Last updated on February 9th, 2013 at 08:11 am
By not giving a speech on primary night and in Alabama and Mississippi, Mitt Romney sent a clear middle finger raised sore loser message to the South.
Rick Santorum’s wins in the two dark red states were not surprising as exit polls showed that evangelical voters made up 73% of the electorate in Alabama and 81% in Mississippi. There was a high probability that this was going to be a bad night for Mitt Romney, and trying to minimize the damage, the Romney campaign made the colossal blunder of blowing off the South on Election Night.
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The Washington Post reported that, Romney aide, Eric Fehrnstrom told CNN, “I don’t think anyone expected Mitt to win Alabama or Mississippi. As Mitt said early on, this was an away game. I think that was true.” The message is simple. If Mitt wasn’t going to win, then he wasn’t going to speak. However, Romney’s campaign and Super PAC spent cash like a campaign that was definitely trying to win. In Alabama and Mississippi, Romney and his Super PAC spent nearly $2.7 million on ads. Gingrich was a distant second at about $879,000, and Santorum was able to win the state by spending around $800,000 on campaign and Super PAC ads.
Earlier in the primary season Mitt Romney was able to negative ad carpet bomb his way to victory in states like Florida, but as the race has moved into the most conservative parts of the country Romney’s ad strategy is not carrying him to victory.Without his most powerful campaign weapon the question is can Mitt Romney get enough delegates before the convention to win?
It should be terrifying to the Republican Party leadership that Mitt Romney can’t win southern conservative states in the Republican primary. Romney has now lost South Carolina, Oklahoma, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. Romney’s strongest performances have come in Northern states that Obama is a virtual certainty to carry in November.
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma all voted for weak Republicans Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain in 2008. If Romney can’t get these solidly Republican voters excited about him in the primary, how is he going to get them fired up about voting for him in November?
The Romney campaign sent the South the message that if they aren’t going to vote for Mitt then, “f**k you.” No one should buy the lame travel excuse for a second. Presidential campaigns set their own travel schedules and they have no qualms about being late if it means snagging the national media spotlight. The Romney campaign intentionally cooked up the travel excuse as a reason to punish the South. Mitt Romney was trying to delegitimize the results in Mississippi and Alabama.
The animosity between Southern Republicans and the Romney campaign is growing which each former confederate state rejection of the candidate. Mitt Romney keeps trying to con Southerners into believing that he is one of them, and when they refuse to fall for his shtick, Richie Rich hops on his private jet and pouts.
Instead of facing defeat like a man, Mitt Romney stomped his feet, threw up his middle finger at Dixie, and ran. If Romney can’t convince the Republican South that he is the right choice for president, then he’ll have no chance of convincing the rest of America that he should be their next president this fall.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
