Rosie Blogs the Primaries: Florida

I'm getting a little irritated that work keeps scheduling me for election nights. Sigh... I'll get to actually see one of the primaries one of these days. No way am I missing Super Tuesday.


Anyway, I got home from work yesterday at around eight and found that CNN had already called the Florida race for Mitt Romney, no surprises there.


Mitt's victory speech was... less than inspiring. He's really not a compelling speaker. Say what you like about the president, but he's got much more charisma, and he gives much more powerful speeches. Maybe stuff like that shouldn't matter in politics, but whether it should or not, it does.


One thing I noticed last night: the Republicans love to talk up how they're going to downsize government. They're all like "Less government! Yaaaaaaaay!" and then they proceed to go "Obama wants to cut the military! BOOOOOO!". So apparently, it's less government, unless guns are involved.


I think Ron Paul is crazy, but at least he's consistent with his message of "Shrink ALL the things!". The hypocrisy of the rest of them is really what gets me.


Speaking of hypocrites, I find it highly ironic that Newt Gingrich is getting all the votes from the evangelical Christians. I mean, dude. He's been married three times, and he had a six-year affair. That's real conservative of you, Newt.


Also, if there are any Doctor Who fans out there, you may appreciate this: Newt Gingrich is totally a Dalek. "EXTERMINATE" is pretty much the only thing he ever says. And honestly, in this primary I think he's pretty much just out for blood. It's not likely that he'll win, but he hates Mitt Romney enough that he's going to sink in his teeth and carry it all the way to the end.


Overall: pretty uneventful primary. No particularly interesting speeches, no surprise results, no contest. The only mildly interesting thing coming out of this: Newt Gingrich didn't call Mitt Romney to congratulate him on his win.


Okay, really? How middle-school can you get? Firstly, Newt, for being such a sore loser. And secondly, Romney, for being upset about it. It's just so... immature. You're grown men. Get over it.

Rosie Blogs the Primaries: South Carolina

I got home from work around 7:15 tonight to discover that MSNBC had already called South Carolina for Newt Gingrich, based solely on exit polls. In a way, the quick results were a bit disappointing– I was hoping for a bit more drama, because the more interesting things are, the better– but, lack of drama aside, these results are pretty interesting.

Never before in history has a different Republican candidate won Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. In other words, this race is going to be an absolute mess. There's no cohesion– there's no unity at all, no coalescing behind one candidate.

Dad said, "They know how to divide a party. And you know what we always say..."

"A house divided against itself cannot stand?" I suggested.

What he actually had in mind was "When you build a clown car, you have to expect it'll get filled up with clowns" (and he's got a point there, I must admit), but I think there's a lot of truth to the Lincoln quote that was my first thought. If the Republican party continues to be split like this, they're quickly going to become completely non-functional. Opinion within the party will be divided enough that they won't be able to muster any significant support for any one candidate. And that is not the way to win elections. Especially not nationwide ones.

In the short term, this division means that things are looking good for Obama's reelection this upcoming November. In the long term, it means that the Republican party is facing some pretty serious problems– if they can't get their act together to unify a bit, they may well find themselves losing a lot of relevance really quickly.

Even if they do manage to reunify (to be honest, I sort of doubt that they will), they're not doing it before this primary is over, which is going to make the race very messy. And in all likelihood, very long.

I wasn't hugely impressed with anyone's speeches tonight. Maybe the problem is just that they're making all the same points they've made a thousand times before (or, in Newt Gingrich's case, the same jokes), but none of them have really stood out in any way. I just find myself... bored. And as a politician, boredom is not what you want to leave your audience with.

I'll be interested to see how Florida turns out. This primary season has already been a bloodbath, and I have a feeling it's about to get even bloodier.