Ohio's Republican primary: what does a Super Tuesday win mean?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/06/ohio-republican-primary-super-tuesday

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To outsiders, the political class's obsession with Ohio must seem strange indeed: it's just one of those squarish states toward the middle of the country, best-known for being ordinary. (Sherwood Anderson's Winesberg, Ohio is embedded in American literature because of Anderson's success in showing how the monotony of being so wretchedly normal isolates us and perverts our ability to communicate. Insert your own Rick Santorum joke here.)

The very normalcy of Ohio, combined with some statistical superstition, is what makes it special. For those of you who will be watching tonight's returns with a drink in your hand and a desire to see double by the close of the polls, take a swig every time you hear that no Republican presidential candidate has won the office without winning Ohio. (Please have a designated driver.) That bit of trivia is meaningful, of course, only in so far as there are reasons why Ohio has been such a bellwether – and this is where its representativeness comes in.

Demographically, Ohio is a completest patchwork of American socio-economic clusters. It has industry and agriculture, urban areas and suburban sprawl, high-tech and low-tech employers. It is whiter than the United States as whole – largely because of a lower-than-average Hispanic population – but its age distribution mirrors that of the country and average income is on the dot. Another measure that nicely symbolized Ohio is that it tracks national trends: in 1995, the largest employer in Ohio was General Motors. In 2011, it was Walmart.

Ohio was hit slightly harder by the economic downturn, with a marginally higher unemployment rate and a more significant foreclosure rate – but it has recently seen economic improvements that make it a hopeful outlier in the quest for recovery. If you want to participate even more fully in that Super Tuesday drinking game, look to take a sip every time someone says "microcosm" in reference to the state.

Does that mean that Ohio's results will help predict the outcome of the 2012 general election? Not really. It's unclear if the results will even have a significant impact on the GOP primary. With Santorum and Romney neck-and-neck in the polls, Ohio's delegate prize (66, the second largest awarded tonight) appears to be decisive, but the delegates will be doled out proportionally, so the rewards will be neck-and-neck as well … and Santorum's failure to file the paperwork allowing him to receive delegates in all 16 states prevents any sweep he might have had hope for.

What's more – and more important – the math has begun to make Santorum's chances to actually wrest the nomination away from Romney a logical impossibility. ABC News has an analysis that puts it baldly: Santorum can get to the magic delegate number of 1,144 only if he wins every remaining primary (including those today) with over 50% of the votes state-wide and in each congressional district.

Barring an act of God (undoubtedly Santorum's ultimate strategy), this simply will not happen. No matter how successful he turns out to be in states that are demographically friendly to him, or among the party's base – or in Ohio! – Santorum would have to win in states that show no sign of swinging his way, such as Utah and New Jersey.

Still, it's worth paying attention to the Buckeye State. Who wins which county (the units that a state breaks down into, after the manner of the United States) may suggest the mood and preferences of the demographic blocks that make up the national electorate: if, for instance, Santorum does not pull out significant wins in blue-collar areas with large evangelical populations, we will see evidence that the culture wars are a losing proposition for the GOP. A minor cautionary note: Santorum vote totals could be affected by Democrats voting in the open primary with the intent of throwing a roadblock in Romney's path; I personally doubt that will be a significant factor.

Romney's path isn't going to be smooth, anyway. Though Santorum can't get to 1,144 delegates himself, he and Newt Gingrich, if they both stay in the race, can keep Romney from getting there. Which, from a political journalist's standpoint is awesome: we won't have to write about things that are more complicated than an electoral horse race, like Iran and the eurozone crisis.

It is also, obviously, awesome for Democrats. Already, Republican leaders (and Barbara Bush!) are bemoaning what the increasingly ugly contest is doing for the party as a whole, and polls show (pdf) these concerns are valid: 40% of all voters say the primaries have made them feel less favorable about the GOP.

I am just grateful for the work.