The Campaign Buzz

State GOP spokesman: I'll revert to that lame 'smell test' line to try to diffuse this

Here's when you know the Michigan Republican Party has nothing to say to defend its rule-change-after-the-fact in delegate allocation:

Its own spokesman uses the lamest line in political parlance in lieu of any substantive defense whatsoever. From today's Big News:

(State party spokesman Matt) Frendewey dismissed the Santorum campaign's assertion the rules were changed to help Romney avoid an embarrassing loss in his native state.

"This idea that this is a backdoor deal that took place in the middle of the night is just ludicrous and doesn't pass the smell test," Frendewey said. "I'm sure they're doing what's best for their candidate."

It doesn't pass the "smell test", eh?

You know when people say that, don't you? They say it when they're down to nothing else.

What is the smell test? Among political types and political media, the smell test means, "I don't even need to deal with the substance of what you said because I can just smell that it's a load of crap."

Are there statements you can dismiss just by applying the so-called smell test? Sure. Obama insists he's pro-business. Baghdad Bob insists there are no U.S. troops near Baghdad. They're statements so obviously absurd, you question whether the person who makes them even expects you to take them seriously.

But as often happens in the absurd world of politics, the use of a notion gets out of hand and people start applying it to everything, whether it fits or not.

Pretty soon, whenever you're under fire and there's not much you can say in your defense, you whip out the "smell test" line because, hey, it's there, and what else are you going to say?

Frendewey suggests that it doesn't pass the smell test for Santorum to allege a backroom deal. Oh? Why's that? What's so patently absurd about the suggestion that it would be obvious to everyone it shouldn't be taken seriously?

The GOP rules committee announced a method for allocating delegates, then claimed after the primary that they didn't really mean what they said - citing as their evidence a memo that totally contradicts their claim, but which they say was mistaken - and awarded an extra delegate to Romney even though one of the committee members, a former attorney general and Romney backer, opposed the move and said there is no conceivable way of defending it.

The term "smell test" should probably be retired, as it's getting old and cliche and it's become a crutch for bad political writers and disingenuous political operatives.

But just for Mr. Frendewey's information, there is something that smells here, all right.

Of course: Santorum's lawyer gets involved

Is Santorum going to let go of this Michigan delegate brouhaha? Not on your life. Even if there really isn't a legal case, the value for Santorum is simply in announcing that you're doing it - and keeping the story alive.

Granted, at least to this point, no one is suggesting the Romney campaign had a hand in this. But does it even need to? The storyline is that The Establishment has the fix in on Romney's behalf. If nothing else, it will make The Establishment think twice about trying this in other states.

From Santorum's press release:

The Rick Santorum for President has sent a letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus requesting the RNC's Legal Counsel investigate the actions of the Michigan Republican Party and all other actors involved in the decision to change the delegate allocation rules after the election in the Michigan Republican Presidential Primary.

The rules were publicly stated, publicly accepted, and our campaign played by those rules. To change the rules after the fact is something we would not expect to be condoned within our Party, which has a long history of fighting for freedom and integrity at the ballot box. And to condone such behavior by any entity - whether it be a State or Local Party or a campaign for the highest office in our nation - is a black-eye to the leadership of our Party."

You think the RNC wants to touch this? You think they can avoid it?

Schostak, Anuzis all over the place on delegate kerfuffle

Yes, it's one measly delegate, but I have this notion that when people who run elections are feeding you a load of crap - and that's what this looks like - the intensity of the impact on the race itself is sort of beside the point.

Yesterday, Michigan Republican Party Chairman Bobby Schostak and fellow Rules Committee member Saul Anuzis tried to explain why the state GOP first said it would award at-large delegates on a proportional basis - which would mean one for Romney and one for Santorum given the vote - but then changed it to award them both on a winner-take-all basis, meaning Romney got them both.

Anuzis is quoted by MSNBC as blaming confusing wording in a memo:

"Regrettably, there was an error in the memo drafted and sent to the respective campaigns. There were questions raised at the time the memo was drafted as to whether the legal language used was accomplishing the goal of the committee and we were advised that it was, but now it is clear that the memo did not properly communicate the intent of the committee. The email traffic surrounding the drafting of the memo in early February makes explicitly clear what the intent of the committee was."

