Mitt Romney continues to stagger toward the finish line like some punch-drunk sailor after a night of heavy carousing. He wins...but somehow, the closer you look, he's really losing. The media is focused on Ohio, because Ohio is a bellweather state, and because Romney only won due to Santorum's incompetence in not being on the ballot in every district.
But the other big state for the evening, Georgia, looks bad for Romney too, and not just because homer Newt one. It's a numbers game, and Romney's losing...badly.
The voting so far in the GOP primaries have been fairly consistent if one looks at the current division within the Republican Party. Those percentages are:
Social Conservatives - 48%
Traditional Republicans - 41%
Libertarians - 11%
With little variation, those have been holding throughout the primary season, including through last night. Romney, of course, represents "traditional" Republicans (i.e. "Country Club", well-to-do, GOP), while most of the "not-Romneys" have been playing to the social conservative crowd.
The real problems for the social conservatives are:
1) As of yet, they still don't make up a majority of Republican voters.
2) They have two candidates splitting their votes.
3) Those two candidates are incompetent (See Newt in VA, see Santorum in OH).
So, unless Newt decides to bow out, Romney's going to win...hell, he'll probably win even if Newt does bow out, because he's got the money behind him, and Romney at least can run the mechanics of a campaign competently.
But now to Georgia, and Romney's bigger problem.
I live in very "red" north Georgia. I'm also running for state house this year as a Democrat (www.macforgeorgia.com), so figuring out the dynamics of the electorate is something that I'm keeping a keen eye on.
When you look at the numbers from rural areas around Georgia, "socially conservative areas" like mine, suddenly, there's a big shift:
Social Conservative candidates (i.e Gingrich/Santorum)- 73%
Traditional Republican (i.e. Romney) - 17%
Libertarian (i.e. Paul) - 10%
"Home field" undoubtably contributed to some of that with Gingrich, but Romney got most of his Georgia numbers in Democratic areas, precisely where Obama is going to trounce him anyway. In places like north Georgia, places where a Republican candidate has to run up the score a lot to off-set the metro Atlanta area...Romney's running less than 20%.
And the Republican field as a whole has it's numbers down, even with a Georgia candidate on top. This year's totals are 9.3% less than in 2008, some 63,400 fewer voters this year, and Romney's totals are down over 57,500.
In short, there's a definite enthusiasm gap among conservatives, even in strong conservative states like Georgia, and that enthusiasm gap's name is Mitt Romney.
And the latest state poll shows Obama and Romney in a dead heat.
Yeah, Georgia better be on Romney's mind this year...as well as the Democrats.