Things are starting to look dim for Republican candidates Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum as Super Tuesday’s results revealed that Mitt Romney is definitively the front runner for the GOP spot for the election this coming November. But the real question is whether he will be able to beat out President Barack Obama for the presidential term of 2012 to 2016.

Romney was victorious in six of the ten states on Tuesday including Massachusetts, Ohio, Virginia, Alaska, Idaho and Vermont. Santorum followed with three wins in the states of North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Gingrich trailed with only one win in Georgia and Ron Paul still has not won a single state’s primary or caucus.

Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, easily won the state’s vote with a turnout of approximately 72% voters in his favor. Surprisingly though, only about 20% of all registered Republican and Independent voters showed up to the polls to cast their ballots on Tuesday, according to Brian McNiff, who is the spokesman for Secretary of State William Galvin. This is a significant drop from all presidential primaries in 2008 where about 45% of registered voters cast their ballots for both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Massachusetts State Representative George Peterson is positive that there will be a much higher turn out for the general election in November. Peterson stated, “People feel very strongly about this race and they are not happy where this country is headed.” Peterson also added that he sees, “a 60% percent turnout in the presidential race, and having Romney and Senator Brown on the ballot will be extremely helpful to all Republicans in the Legislature.”

In order for any presidential candidate to make it to November, one thing is important above all: Monday. And Romney has that. Massachusetts Party Chairman John Walsh claims that over the past seven years, Romney and his supporters have spent over $200 million in order for Romney to receive the Republican Party’s nomination. While Romney might have the money to get there, it’s going to be hard for the people of the state of Massachusetts to forget that the state ranked third lowest in the country as job creation and manufacturing declined over twice the national average during the time that Romney served as Governor there.

Despite Romney’s wins, none of the other Republican candidates have dropped out of the race — yet. The next state Romney must tackle is Kansas on Sunday and then Mississippi and Alabama on Tuesday. However, strategists believe that Santorum has a good chance of winning those states because he has strong supporters there. Santorum could be the only thing standing in the way of Romney being the Republican candidate for the presidency. Based on polls, Santorum is favored by those making less than $100,000 a year, non-graduates, independents, and people under the age of 65.

In the long run, Romney is looking to be the Republican nominee up against current President Obama in November, but before then, it looks as if he is going to have to beat out his Republican rivals. For Romney, it could be a long and drawn-out race until April, when the states of Maryland, Delaware, and Connecticut get to vote, as well as the District of Columbia. At that time, things will be much clearer as to who will go up against Obama in November.

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State investigators in Massachusetts slapped the investment company State Street Global Advisors February 27 with a $5 million fine for failing to tell investors about the role of the hedge fund Magnetar in a risky collateralized debt obligation that collapsed in the housing market crisis.

In 2006, State Street and Deutsche Bank put together a $1.56 billion CDO deal, called Carina CDO Ltd. As ProPublica reported with This American Life and NPR, Magnetar was involved in the creation of at least $40 billion of CDOs, including Carina, while simultaneously taking positions that would allow it to profit if the CDOs failed.

As ProPublica noted in its original story, sources involved in the negotiations said State Street managers were “highly skeptical” about dealing with Magnetar, raising concerns about the company’s “reputational risk.”

According to the settlement, a State Street executive also sent an email saying, “We are not comfortable with [Magnetar] shorting into the deal.” Carina defaulted only 16 months after it was launched. Investors lost nearly $450 million. The Massachusetts settlement says Magnetar was closely involved in picking assets that went into the CDO — and “was able to reap a windfall” when it failed. (Here’s the settlement.)

Magnetar has never been charged with wrongdoing, and has always maintained that it did not have a strategy to bet against the housing market. The settlement reached with Massachusetts faults State Street for not informing investors of Magnetar’s role in creating Carina and its bets against CDOs. “Investors were unaware of a potential conflict of interest between Magnetar and other Carina investors and thus were unable to make a fully informed investment decision,” the settlement states.

State Street will pay a $1.5 million fine and return $3.5 million to the state for fees, commissions and other revenue related to Carina. State Street is being fined under a Massachusetts law regulating investment activity. In a statement, William Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, said his office “is actively investigating how banks misled buyers of securitized debt instruments backed by subprime mortgages.”

The deals, he said, “allowed the mortgage crisis to continue and caused further harm to the U.S. economy.” The secretary’s office did not respond to requests for further comment on the settlement.

A spokesperson for State Street said that in accepting the settlement, the company “neither admits nor denies [Massachusetts’] findings or conclusions concerning information contained in the offering documents for the CDO.”

Massachusetts has gone after State Street before: In 2010, the company settled with Galvin’s office and the Securities and Exchange Commission for more than $300 millionover charges that the firm failed to disclose to investors the extent of their exposure to subprime investments.

J.P. Morgan settled with the SEC last year for $153 million over claims that the bank misled investors about Magnetar’s role in a CDO. The SEC is also reportedly considering charges against one former manager of a Japanese bank over his involvement with Magnetar CDOs — the first public evidence of possible charges against a bank executive related to the scandal.

by Cora Currier, ProPublica, Feb. 28, 2012, 5:57 p.m.

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