Problems Mount For Wall Street Willie

Although he has been the off-and-on frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination for months now, Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) has never demonstrated any real strength among the party's base of voters. His only real strength is among the rich denizens of Wall Street and Republican Party's establishment (who are afraid Romney's opponents could hurt them down-ballot). The party's base has searched far and wide for a candidate, any candidate, that can beat Romney.

Yesterday, a couple of things happened that has Romney supporters claiming victory and saying he is now back on track for the nomination. I disagree. I think they are just trying to put a happy face on a couple of "wins" that show his weakness more than his strength. The first of these was a win in the Maine caucuses. Here are the results of those caucuses:

Mitt Romney...............2,190  (39.65%)
Ron Paul...............1,996  (36.13%)
Rick Santorum...............989  (17.90%)
Newt Gingrich...............349  (6.32%)
TOTAL VOTES...............5,524

New England is supposed to be one of the places where Romney has the most strength, and yet he can only barely squeak out a win over Ron Paul (who has no chance of winning the nomination). Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich did not campaign at all in Maine, figuring Romney had things locked up there. I have to wonder if they had put some time into campaigning in Maine could they have kept him from winning? I think so. In 2008, Romney won Maine with over 51% of the vote, but this year he only gets 39% (with virtually no opposition there). Clearly, Maine Republicans are not excited about the prospect of Romney winning the nomination.

Then we have the CPAC convention's straw poll held on Saturday. Romney's supporters are claiming his first place finish in that straw poll shows he has good support among the party's base. I'm not so sure. Here are those results:

Mitt Romney...............38%
Rick Santorum...............31%
Ron Paul...............15%
Newt Gingrich...............12%

That doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement to me. And considering that this year's race has been reduced for a while now to Romney vs. anti-Romney, I think the following reading of the results would be just as valid:

anti-Romney...............43%
Romney...............38%
Paul...............15%

Either way you read it, more than 60% of the conservatives attending the conference are not ready to support Romney (and I suspect many of the 38% that do have only a very luke-warm support). And while these conservative leaders give Romney 38% support, there is no evidence that the rank-and-file voters of the party are ready to do so. Consider these results from the latest nationwide survey from Public Policy Polling:

Rick Santorum...............38%
Mitt Romney...............23%
Newt Gingrich...............17%
Ron Paul...............13%

That's a huge 15-point lead for the anti-Romney candidate (currently Rick Santorum) nationwide. Romney couldn't even get the support of 1 in four Republicans (with 77% of Republicans wanting some other candidate).

The next two states to vote (on February 28th) are Michigan and Arizona. I haven''t heard much about Arizona, but the word in Michigan is that Santorum is starting to gain ground in that state (and only 20% of voters in Michigan consider Romney to be a "home state" candidate, even though his father was governor of that state). If Romney was to lose either one of those two states, his campaign would be in some real trouble.

Willard Mitt Romney (Wall Street Willie) could still win the nomination. There is still a long way to go, and he does have establishment support and a ton of money from his Wall Street buddies. But he is no longer "inevitable".