But Schostak told NBC news something very different on Feb. 8:

"We start off with, after the penalty, 30 voting delegates. Okay? Each district-congressional district - you can win individually. So you have 14 districts you can win two delegates. That takes you to 28. Okay? The two at-large that remain, provided the individual candidate won at least 15 percent of the statewide vote - okay so with four candidates that's likely to happen. Then they get awarded proportionally, those delegates, and then rounded to the nearest decimal point so there won't be any half delegates or quarter delegates."

So show me where there's room in Schostak's quote for believing that the at-large delegates were always going to be awarded on a winner-take-all basis, and Schostak knew this.

Never mind. Don't bother trying. It can't be done.

Maybe the better question is: Why would they pull such shenanigans - so blatant that committee member Mike Cox (a Romney backer who also backs following the rules) felt he had no choice but to publicly denounce the trick?

Were the party leaders that worried about Santorum being able to claim the outcome was really a tie? Are they just that arrogant and they figure it's their party and they can do whatever they want?

Yeah, it's one delegate. But it's also a loud-and-clear message to anyone who tries to operate under a system run by the Michigan Republican Party that the rules are only the rules until the party's leaders don't like the outcome produced under the rules.

You can reassure yourself that these are merely party officials and not elected officials, but the Republican Legislature not long ago passed a bill throwing out county commission districts in Oakland County after they were drawn - because Democrats drew the map, which they were legally entitled to do give the results of the election.

So why is a blogger on a conservative site harping on vote manipulation as perpetrated by Republicans? Maybe because Republicans who win by cheating instead of by earning the support of the electorate aren't going to have the consent of the electorate to do the things conservatives want them to do.

If they'll cheat the process, my friends, they'll cheat you too.

Here we go: Santorum holds media conference call to discuss Michigan 'scandal'

All over one delegate. One stinking delegate.

And yet, you have to give them credit: The Santorum crew understands that the MSM will love this, if only because they assume Romney will be the eventual nominee, so anything they can use to connect him to voting irregularity is better than talking about, say, Obama's Energy Secretary admitting he wants gas prices high.

Now Santorum has a petition going, which will be about as effective as any petition ever has. But he's probably going to be able to keep this story alive for a day or two, and with even Romney-backer Mike Cox conceding that Santorum got hosed here, it's curious to ponder why the committee thought this was a good idea.

After the fact, GOP changes rules to give Romney extra delegate

This gets a little complicated, but here's the gist of it:

Two of the delegates at stake in the Michigan primary were "at-large," and they were supposed to be assigned based on proportion of vote total. So in a close race, Romney and Santorum should have gotten one each.

But last night, the GOP's rules committee voted to change (or just ignore) the rules and award them both to Romney. MIRS quoted former Attorney General Mike Cox, a Romney supporter, as saying he had voted against the rule change because it was clearly not the right thing to do.

I think a lot of the activist prattle about the so-called "establishment" is a bit paranoid, but this is the sort of thing you know they imagine in their scariest delusions: The "true conservative" earns his share of the vote and some group of party insiders takes it away from him and gives it to their preferred RINO squish.

Even if you put aside the whole fairness thing, it's the sort of move that can't possibly be worth enough to Romney to justify the controversy it potentially causes.

I'm not saying Democrats are incapable of similar shenanigans, but Michigan Republicans are certainly not valiant defenders of fairness in elections.

I just got this comment from Hogan Gidley, Santorum's national communications director: ""There's just no way this is happening. We've all heard rumors that Mitt Romney was furious that he spent a fortune in his home state, had all the political establishment connections and could only manage a tie Rick Santorum. But we never thought the Romney campaign would try to rig the outcome of an election by changing the rules after the vote. This kind of back room dealing political thuggery just cannot and should not happen in America."

I am not surprised that the Santorum crew does righteous indignation very well.

Santorum: You know, it was really a tie

All right. As one who has spent 12 years beating back the argument that George W. Bush really "lost" the 2000 presidential race on the basis of popular vote, I'm not going to start falling back on that one now.

True: It's delegates that get you the nomination. True: Santorum just might break even with Romney on the Michigan delegate count based on the proportional method by which they are awarded. True: You can work a strategy that emphasizes delegates over the popular vote and, if you win enough of them, you can legitimately claim success.

I get all that.

But do you think, if Santorum had won the popular vote and still only tied in the delegate count, he wouldn't be claiming a huge win? The question answers itself.

That said, what's this?

