( The Random Independent )

Yeah I Won, What Of It?

Expect To See This A Lot

I don’t know about you, but I just now made up for the all the sleep I lost during that bloody Iowa Caucus. So thanks to New Hampshire for making it easy for us, because soon as the polls closed at 8pm on Tuesday night, Fox News, ABC, CNN, etc. declared Mitt Romney the winner.

“THANK GOD!” Neil Cavuto could surely be heard saying under his breadth, thankful that he wouldn’t have to anchor the coverage of a channel only about 75 thousand people were actually watching to the wee hours of the morning. Seriously, after 6 hours of covering the ineptitude of Iowans to declare a winner, you could see it in his eyes that he was ready to stab somebody in the throat, which is really how we all felt by 2am. CNN on the other hand just pumped laughing gas in their studios, or got high during commercial breaks. It’s honestly hard to tell if you watch any video of their coverage after 1am.

I Wonder Which One Vegas Likes?

But in the end, Romney won over Rick “Don’t Google His Last Name” Santorum by the span of 8 votes, or like half a Duggar Family. Sure, the media decried the victory saying that Conservatives had finally found somebody that would fight for them, and that Santorum’s win was much more cost effective than Romney’s.

Santorum ultimately did better than even I thought, as I predicted with my gut a Ron Paul win before the results started pouring in (In other news, I’m trying to lose weight because after Holiday meals, I think my gut’s prediction skills are hazy). But that’s a mistake in underestimating the power of the media, since they were giving a big push to Santorum in the days and hours leading up to the final votes tallied.

Whack Them!

We saw it before and most prominently with Herman Cain, who won a useless Straw Poll at a time when the media needed a new candidate to put through the ringer. Cain basically rode that wave from the end of September through some sad end point in November. The media built him up and tore him down, but he rode that wave for all it was worth. Santorum rode his wave with all the skill of a paraplegic. No matter how close he was in Iowa, he still lost. He could have picked himself back up for the debates, but instead acted like he always does in debates, an unmemorably limp fish. Momentum, gone.

Which brings me to the New Hampshire debate, which everybody thought would turn out like this:

So Wait, The Kid Doing The Hitting Is The One That Has the Helmet?

Where's Chevy Chase? I'm Sure He's Available

But instead, Romney escaped Saturday night’s ABC debate that got over 6 million viewers, relatively unscathed, with the only real attack coming from the criminally underrated Jon Huntsman, who argued with him in Mandarin. The debate the next morning on an extended edition of Meet The Press on the other hand brought a barrage of attacks against Romney, but it was too little too late. Sure, the debate was watched by 4 million, but those 4 million are people that are more inclined to be up at 9am on a Sunday morning and to watch the debate at that time. Thus, the attacks gained no traction among the people.

Have You Looked In The Mirror Lately, Elephant? You Don't Have Many Options Open...

While some have said that the choice of Mitt Romney is “settling” in some aspect, the fact of the matter is that none of the other candidates have had either the brain or strategy to challenge him in any meaningful way for more than a month. Michele Bachmann had a few months, Rick Perry had a couple months, Herman Cain had like a month and a half. Newt Gringrich had a month, and I’ll be explaining why he’s fallen so later in a separate blog post. Santorum, like I said earlier, had a week, if that. So it’s not for lack of challengers to Romney, it’s just good challengers. And honestly, if they can’t last that long against Romney, who the hell can they last against?

That Was Easy Enough.

So in the end, Mitt Romney got more votes than a non-Paul, combined, decisively winning New Hampshire, which unlike Iowa, is actually somewhat more accurate at predicting eventual candidates. In the WHOLE history of the New Hampshire primary on the Republican side, and possibly the Democratic side, the eventual nominee either came in 1st or 2nd. Note that it started in 1948. That means in 64 years of primaries, New Hampshire has had pretty much the most consistent record of any state. That means that either Romney or Paul will win the whole thing, at least if history means anything.

I Hear A Train A Coming, It's Rolling Roud The Bend

But then you add in the fact that NOBODY has ever won both Iowa and New Hampshire, and you have Mitt Romney as a Japanese bullet train that’s breaking landspeed records. Of course, the problem with trains is that they derail easily if it gets hit just right. Then again, trains also have a tendency to obliterate things when they run them over. In South Carolina, Romney only has 4 points over Gingrich. But in Florida, he has 17 points over Gingrich. So it’ll still be interesting to see what the train does for a while at least. But whatever happens, no matter what the media tries to tell you, for Romney at least, a win is still a win. It doesn’t matter how fast the train is going as long as it’s still outrunning all the other trains.

Time's Running Out...

Tags: 2012 Election, abc debate, cnn, conservative, election, florida, fox business, herman cain, iowa caucus, jon huntsman, meet the press, meet the press debate, Michele Bachmann, mitt romney, neil cavuto, new hampshire, new hampshire primary, newt gingrich, politicians, republicans, rick perry, rick santorum, romney, ron paul, south carolina