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[Zrk2]

It's looking like 50% Romney, 30% Gingrich, Santorum 13% and Paul 7% according to CNN.

[Heron TSG]

After Florida, I don't doubt that Paul and Santorum will drop out. Paul will probably run 3rd party. Santorum's voters will probably flee to Gingrich, and it'll be somewhat of a close matchup again.

(I kinda hope Gingrich can keep fighting for a few more months, just so that they bury each other in the dirt they dig up.)

[lemon10]

I don't think that Paul will drop out, his goal was never to win, because he knew he couldn't, but rather to try to change the conversation in the republican party and put his views out there.
Because of that I see no reason for him to drop out just because he doesn't stand a chance of winning.

[nenjin]

I feel like that's Newt's mindset too. Except instead of trying to turn Republican conversation toward his views, I think he's trying to maintain the business of being Newt, and that requires publicity of any kind. He's sort of becoming the real Donald Trump of politics, at this point.

[darkrider2]

I feel like that's Newt's mindset too. Except instead of trying to turn Republican conversation toward his views, I think he's trying to maintain the business of being Newt, and that requires publicity of any kind. He's sort of becoming the real Donald Trump of politics, at this point.

The resemblance is outstanding.

[Aqizzar]

I don't think that Paul will drop out, his goal was never to win, because he knew he couldn't, but rather to try to change the conversation in the republican party and put his views out there.
Because of that I see no reason for him to drop out just because he doesn't stand a chance of winning.

Yeah, he didn't drop out in 2008 either, even when it was mathematically impossible for him to win by the end of January.  Heck, he even spent all that Revolution money to host his own separate Convention across the street from the Republican Party one, and he certainly wasn't a third-party then either.  He just doesn't care, as long as they still let him into the debates - running is what he does.

Santorum, yeah I can imagine him dropping out soon.  If not after this, then definitely after February 7th, provided he doesn't pull an out of nowhere comeback.  Which in this nomination, is always a possibility.

[Osmosis Jones]

So, this election has finally made significant (as in, more than a 30 sec slot) of air time on Australian TV; at least as far as I've seen. Was watching the news last night, and got a nice couple of minutes of commentary. Also around 30 to 40s of Romney basically calling Gingrich a lying, cheating two-faced weasel.

Good times.

[Aqizzar]

So, this election has finally made significant (as in, more than a 30 sec slot) of air time on Australian TV; at least as far as I've seen. Was watching the news last night, and got a nice couple of minutes of commentary. Also around 30 to 40s of Romney basically calling Gingrich a lying, cheating two-faced weasel.

Heck, I was just listening to a manager from the pro-Gingrich PAC, basically accusing Romney of being complicit in $120million Medicare fraud case, perpetrated by some company Bain Capital bought, and then sold the month it was convicted.  And then has to say that Gingrich will stand behind Romney should he win the nomination.

You know Obama's campaign staff are sitting on their asses just recording this stuff, since all they have to do is slap an Obama bumper on the end, and they have every ad they'll ever need against either guy running.

[RedKing]

Looks like Gingrich won the panhandle (aka Crazy Crackerville), Romney dominated South Florida (aka North Cuba / South New York).

Would be fascinated to see the crosstabs re: Hispanic and Jewish vote

[Nadaka]

Aqizzar: For a moment I thought you were refering to the Columbia/HCA scandal that FL Gov Rick Scott (R) was involved in, but 120 million sounds way to small an amount of fraud.

http://blog.reidreport.com/2012/01/um-rick-scott-uses-holocaust-quote-to-defend-bain-capital-seriously/

RedKing: yes I this is crazy crackerville, kinda sucks actually.

[Frumple]

Ah, you're up/down here in Bumfuckistan, too, Nadaka? Suffering brethren!

All I know is I'm happy this is over for us, for a little while anyway. It wasn't too bad, but th'house I'm in did probably get a dozen or so, probably more, autocalls. Which was kind of ridiculous, as no one in the house is registered Republican. I can only imagine it was worse in places with an actual population.

[RedKing]

Morning update:

Gingrich apparently refused to call Romney to offer his concession. U MAD, NEWT?

Here's the exit poll crosstabs. In short, Mitt brings all the hot mamis to the booth. Really though, he dominated almost every category--even the youth vote, which is a big difference from the previous three contests.

This is perhaps a bigger loss for Santorum and Paul than it is for Gingrich. Ron Paul underperformed his poll standing, and lost the youth vote to Romney. Santorum was a second fiddle to Gingrich even among abortion single-issue voters, archconservatives and evangelical born-agains.

It'll be interesting to see if Florida has much effect on the next two contests (Maine and Nevada) because there's so little time for the campaigns to filth up the airwaves. Then a few days after that, we get Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri's not-a-real-primary popularity poll. Then there's an unholy three-week gap before the next primary. I think that three-week gap is when you'll see Santorum and Paul drop out, and any third-party contenders to throw their hat in.