No matter what the press would have you believe this morning, we are now in for a long, important battle. But before I get tothat (sic), I just have to tell you, I thought a lot about my grandfather last night.

He was animmigrant (sic) from Italy. He became a coal miner, and worked hard every day. To think that his grandson could run in the most important Presidentialelection (sic) in American history is absolutely inspiring!

The most important Presidentialelection in American history, is it? Sort of like everything Obama does is "unprecedented" because he tells us that himself?

I do hope Santorum writes these Facebook posts himself, because if he's paying someone to produce all these spacing errors and random capitalization mistakes, he's getting ripped off.

You know, my grandfather was also animmigrant (sic! psyche!) from Italy. He became a UAW member. To think that his grandson could write this snarky wingnut blog.

Maybe it's just as well that he's not around to see it.

Was it the robocall? Or was Santorum his own problem?

Interesting reference in the Watercooler this morning by my View colleague Richard Burr, who quotes Byron York of the Washington Examiner as positing that Santorum's Monday robocall - targeting Democrats by citing Romney's auto bailout opposition - may have ultimately backfired and done him in.

Burr seems to back that view - adding that the robocall might have worked 10 or 15 years ago, but in the age of the Internet it's too easy for that kind of tactic to be exposed quickly and on a widespread basis.

I think there's something to that, but to my mind it's only part and parcel to a bigger problem. For all his insistence that he was the "trusted conservative," Santorum never really found a way to boil that down to a comprehensible governing vision.

Jumping all over Romney for opposing the auto bailout, which Santorum also opposed, but couching it in terms of intellectual consistency or something, is disingenuous at best and certainly not anything resembling a governing strategy.

That's often the problem with the quest for the "true conservative." Once you find a guy who's as down-the-line as you're looking for, you still have to boil it down to a serious action plan.

This, again, was a curiosity about Santorum. He actually put out a first-100-days agenda that was impressive and focused. And yet at other times he finds himself yammering on with oddly conceived notions about home ownership or contraception.

This is a bit intangible, but here's what I suspect this choice came down to for a lot of Republican voters: It's just hard to imagine Santorum as president. He's a nice guy and a smart guy, but the challenges facing this nation require a leader of compelling strength, someone with such a track record of confident achievement that the guy has to seem as big as the task, which is very big indeed.

For all his sound ideas, and for all his effectiveness in give-and-take with the shallow, substance-challenged media, do you really see Santorum as that strong and accomplished a man?

I don't think that many people do. I think he got the votes he got because some people were simply going to vote for the most conservative candidate they thought was plausible, and after the flame-outs of Perry and any number of others, Santorum was left, and it was good for 38 percent of so of the vote.

But for those looking for that bigger-than-the-task man of the hour, I just don't think that's Rick Santorum. I don't think enough of you thought so either.

For all the drama, Michigan goes for Mitt

Romney looks to be winning Michigan with about a 4-to-5 percent margin.

My quick off-the-cuff analysis is simply this: In the end, Santorum did not make a very good case for himself, and that left the Not-Romney conservative activists without a champion they could a) rally behind with enthusiasm; and b) sell to anyone else.

Santorum at times demonstrates a strong command of the issues. But too often he is a muddled mess when he explains what he would do as president, or even why he wants to be president. He writes in CapCon that it's all about home ownership? His robo-calls slam Romney for opposing the auto bailout, when Santorum opposed it as well?

Basing his entire campaign on his ability to sell himself as the "trusted conservative" really wasn't enough to make people envision him in the Oval Office and feel good about it.

Romney won because he's the only plausible president people felt they had the option of choosing. Newt never even showed up here, and there aren't enough nuts to make Lyndon LaRouche anything but a novelty act as usual.

The numbers from Arizona shows that Romney is winning big there. I wonder if we saw the beginning of the end of the nomination battle tonight. On to Super Tuesday!

Romney 312,712, Santorum 282,663; 72.4 percent reporting

It seems unlikely at this point that Santorum can make up the difference, although the percentages haven't really changed much all night. Romney's lead has been steady and with only 27.6 percent of precincts left, Santorum would need huge numbers from here on in to have a shot.

Romney 220,039, Santorum 198,306; 46.1 percent reporting

Here's a thought: If Operation Sabotage for Santorum is a big fail - and that's how it's looking - doesn't it accomplish the opposite of humiliating Romney? If he wins decisively even with the mischief, isn't that a big embarrassment for both Santorum and his new pal DiSano?