Rudy the Front-Runner?

John Heilemann:

Yet now the Republican field is exactly where Rudy's people believed (hoped, prayed) it would be at this point: in utter disarray. If he wins in Florida, where he's essentially been living, basking in the warm sunshine and building up his firewall, while his rivals have frozen their asses off in Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be in the catbird seat. Indeed, you could even argue that, despite having won nothing thus far, Giuliani is now the GOP front-runner again, albeit by default.

You could argue that, but you'd be wrong. Yes, Rudy still has an outside chance in Florida, and yes, so long as he has a chance there he has a chance at the nomination, and yes, the divisions in the field are part of what's keeping him alive. But he isn't ahead in Florida, despite having campaigned exclusively there for weeks, and in every single state where any non-Rudy candidate has campaigned in any significant way, his support hasn't just fallen off, it's absolutely cratered. Until he demonstrates the ability to break this pattern, and poll above ten percent in a race that's actually contested, his chances at the nomination have to be judged slimmer than any of the three men who've actually won one of those gold medals Mitt Romney's always talking about.

Meanwhile, I agree with Matt: At this point, for all his weaknesses, Romney has to be judged the closest thing to a front-runner in the GOP field.

Comments

"At this point, for all his weaknesses, Romney has to be judged the closest thing to a front-runner in the GOP field."

Of course the consensus over at Intrade is that Romney "has to be judged" the third closest to being a front-runner after the Maverick and the Mayor.

http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=175729&z=1200520698875

Posted by John Sterling | January 16, 2008 5:11 PM

McCain still has the best chance for the nomination and must be seen as the front runner. Romney has money and Michigan but is dead in south so far. John McCain has shown an ability to get delegates in every state. He is well-known and can live off the land (free media). Rudy is a spoiler now. Romney the main challenger propelled by money, resentment against McCain and a willingness to take any view popular with the electorate he needs at the moment. McCain trumps that.

Posted by jjv | January 16, 2008 5:34 PM

At this point, for all his weaknesses, Romney has to be judged the closest thing to a front-runner in the GOP field.

I disagree. We're close enough to 2/5 now that the person who leads in the nationwide polls has to be viewed as the front-runner. In most polls, McCain is currently ahead and Romney is third, at best. Mitt's strategy involves using massive ad buys to pander on a state-by-state basis. He'll need to drain his family fortune to play that strategy in 20 states at once.

I think Mitt's going to get hammered on Super Tuesday unless he can somehow cultivate an air of inevitability between now and then.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 16, 2008 5:48 PM

The key to winning this crazy GOP nomination fight is to be ahead in the national polls going into Feb. 5th, as whoever has the most national support on what's effectively a "national primary day" will likely win the largest number of states and the largest share of delegates. Throughout most of 2007, Giuliani led all the national polls by at least 10 points. His gamble was that as long as the early victories were divided among all the other candidates, none of them would get much national momentum out of their wins, and his national lead would hold.

But obviously, it hasn't worked that way. Instead of one candidate getting all the momentum and passing Giuliani in the national polls, Huckabee, McCain, and Romney have all collectively passed Giuliani, and he's down to 13% and 4th place nationally:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-192.html

Now, maybe Giuliani can win Florida, and use the bounce from that win to regain some of that, but I seriously doubt it.

Incidentally, the fact that the eventual nominee will, eventually, have to lead the national polls, is why I'm not yet sold on Romney-as-frontrunner. All he's done so far is show that if he throws millions upon millions of advertising dollars (outspending his opponents by something like 3 to 1 or more) into each state, he can consistently place first or second. But does even Romney have the resources to spend such lavish sums on the enormous number of major media markets in Feb. 5th states? I'll be curious to see if his Michigan win gives him a significant bounce in the national polls. If not, then I'm not sure he can pull this off.

Posted by Chris S. | January 16, 2008 5:56 PM

We're close enough to 2/5 now that the person who leads in the nationwide polls has to be viewed as the front-runner. In most polls, McCain is currently ahead and Romney is third, at best.

The national polls are really only an echo of the latest CW. McCain is the national frontrunner at the moment because the media has been spreading "McCain rebounds" stories since New Hampshire. Now the story will be "Romney on top" and the polls will follow.

John McCain has shown an ability to get delegates in every state.

Well if you ignore Wyoming. And give him credit for his 4th place finish in Iowa. It's pretty clear looking at the results so far that if there's a candidate who has shown he can get delegates in every state, it's Romney. We'll see if he can do it in the South.

Posted by right | January 16, 2008 5:59 PM

Here's one other argument against the "Rudy in the catbird seat" meme: Yes, he hasn't been focusing on any of the early states, but shouldn't he have at least some level of organic support? McCain didn't campaign in Iowa, but he still got like 13%. Rudy was down in Duncan Hunter territory.

If the only way Rudy can get votes in a state is by setting up shop there and focusing on it to the exclusion of all others, does that really make him a viable GE candidate?

Posted by Zorro for the Common Good | January 16, 2008 8:50 PM

shouldn't he have at least some level of organic support

That's the thing - his support seems to be largely based on name recognition, and everywhere where people have really started to take an interest in the issues and/or been bombarded with ads it's tended to decline. He does still have some strongholds, but no grassroots support.
As for Romney and the national polls, I think you need to account also for the tailwind that Romney's superior national groundwork gives him. Why did Romney win Wyoming? Is it because he was really popular there? No, he signed up a ton of delegates by the deadline. He's done the same thing in West Virginia - the three leaders in committed delegates to the state convention look to be Romney, Paul, and Thompson, with all other contenders in the dust. Nevada? Oh look, only Romney and Paul have have been organizing. In the vast majority of states where you have procedural or organizational hurdles to cross in order to get delegates for some complicated caucus process, Romney is in the thick of it.
Of course, huge batches of delegates are still at stake in honest-to-goodness popular-vote primaries, so Romney would need a decent share of those as well. But collecting a lot of these caucus delegates will give him a very significant boost.
And FWIW I don't support Romney. But I recognize solid execution when I see it.

Posted by bbartlog | January 17, 2008 12:35 AM

...he's essentially been living, basking in the warm sunshine and building up his firewall, while his rivals have frozen their asses off...

It remains unclear to me what sort of strategic advantage his personal comfort is supposed to confer in the nominating process.

Posted by Brad L | January 17, 2008 12:12 PM