There are rumblings that The Donald is thinking of making a 3rd party run. Guess he wants to try and play his... Trump Card.


EDIT: Oh, and in response to my earlier wondering about the Hispanic and Jewish votes:
Jewish voters were only about 1% of exit poll respondents and had no seection preference recorded.
Hispanics went overwhelmingly for Romney, but it should be noted that the Florida Hispanic population is disproportionately Cuban-American. The Cuban exiles are an altogether different political beast than various Central and South American enclaves elsewhere in the US.

[palsch]

http://blog.reidreport.com/2012/01/um-rick-scott-uses-holocaust-quote-to-defend-bain-capital-seriously/

Lot's of mileage from the holocaust this race.

Incidentally another significant figure is how well the negative ads worked. Positive ads convince people to like you and to turn out to vote for you. Negative ads convince people who like the other guy to stay home. This year nearly 300,000 who voted in the Florida Republican primary in 2008 stayed home, a 14% drop. Among self-identified Republicans the drop is even worse.

One other thing to keep in mind; Florida have broken the rules in two ways. They held an early primary, being docked half their delegates for that. They also went winner-takes-all, something not supposed to be allowed this year. That opens the 50 delegates Romney just took up to further challenges at a later time. Now, there is no way the Republicans will further penalise Florida (you don't piss off Florida on the run up to a presidential election), but it could be they are instructed to redistribute the delegates proportionally, either by vote share or some version of how the districts were won. Gingrich actually did win a fair few counties, which may convert into outright wins in some congressional districts or whatever dividing line would be used. Given that these issues tend to be decided by committees of campaign and party staff during the convention negotiations, it could easily come up later.

Meanwhile the FEC filings are giving some more interesting reading. Romney is raising fast, but still miles behind Obama.

Top executives at Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs and other financial houses tied to Mitt Romney have poured millions of dollars into a Super Pac that funded the blitz of attack adverts that played a central role in the former Massachusetts governor's victory in Florida.

According to figures released by the Federal Election Commission at midnight, the Super Pac backing Romney, Restore Our Future, took in about $18m from 200 donors during the second half of last year. Nearly 60 of the donors were firms or rich individuals who gave more than $100,000.

The Super Pac backing Barack Obama and started by former White House staffers, Priorities USA Action, raised just $4.4m over the same period. But the financial filings released by the FEC showed that the president's campaign organisation – which is not a Super Pac and therefore limited to individual donations no larger than $2,500 – raised more than twice as much as Romney's in 2011, bringing in $140m.

The disparity suggests that Romney will be heavily reliant on wealthy donors and big business to finance his run for president, after a supreme court ruling last year opened the way for virtually unlimited funding in support of political candidates by individuals, companies and trades unions.

Just how tied into the funding source of Bain Romney is is best illustrated by another datapoint; Romney's family and close donors helped to pay down Pawlenty's debt when he supported Romney.

[RedKing]

All of which is going to provide great ammunition in the fall: "Mitt Romney is the candidate of Wall Street, bought and paid for."

[Aqizzar]

All of which is going to provide great ammunition in the fall: "Mitt Romney is the candidate of Wall Street, bought and paid for."

Supposedly, that's exactly where Gingrich plans on going next, if he hasn't started already, trying to call Romney the Candidate of Wall Street.

Updated the OP.  I have to pace myself, because it's already like 28000 characters, and I need to leave room for the rest of the race.

Some interesting exit-polling data I heard.  Supposedly, Rick Santorum was considered by far the most likable candidate, no doubt because he was completely ignored by the nuclear exchange between Gingrich and Romney.  But only 15% of people who ranked him Most Likable said they actually voted him.  Meanwhile, the highest ranking reason for selecting a candidate was "electability" at like 45%, not coincidentally about the same as Romney's vote total.  Even as Romney's "likability" numbers drop in the toilet, though still miles away from the Universe of Hate that is Gingrich's national reputation, apparently.  Florida being a Closed Primary, it's no particular surprise that 60% of people considered themselves Tea Party Supporters, while the state as a whole is only about a third registered-Republican.

What I thought was the most interesting was the spending versus the effects.  Romney spent half again as much money as the entire Republican field did in Florida in 2008, and it netted him a sub-50% plurality victory.  Even with stupid amounts of money poured into advertising, Republican voter turnout was down a quarter million people from 2008, especially dropping out of Latinos.

Considering the total ad-time given to "positive" campaign messaging was something like 0.8% of broadcasting (most of it Santorum and Paul), this really is rewriting the story on campaign advertising.  I think we've seen the ad nauseum effect of unlimited campaign spending and total blowout negatives - you can win, but may actually driving people away from the polls, and it's blowing huge craters in the general electorate's perception of the two guys most likely to win this nomination.