Results from March 13 Republican President Primary -- Is There a Deal in the Making?

Alabama Primary

98.4% precincts reporting

Candidate	Votes	Pct.	Del.
Santorum	212,343	34.5%	18
Gingrich	179,919	29.3%	12
Romney	178,601	29.0%	11
Paul	30,494	5.0%
Others	13,583	2.2%

50 delegates

Mississippi Primary

99.3% precincts reporting

Candidate	Votes	Pct.	Del.
Santorum	93,201	32.9%	13
Gingrich	88,711	31.3%	12
Romney	85,941	30.3%	12
Paul	12,498	4.4%
Others	3,037	1.1%

40 delegates

Hawaii Caucus

100% precincts reporting

Candidate	Votes	Pct.	Del.
Romney	4,250	45.4%	9
Santorum	2,369	25.3%	4
Paul	1,712	18.3%	1
Gingrich	1,034	11.0%

20 delegates

When you take a look at those numbers, it jumps out that if you add up the conservative numbers of Santorum and Gingrich in almost every Romney is getting scorched.  The lack of voters in Hawaii is joke to even be mentioned.  Why are states and territories with such few people voting awarding that number of delegates.  RNC needs to revamp the way delegates are awarded including giving states who went RED in the last election more delegates and taking ones away from BLUE states.

Are Republicans going to nominate someone that cannot get the conservative vote.  Would bet at least 50% of the current conservative votes against Romney will never go to him after his 'scorched earth' policy against our candidates. 

 In 2008, most of us swallowed hard and supported McCain/Palin but that is not happening this time.  Most conservatives have had it with the power brokers inside the beltway for the Republican Party that want to shove the liberal Romney at us.  You cannot believe a word the man says about where he stands as he panders for votes like using y'all in Mississippi and talking about grits is the perfect example.  Does he even knew what grits looked like?  

Over the last month the words inevitable have been used to describe Romney which is a code word to get over it, shut up, sit down, and vote for the nominee Romney.  That's the attitude we are seeing on the net and in the media from the Romney camp.  They are choosing to ignore that figures don't lie as evidenced yesterday in two states that the pollsters told us that Romney was going to win going away as he was up ten points.  They wish that was the case but the voters had a different message to send.  They don't want Romney as the candidate when you take the numbers from the other three and add them together.  He has a threshold he has only broken once and that was in the Nevada caucus where he got over 50%.  If Romney is not in a state with a lot of Mormons, he doesn't do well.

Never heard evangelicals turned off so much to a Republican candidate as they are to Romney.  After all this time, he is still not attracting conservative votes in large numbers.  Yesterday afternoon I received an email from the RNC which was telling. The subject:  Don’t Abandon Your Party which was a plea for donations shows that the RNC IMHO is getting a lot of  'not donating' remarks when they call.  I am one of them.  After the debacle they have made of his primary, why would I donate one red cent to that organization where the chair seems more concerned about the WI Recall for Governor then he does anything.  

One big problem is electing a Chair from a state that goes blue for President instead of getting a good conservative to head the RNC who is the best person for the job even if they were not a former member of the RNC.  This Chair was behind all the debates with almost all liberal moderators that was done to showcase the Rockefeller establishment nominee Romney until the other candidates got wise and went after Romney on facts and now it is no more debates.  My note back to the RNC was to ask when Florida was going to proportion their delegates like the rest of us who voted before 1 April.

Another problem I see out of this primary is reporting caucus votes like they are real delegate votes when the delegates are not chosen until the convention so they should not be counted until the State Conventions have met and chosen their delegates.  In some places the site will count delegates for Romney out of the caucus states but not for Santorum.  Little bias there leading to the inevitable mantra from the Romney camp.  

Today there is an article out from the Gingrich camp talking about the way to stop Romney is to cut a deal:

Gingrich plan to block Romney may result in a deal for delegates
By Cameron Joseph 

Newt Gingrich's plan to keep Mitt Romney from winning the necessary delegates for the GOP nomination means the presidential contenders may have to form a deal in order to avoid a brokered convention, a leading Gingrich surrogate told The Hill. 

Former Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) said an agreement between the candidates would be preferable to taking the fight to the convention floor in Tampa this August. 

“If the four candidates that are involved decide to somehow put delegates together to make somebody the nominee based on the delegates they've earned I don't think I'd call that a backroom deal,” he said. “A brokered convention [could] go against the wishes of all the voters and maybe pick someone who wasn't even running. No one I know wants a brokered convention.”

Gingrich has publicly stated that his goal is to keep Romney from winning the 1,144 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination. 

Read the story here.

If you believe that Gingrich is talking about all four candidates sitting down to determine the nominee, then that swamp land is still for sale in AZ.  No way would Gingrich cut a deal with Romney.  If there is a deal after the voting ends in June, it is going to come from Gingrich and Santorum.  I would expect Ron Paul to take his few delegate votes to Romney UNLESS he thinks that would hurt the chances of his son, Rand Paul, running for the nomination in the years to come.  If he decides that would hurt Rand, look for him to join the Gingrich/Santorum deal.  Yesterday I saw a Santorum/Gingrich ticket discussed on several sites after the Santorum win in AL and MS.  Now that would be an interesting turn of events.  

My second question would be why anyone would interview Bob Smith the former Senator from NH or in fact, anyone from New England unless you wanted to make sure that Romney was mentioned in the deal?  First of all, Smith became an independent like Romney was so his credibility in the Republican Party is pretty nil.  The only camp I can see talking to him would be Romney.  

The thought of Newt Gingrich being over the Senate makes me laugh.  Senators would not know what hit them with Gingrich fulfilling the constitutional duties of the VP to reside over the Senate.  I can see him taking the gavel a lot more times then we have seen in the recent past.  Would love to see Gingrich gavel Reid out of order.   Just the thought of seeing the establishment go nuts would be enough to make me support a Santorum/Gingrich ticket.  Then there is the little detail of the Obama opposition research being done on Romney which would have to have them switch gears.  

Will Republicans nominate a Santorum/Gingrich ticket instead of bowing to pressure to nominate Romney?  Stay tuned as this could get interesting.