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29 Feb 2012 01:30

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Politics: Unsurprisingly, female voters like Romney more than Santorum–at least in Michigan

  • 1% margin by which Mitt Romney won the male vote tonight in Michigan
  • 5% margin by which Romney won the female vote source
  • » Why? Well, these statements in opposition to placing female soldiers on the front lines of battle may have had something to do with it. Or maybe it’s his opposition to abortion, or his opposition to contraception. Santorum may be aware of this deficit he faces: As Molly Ball at The Atlantic notes, “Santorum began his speech by thanking his mother, his wife, and his eldest daughter at length, emphasizing their professional bona fides. He seemed to be implicitly going out of his way to assure women he took a modern view of their place in the workplace and role in society.”

27 Feb 2012 16:03

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Politics: Ron Paul hasn’t attacked Romney once during the debates

  • Ron and Mitt, bosom buddies: A lot has been made of the mysterious affinity between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. In addition Romney offering his private jet for Paul’s use, many note that, despite sharing almost none of the same policy positions, the two rarely go after each other during debates. ThinkProgress analyzed the forums, and its findings seem to confirm this: During the 20 Republican forums, Paul hasn’t attacked Romney once. We’d like to learn more about their methodology before drawing any hard conclusions from this (what counts as an “attack?”); we’re also curious as to why candidates like Jon Huntsman and Herman Cain weren’t included in the analysis [Edit: Herman Cain is actually represented on the chart; thanks to robajob for pointing that out]. Nevertheless, it is a rather odd phenomena, with explanations ranging from “they’re just friends” to “Romney promised Ron Paul’s son the VP slot” (which seems rather far-fetched, but not altogether impossible). It’s nice to have some numbers to back up the observation, and it’ll be interesting to see how the two handle Virginia’s primary, where they’re the only two candidates on the ballot. [many thanks to ThinkProgress, both for the analysis and the image] source