Mitt Romney and Ron Paul - banding together to grab delegates from Santorum - image Libertarian Peacenick blog
The Missouri Caucus held in February 7th was touted as a beauty contest, especially when at the time “long-shot” Rick Santorum took 55% of the vote: Romney, who did not compete in the state, got a total of 25% and Ron Paul, 12.2% - or in other words, Santorum received over 50% of the votes. or as GOP contests go, enough to award all the delegates to the candidate who has over 50% of the votes. The choosing of the delegates did not take place that day, and was moved to yesterday – when chaos ensued. Apparently, the “Beauty Contest” now is of some import – as both Romney and Paul are looking at every available delegate. Desperation has obviously set in for the Romney Campaign and the Paul campaign (who has 44 delegates) are basically frothing at the mouth. Reports from St. Louis Today, in the heart of the largest county to awarded delegates, broke it down
“Some of Paul’s supporters were also irked by an announced ban on video recording, with organizers asking police to help enforce it.
When the objections reached a fever pitch, the meeting was shut down without any delegates being awarded.
“We started speaking about the Constitution. Where’s our rights? Where are our votes? This is fascism,” said Jim Evans, another Paul supporter.
Buddy Hardin, a Romney leader and longtime behind-the-scenes force in GOP politics in St. Charles County, alleged that Santorum supporters and caucus organizers sought to close the meeting after they realized that Paul and Romney backers had formed an alliance to share the county’s delegates.”
The Santorum spokesperson insisted this was not the case; however, one only needs to look around the state of Missouri to find similar instances where Paul supporters were disruptive to the point where either arrests and or other caucus were shut down.
From the LA times:
“It’s gonna be a bloodbath,” said Jay Zvirgzdins, 32, a fuzzy, blond-bearded, bespectacled Ron Paul fan, before his caucus Saturday morning in a little city called (really) Town and Country, Mo.
He was waving his thermos at the crowd that had assembled to caucus at the Westminster Christian Academy, where Santorum had stopped by to speak to a few dozen fans and a handful of placard-wielding Mitt Romney supporters in this St. Louis suburb.
The caucusing -- in which Missourians picked the delegates who will elect the delegates who will cast their votes for a Republican nominee, the layers of it all a bit like a giant political nesting doll -- went smoothly in some places, and more, um, bloodbath-like in others.
The Kansas City Star reported that in Clay County, “arguments between Paul supporters and others became so intense the caucus chairman threatened to have voters removed by force."
Across the state, some argued that delegates should honor the February vote; others said that the delegates should be proportional.
In St. Charles, political blogger John Combest tweeted that order broke down in the first 10 seconds of the caucus, with Santorum, Romney and Paul groups butting heads in a “mass hysteria” over how to proceed.
Of course, the State GOP, who is in charge of awarding the delegates, had sent a memo out regarding the rules of the selection of delegates, which will not be known until June 2nd well before the caucuses began. Therefore, this was not a do-over by any means, the votes has been cast, the problem for Paul and Romney was that the delegates were binding to Santorum, they were there to change people’s minds, and apparently, when all else failed, the campaigns decided to disrupt the entire caucus.
Mitt Romney’s desperation, most likely stemming from a sudden inability to fill his coffers, colluding with Ron Paul Supporters (which they are extremely passionate about their candidate - and that’s putting it nicely) is showing - as they apparently going to use every possible means to try and attain more delegates going forward - and if they can't, they'll just bust up the primary or caucus.
Bias:
From the New York Times: it was noted that disruption shut down the caucus before the vote for delegates assigned took place. One Romney supporter, upset that the caucus center was too small to hold all those who wished to attend, but was moved outside, noted the elderly could not find a place to sit in comfort.
These headlines bear no resemblance to the Drudge Report, which links to most of them – Drudge “enhances” the headlines on his site, which are obviously misleading: Example: Elderly Shut out of Caucus, is in reality one Romney supporter complaining about lack of room. The Establishment GOP has not yet given up its insistence that Romney will continue to be the frontrunner. There are approximately 2000 delegates available, Romney has 495, Santorum 250, needed to win 1144 – the math? – Even with Paul and Gig rich in the mix, puts Santorum easily within reach of the 1144, as well as Romney, even with proportional distribution – the last primary is in early June.
See Screen Shot:
Screen Shot from Drudge Report
Today Puerto Rico votes, on Tuesday it is Illinois, where another close battle is shaping up in this going all the way to June, contest.
