Romney vs. Palin: the stalking-horse victory scenario

Romney vs. Palin: the stalking-horse victory scenario (a wake-up call to conservatives)

Stalking-horse definition:

1)Means to disguising a real objective

2)A deceptive candidate who is on the ballot or enters an election only to divide the opposition (eg conservative vote) so that his friend or ally can win the election coming up the middle

In sports, there is an old saying: A team doesn't control its own destiny.

In other words a team finds that it has to rely on another team not doing well or screwing up in order to advance to the playoffs themselves.

In respect to the GOP primaries, CONSERVATIVES do control their own destiny.

Roughly for every 1 liberal and moderate voter there will be in the GOP primaries 2 conservative voters.

In addition Rasmussen at end of January 2011 found that of the entire GOP primary electorate in 2012, 40% of it will be comprised of GOP Tea Party members.

And via the 2008 exit polls it was determined that about 40% of the GOP primary vote then was comprised of evangelical Christians. I don't expect that to change in 2012.

(Obviously there is some overlap with TP members and evangelical voters.)

Poll after poll has shown that Mitt Romney doesn't do well among social conservatives, Tea Party members or folks who self-identify as VERY CONSERVATIVE or evangelical voters. I am not telling you anything that most of you do not know already.

Mitt Romney is NOT a stupid man, plus he has a team of advisers that are pretty savvy. Imho, they have determined there is only one sure-fired way to win the nomination and beat Sarah Palin, which is to set up 1 or 2 viable stalking-horses (eg Bachmann and Cain) to bleed conservative votes away from Palin during the vote and also to stop as many former Huckabee supporters from filtering over to Palin's tent over time.

As the definition of stalking-horse indicates these candidates have no intention of winning the GOP nomination. Instead they are only in the race to stop Sarah Palin from winning the nomination by winning conservative votes that might have gone to her if they were not in the race.

So what does this mean for conservatives. CONSERVATIVES, you do absolutely control your own destiny in the GOP primaries. If you really want to exercise your newfound clout in the most meaningful way and also set the stage for the defeat of President Obama in 2012, I am imploring you to eventually settle on one CONSERVATIVE candidate, and then coalesce behind him or her 100%.

As a Palinista, I hope you settle on Sarah Palin but if you choose to go with either Bachmann or Cain so be it. But for God's sake settle on one conservative and try to convince your conservative family members, friends, neighbors, golf buddies, club members, work associates and anybody who is conservative to adopt the same approach to the 2012 primaries. You must warn them of the consequences of not doing so.

Bottom line: You can't allow Mitt Romney to come up the middle.

As an example of what I am talking about:

First here are two recent PPP state polls in Ohio and Wisconsin conducted post-Huckabee:

Among voters who self-identify as VERY CONSERVATIVE:

a) OHIO

ROMNEY PALIN + BACHMANN + CAIN TOTAL

13 20 15 13 48

VERY CONSERVATIVE (VC) voters give their votes to conservative candidates over Romney by a 3.5 to 1 margin but Romney overall wins the Ohio state poll over Palin 21% to 16% because he dominates among moderates.

b)WISCONSIN

ROMNEY PALIN + BACHMANN + CAIN TOTAL

12 16 17 12 45

Again we see VC voters divvying up their votes three ways among conservative candidates by a 3.5 to 1 margin but again Romney dominates among moderates and wins overall 17% to 16% over Palin.

And finally a lesson from the 2008 GOP primaries in South Carolina (SC). Mike Huckabee dominated among evangelical voters picking up 46% of their vote but only 30% of the overall vote. At the same time Fred Thompson who has been rumored as a stalking-horse for John McCain picked up 15% of the vote in SC, much of it from conservatives, a good portion of it probably would have gone to Huckabee. This allowed John McCain to edge out Huckabee 33% to 30%.

Why was this significant? Charlie Crist, then Governor of Florida soon endorsed McCain. McCain went on to win Florida which was a must-win state for Romney and after Super Tuesday Mitt threw in the towel.

The $64,000 question: Would McCain still have won the nomination if Huckabee had won both Iowa and SC? I think an argument could have been made that Florida might have been tougher for McCain and Mitt might have stayed in.

What I do know however is that the win by McCain in SC had a great deal with McCain eventually winning the nomination which allowed him to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate several months later.

Ironically what may have propelled Sarah Palin into the national spotlight in 2008, the stalking-horse phenomenon, has the potential to derail and sink her presidential ambitions in 2012.