” will support Rick Santorum over a moderate-establishment Romney.
There are three reasons why the counts that are put out by the RNC and media organizations are not reflective of the real numbers:
• Unbound and Uncommitted Delegates elected by grassroots activists are more likely to favor Santorum than those elected by direct primary election. This represents a movement of delegates into Santorum’s tally.
• Bound delegates elected by grassroots activists will favor Santorum as rules allow.
• Gingrich delegates are more likely to favor Santorum.
• Rule Breaking states such as Florida and Arizona.
Overall, the memo is vague and not terribly compelling—and not just because it lists four reasons despite promising to deliver three. It makes sense to focus on whether or not Romney can get a majority, but to the extent that Romney's counts rely on "fuzzy math," Santorum's argument depends on "fuzzy logic." As Maggie Haberman
points out, Santorum has no organization to speak of; Ron Paul is more likely than Santorum to pick up delegates in county and state conventions than Santorum. And given the clear Paul-Romney alliance, Romney could make a deal with Paul to put himself over the top, arriving at the convention with the majority he needs.
In my view, the biggest problem with the memo, both from the analytical as well as strategic perspective, is that it basically ignores the question of which candidate will end up with the most votes. The memo basically makes a process oriented argument that Rick Santorum will be able to take advantage of the delegate allocation process because he has more enthusiastic supporters, but the reality is that both Paul and Romney have a much stronger organization than Santorum. Moreover, every time a party organization has had to make a close call, it's made the call in Romney's favor.
Instead of focusing on trying to do a better job than Romney of gaming the system, Santorum should be trying to win more votes than Romney over the second half of the primary calendar. It's something of a long shot for him to be able to do that, but if he were able to pull it off, it would give him the moral upper hand in a contested convention, particularly if the polls were on his side.
I'm not saying that a strategy focused on beating Romney at the polls is guaranteed to work, but that's because it's not likely to happen. But unless it does, there's no way Santorum will get within smelling distance of the Republican nomination. So instead of getting into the weeds of delegate math, he should focus on trying to claim a popular mandate within the Republican Party, putting him in a position where he can accuse Romney of trying to game the system. It's a big mistake for Santorum to try to claim he's in a better position than Mitt Romney to game the system, if for no other reason that that he can't.