Super Tuesday was a sort of GOP speed date night. A date show featuring prominent members of the GOP would be a hilarious and terrifying at the same time. Imagine Ann Coulter and Karl Rove enjoying eachother's company over red wine, bashing liberals and inventing new terms to slander Obama. A new term is needed, after all. 'Socialist' is getting old. 

Unfortunately while a real GOP date night doesn't exist, we can still use it as an analogy to describe the events of Super Tuesday. Let's think of each state as a table for speed dating and let's imagine the candidates jumping from table to table, hoping to impress Lady GOP. Were any of the candidates able to close the deal?

Mitt Romney was okay at the tables. He was able to close the deal in Ohio, winning by less then a percentage point. Romney also took the girl home in Indiana, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia. It was a good night for Mitt, but he still got rejected at a few key tables.

Rick Santorum continued to impress the Lady. When he's given the right venue, he can work the charm. Santorum sealed the deal in North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennesee. Rick almost had it all. He almost won Ohio.

Rick Santorum has been beating the Catholic drum this entire nomination process. His core constituency of support has always been values-voting Republicans, many of whom are committed Catholics. Santorum was really counting on their support if he was going to beat Romney in Ohio. Ultimately, he lost their vote by 13 points to Mitt Romney. This is huge because Romney barely won the state, so in a sense the Catholic voters were the swing voters, and they swung for Romney. 

In terms of delegates, Romney has taken a wide lead in his pursuit of the GOP Nomination.  In terms of hearts, Romney has a lot of work ahead of him. One of the things that Romney has struggled with is uniting the conservative base. Despite winning the Catholic vote from Santorum, he lost the Evangelical vote by 17 points in Ohio. 

The offical results in from Ohio are 37.9% Romney and 31.1% Santorum. Winning Ohio by less than 1 percentage point isn't impressing anyone.  Conservative blogger Rick Lowry has called him the "candidate of 'eh'".  Lowry said in his recent op-ed piece: 

"[Besides Ohio] Otherwise, he won one state where he used to be governor (Massachusetts), a small Northeastern state (Vermont), an essentially uncontested Southern state (Virginia), and a heavily Mormon state out West (Idaho). In Virginia, he couldn’t get to 60 percent against just Ron Paul. Rarely has a candidate seemed so inevitable and so weak at the same time."

At this point Romney is supposed to be uniting the party.  But can he ever unite the party?     

If Super Tuesday is any indication of what is to come in the Republican primary, it is that this is going to be a long primary season for the GOP. Many of Romney's core supporters had wished Romney would just seal the deal last night, but that didnt happen. In fact, there is now speculation that this long primary process may lead to an open convention, allowing another viable candidate to jump in the race. 

It's a mess. Especially considering that Romney is unlikely to be able to compete with President Obama. Mitt Romney lacks the ability to inspire, to compell millions of people, ordinary people, to come out and vote. Combine that with Obama's ferocious swag when he enters campaign mode and we've got a landslide in the making.

 

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