Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Matt hearts Mitt

Matt Drudge wants Mitt Romney to beat Rick Santorum. I can't blame him - Santorum makes me cringe a little, too - but I don't use seedy, suggestive headlines to try to swing elections.

Sometimes, when Drudge is working on some breaking story - usually a MSM news article that he's gotten wind of before its release - he'll splash a big headline with a tagline like 'details to follow'. He did that this morning, as Michigander and Arizonan Republicans went to the polls. The splash read:
SANTORUM'S SATAN WARNING
With no link, no details, and no explanation, it was just innuendo, the suggestion that something new had occurred, and Santorum would have hell to pay. But it wasn't news.

As his later-in-the-day explanation detailed, the "story" was 3-year-old audio from a speech Santorum gave at Ave Maria University in Florida. The talk was spiritual in content (Satan as a real personality, with real malice, and real power), a bit jingoistic, and quite direct, scorching 'mainline Protestants' as having left the fold of orthodox Christianity.

That's not campaign fare, and it has a place in the public eye. Perhaps an election-morn "oppo dump" by the Romney camp is to blame for the timing of the revelation. Still, Drudge was clearly complicit: publishing a headline linking a candidate to Satan without a story to explain.

We'll see tonight whether the hatchet job was enough to put Romney over the top in one of these two states that should have been easy wins for the Front Runner.

Update: There was no primary election today in Michigan and Arizona.

4 comments:

bpf said...

who are we saying is The Frontrunner?

Macro Guy said...

Mitt Romney is the Front Runner... even if he loses first place, it's like a personality that his campaign has..

BarnYard said...

then your last sentence doesnt make sense - if he's the FrontRunner, he should win there anyways right? and doesn't need to be put "over the top" at all

Macro Guy said...

Sorry; this didn't give much of the background. Romney is from Michigan, his father was a popular governor there, and Romney won Michigan easily in 2008 (despite losing to McCain overall).

So he was expected to win Michigan again this year without a struggle.

Instead, polls have shown Santorum way ahead there! Romney's catching up, as people who are uncomfortable with Santorum but unexcited by Romney reluctantly get on board.

One important thing is that you can be the overall frontrunner, but still be behind in a specific state. When I call Romney the Front Runner, it's because that's the role he has in the metanarrative of the campaign.