How much effort should Romney place in winning Pennsylvania?

[jmc247]

How much should Romney and his SuperPACs spend on New York and Pennsylvania? Romney is going to to campaign there tomorrow and his Super PAC has already put in half a million.

Its clear he wants Pennsylvania and New York to be the places were he puts the race away this month, but in order to do it he can't be stingy about spending in the major New York and Pennsylvania media markets.

NYC and PA have overlapping media markets so ads in NYC help Romney in PA as well (and all the other April 24th states). PA also has early voting last I checked.
 

[jmc247]

Romney needs to start setting up the groundwork for the fall and for a change maintain it after the primary is over.  He should moneybomb Pennsylvania, but neither his ads nor those of the Restore Mitt's Future PAC should mention Rick at all.  They should either be positive ads about Romney or negative ads about Obama.

Romney's SuperPAC spent about half a million in almost entirely positive ads in Louisiana. It didn't improve his numbers one bit and Santorum side aired mainly negative ads and they were very effective.

Right now if I was Romney I would use the threat of dropping a proverbal a-bomb of ads on Penn and doing everything I can to win there unless Santorum gets out of the race. The other stick would come from the big money backers and Republican establishment that if Santorum wants to run in 2016 or for any other major position he needs to end it now. My carrot of course would be Santorum gets a prime time speaking slot at the convention, any debts paid off, and he gets a graceful treatment by the party for the rest of the year.

Romney can't run to the middle until Santorum exits the race and endorses Romney or until Romney reaches the magic number of delegates. He will reach the magic number too late in the game so he has to force one of the major candidates out. Paul is going nowhere as he is running to support his cause. Newt really is irrelevent at this point he doesn't know it yet. Though its impossible for the RNC to really squeeze him as he knows this is likely his last election anyway.

That leaves Santorum who is still relatively young and I think wants a long political future in the GOP. Romney needs to make it known that he is no Ford and Santorum is no Reagan. That Romney with the help of the party boses will kneecap Santorum politically leaving him too toxic to have any hope of a successful run four years from now if he doesn't get out this week.

[jmc247]

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Beauty contest or not the media would hammer Santorum if Romney beats him in PA and remind Americans that even Newt won his home state. That will also remind people that he called it a must win state. If Romney wins there Santorum will be running nationally at Ron Paul levels after that. The media will stop giving him free air time and there will be no political oxygen or money left for him to go on.

[jmc247]

Romney started campaigning in Pennsylvania yesterday, he will be campaigning there today as well. This is quite unusual for Romney who usually takes a hands off approach when it comes to personal campaigning in a primary state until a few days (or on occasion the day before) voting happens in a primary state. Santorum on the other hand is doing something unusual for him and taking the entire week off from campaigning.

No massive ad buys yet by team Romney, just small ones from his SuperPAC.

Santorum taking the rest of the week off of the campaign while Romney goes all out barnstorming Pennsylvania may not seem like much, but when the Pennsylvania polling starts coming in next week I expect to see Santorum down by double digits in the state even before Romney potentally starts heavy ad buys.

Romney is likely waiting to see what Santorum does early next week when his four days of rest ends before deciding on massive ad buys. Romney I think is giving Santorum a chance to get out of the race or face the likely prospect of humiliating defeat in his home state.

[jmc247]

Santorum: 'We have to win' in Pennsylvania

Campaigning at a diner in his former congressional district the day after he lost three primaries, Rick Santorum brushed aside calls to bow out of the Republican presidential race and allow front-runner Mitt Romney to focus on defeating President Obama in the fall.

“We have to win here and we plan on winning here,” Santorum said, adding that he believed attacks by Romney and his supporters wouldn’t be as successful here as they had been in other states.

 “The people in Pennsylvania know me. All of the negative attacks are, I think, going to fall on deaf ears here and we have a strong basis of support here and we’re going to work very, very hard.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-pn-santorum-we-have-to-win-in-pennsylvania-20120404,0,1256374.story

[jmc247]

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Romney's campaign (not counting SuperPAC ads) only spent about a million and a half on Super Tuesday ads which I felt was a mistake as another million in Tenn and Ohio would have provided him much much better Super Tuesday election night coverage and that would have been worth 20 times as much or more.

The real question will be how much will Romney spend on winning in Pennsylvania. Right now it feels as though he is playing a game with Rick in campaigning around the state and leaking that he is going on the air, but not saying how much. The name of the game is telling Rick pretty clearly after you have your Easter weekend you either get out of the race or I will fight you tooth and nail over your home state and I will beat you. But, get out of the race and you won't have to worry about it and you will have a brighter future in the GOP down the road if you so choose.

As for what he should be willing to spend on winning Pennsylvania if Rick stays in? Anything he has on hand and if he wants to go to the piggy bank for more I would do that as well. He beats Rick in his home state the race ends and Romney very much needs the race to end in April to get ready to face an already ready Obama machine.