Polisci professors give assesment of GOP race

With Super Tuesday and the Louisiana Republican primary next month, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney has seized momentum, giving UL political scientist professors Pearson Cross, Ph.D., and Ryan Teten, Ph.D., little faith in resurgence for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"Romney is looking more solid than ever," said Cross, head of the political science department. "He's weathered South Carolina (the primary that Gingrich won), which he knew was going to be bad. He is the one candidate with money, organization and everything else to fight this all the way to the convention and arrive at the convention—like it or not—with enough delegates to win the nomination.

"I don't want to say it's inevitable because you don't want to use that term with regards to politics, but in my view, he is and has been the candidate to beat and no one has pushed him off the throne."

Teten concurred with Cross' snapshot of the GOP race and the much-anticipated Super Tuesday on March 6, when 10 states will vote.

"Romney, overall, is going to be your frontrunner with Newt trying to catch up in various states to patchwork together some type of momentum to try and make a stand against Romney," said Teten. "I think if you're a Republican, you want them to settle it—although it's going to be difficult with Super Tuesday. It's not really Super Tuesday; it's more menial Tuesday. Super Tuesday in 2008 had 29 states voting.

"One month may not be enough to make up from them killing each other for eight months. You may have divided the Republican Party so badly that Barack Obama doesn't have to do anything—and he's got a billion-dollar war chest that he doesn't have to spend. There could be nothing better for him than for them to fight all the way to the convention."

On Jan. 31, Romney captured a key victory in the Florida Primary with 46 percent of the vote; Gingrich came in a distant second with 32 percent; former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania placed third with 13 percent; and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who chose to skip the primary, finished with 7 percent.

Last Saturday, Romney trounced Gingrich again in the Nevada caucuses, taking 50 percent of the delegates to 22 percent for Gingrich, 18 percent for Paul and 7 percent for Santorum.

"It's a hit, but it's not fatal," Teten said of Florida. "When we look at politicians and when we teach the media, we say that they play an ‘expectations game' with the media—they will lower expectations for the media if they know they will not perform well so it looks like they didn't lose. Knowing that he had not as much money as Romney did in Florida and probably wouldn't fare as well as Romney would—a couple of weeks ago, he started suggesting that (he) wouldn't be surprised if he lost Florida. Nationally, he was even with Romney (in polls), but those numbers dropped considerably after Florida."

Cross predicted the Louisiana primary on March 24 could have more influence than in years past if there is no clear winner beforehand.

"If this drags on, we could be really important," said Cross. "Usually at this point, we're irrelevant, but this time, if this drags on and they need delegates, they may come visit us with something real at stake, which is rare."