New England will once again be the focus of the Republican presidential sweepstakes tonight when the party announces the results of city and town caucuses in Maine. But they are unlikely to bring much clarity to a race in which Mitt Romney, despite a few key victories and a decided advantage in money and organization, has failed to close the deal with voters.
Romney was handed a triple defeat earlier this week in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, a setback that has political pundits predicting the road ahead will continue to be rocky for our former governor.
This is a destructive pattern for the Republican Party. This election season seems to find voters even more disenfranchised than in past years, with enthusiasm scarce and mandates nonexistent. Turnout has been disappointing in caucuses and primaries.
The real winner: President Obama, who has no opposition within his own party and whose policies go unchallenged as Republicans continue to fight among themselves.
The track thus far in the GOP primaries featuring seismic shifts in momentum — first to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum for his good showing in Iowa, then to Romney for his win in New Hampshire, then to former House speaker Newt Gingrich for capturing South Carolina, and now back to Santorum — clearly shows the wide divide among Republicans. Lost in these momentum shifts is the fact that very few people are bothering to vote. In Colorado a mere one out of 50 registered voters took part in the GOP caucuses.
March 6 — "Super Tuesday" — when voters in 11 states including our own cast their ballots, is likely the earliest date on which the Republican race will be decided.
If the race goes all the way to the party's Aug. 27-30 convention in Tampa, as Gingrich threatens, the nomination could be rendered meaningless.
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