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.

Alabama and Mississippi Vote Today; Celebrate Negative Ads Demise Tomorrow

Having lived through the barrage of negative ads from Restore our Future, Romney's Super PAC, I feel for the people of AL and MS.  You cannot turn on your radio or TV without one of their negative ads which are some of the most disgusting ads I have ever seen or heard.  Over and over again to the point where you say you will never vote for Romney.

Whoever came up with the idea of Super PACs needs to go the way of the dinosaur.  They have supported campaigns which should have died.  Without the Super PACs would the Republican Party have better candidates?  Something to ponder because most Republicans I know think this primary has been a debacle.

Only other time I have heard so many negative ads here was in 2004 when the Democrat ran such ads against Dr. Coburn for Senate.  More and more the Romney campaign reminds me of Democrats and their 'scorched earth' but then the Romney Super PAC did hire the person responsible for the Willie Horton ad used against Dukakis by Bush 41.

Tomorrow the good people of AL and MS can celebrate the fact that Presidential primary ads are going to disappear off their airwaves.

How Romney can think this brings him supporters is beyond me.  His 'ya'll' along with his 'grits' comments which I found offensive out of the New England liberal shows how far he will go to pander for votes.  A lot of people in New England have great disdain for the south and Middle America not to mention southern California.  Never saw such arrogance, rudeness, and disdain for the rest of the Country as I did when my husband was on an Industry assignment for the Air Force in Massachusetts.

This Republican primary has been about the wealthy donors determining who stays in the race and who has to exit the stage.  It is no way to run a primary.  We have four years to get it right after this because no way should the Republican Party be stuck with a candidate because he and his Super PAC run the most negative ads to drive down the numbers of other candidates.  What a poor excuse for a primary we are witnessing and it is not getting over anytime soon.

We will have a brokered convention?  Who knows when the RNC Chair has not demanded that FL proportion their delegates like the rules require!

Stay tuned for more of this nonsense in the days ahead -- condolences to the states ahead that get to endure all these ads.  My advice turn off all broadcast media as you are going to want to throw your radios and TVs out the window with all the negative ads.

Super-PACs Dominate Republican Ads Aired in Alabama, Mississippi
Monday, 12 Mar 2012 06:29 PM 

Television advertisements in Alabama and Mississippi aiding Republican presidential contenders have been paid for almost exclusively by independent political action committees rather than the candidates’ campaigns. 

So-called Super-PACs supplied 91 percent of the 5,592 campaign ads that aired on broadcast television stations in the two states in the past 30 days, according to data from New York- based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks advertising. 

(snip) 

Super-PACs are dominating the spending on television because they can collect unlimited contributions and replenish their treasuries more easily than candidate committees, which are limited to raising $2,500 per donor for the primaries. 

Super-PACs are “providing the campaign advertising that the candidates can’t afford,” Anthony Corrado, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, said in a podcast March 9 on the website of the Brookings Institution, a research center in Washington. 

Pro-Romney Group 

Restore Our Future, a super-PAC backing Romney, aired ads 2,098 times in Alabama, compared with 279 spots from Romney’s campaign, according to CMAG. 

Winning Our Future, which supports Gingrich, aired ads 411 times in Alabama, compared with 131 ads by Gingrich’s campaign. Santorum’s campaign hasn’t aired broadcast ads in Alabama; the Red White and Blue Fund that backs him aired ads 282 times. 

In Mississippi, Restore Our Future paid for 1,548 ads, compared with 454 for Winning Our Future and 300 for Red White and Blue Fund, CMAG data show. Gingrich, with 89 spots, is the only candidate who has aired broadcast ads in Mississippi. 

Restore Our Future aired 65 percent of all ads in Alabama and Mississippi, CMAG data show. 

The PAC had $16.3 million in leftover funds at the end of January, Federal Election Commission data show. 

(snip) 

Read more on Newsmax.com: Super-PACs Dominate Republican Ads Aired in Alabama, Mississippi 

Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) Weekly Republican Address about Gulf Oil Disaster

Washington (CNN) - In this week's Republican internet and radio address, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, takes on the Obama administration over its response to the Gulf oil spill.

"I’m glad President Obama is finally putting this catastrophe at the top of his agenda, but his response has been too slow," Wicker says in the address. "He was slow in listening to state and local leaders, slow in getting skimmers to the Gulf, slow in understanding the seriousness of this crisis, and slow in taking ownership and responsibility for the recovery. Many of his actions have actually taken us in the wrong direction."

Earlier this week the President came to the Gulf Coast. After visiting with him in Mississippi, I was optimistic that he was removing politics from this disaster and focusing solely on fixing the problem.

Republicans in Congress and at the state level looked forward to participating in a bipartisan, non-political solution to the many challenges this disaster has brought.

Unfortunately, we were disappointed. In less than a day, we were reminded of Rahm Emanuel’s theory of never letting a good crisis go to waste.

In his speech Tuesday night, President Obama made it clear that he intends to exploit this crisis to push his liberal agenda for a cap-and-tax scheme. This is a disservice not only to the victims and their families but also to the millions of Gulf Coast residents who are struggling in the wake of the spill.

Americans increasingly reject the cap-and-tax proposal because it would drive up the cost of energy and force American jobs overseas.

The President spent more than a third of his address advocating this national energy tax, revealing his true priorities. Now is not the time to push a controversial, job-killing, partisan agenda through Congress.

In addition to devastating our economy, this proposal would do nothing to fix the disastrous leak or clean up our beaches, marshes, and waters.

Another idea that takes us in the wrong direction is the Democratic plan to increase oil cleanup fees and raid those funds to pay for unrelated programs. These funds are needed to clean up spills, not to satisfy Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi’s desire to raise federal spending.

In addition, the administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling has the potential to become the third wave of this disaster. If left in place, the moratorium will permanently eliminate thousands of jobs and drive up the cost of energy for all Americans. You don’t have to take my word for it. Earlier this week democratic strategist James Carville said the moratorium was [quote] “wrecking the economy” of the Gulf Coast.

Along with the spill’s devastation to our fisheries and the administration’s decision to halt our drilling, one of the greatest threats to the economy of the Gulf Coast is the loss of tourism. Our hotels and restaurants have seen business decrease by as much as 70%.

At a brief press conference on Monday, President Obama pointed out that there are a lot of beaches that are not affected and will not be affected. I was hoping the President would make this important point to the larger audience Tuesday night, but since he didn’t, I’ll say it again. The vast majority of Gulf Coast beaches are clear, beautiful and safe.

BP CEO Tony Hayward recently said he wanted his life back and later correctly apologized. BP put dollars before safety, and we are all paying the price. We have been told that BP will be held accountable and pay all damages.

But what we in the Gulf states really need is to have our way of life back. We want our jobs back, our economy back, and we need our tourists back.

So please come and visit us. You deserve a vacation, and we could use the business.

Thank you.