Posted on 01/09/2008 7:42:25 AM PST by Clintonfatigued
The results of Republican nonbinding straw polls in some Wyoming counties Saturday don't jibe with the statewide delegate selection results in favor of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
In Johnson County, for example, former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee came in first in the straw poll, while Romney was in fourth place.
Johnson County Republican precinct voters chose as an alternate delegate Bob Snowdon, who is uncommitted and was the only person nominated to attend the national GOP convention, said Jerry Eastwood, chairman of the Johnson County Republican Party.
Johnson County Republicans who contacted the Star-Tribune Monday, including Ruth Osborn of Buffalo, questioned why statewide straw poll results had not been publicized.
Osborn, a state GOP committeewoman, said in a telephone interview Monday that people were asking why the national news media were reporting Wyoming voted for Romney when her county's straw poll gave him fourth place.
"I've had several people say to me, 'Why did it come out for Romney? I'm not in favor of Romney,'" she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at jacksonholestartrib.com ...
This really is odd. If Fred Thompson won the straw poll, it should have gotten at least a little ink.
My only question is about the delegates who were cut. I guess I just don’t understand how that works and could it favor one candidate over another.
“It’s not who gets the most votes that matters, it’s who counts the votes.”
-J. Stalin
Romney seemed to question the results himself in his concession speech last night. I don’t exactly recall his remarks, except he alluded to winning two silvers and a gold, but then made it appear he wasn’t sure about Wyoming.
After reading the article, you are left with the impression that the votes don’t really matter, that the Party just selected delegates, perhaps based on hair style.
They did report the results of the straw poll. Romney took 51%, and Fred and Hunter had I think 30% and 19%, but I can’t remember which got which.
I don’t know if they listed it out by individual caucus.
We knew the results of the straw poll before we knew the results of the delegate selection.
It sounds from this story that Romney didn’t have a lot of people at this one caucus that wasn’t picking a delegate, but instead was doing an alternate.
BTW, I’ve also seen the alternates listed somewhere,but I don’t remember where.
My read of the article is that some were self-selected because a delegate had to commit to pay the cost of attending the convention, and some could not afford it.
Wyoming was supposed to have a certain number of delegates, it might have been 24, but it was cut in half because they did their caucus too early.
They held some caucuses to select alternates, which would serve if the chosen delegates have to drop out, and might also serve if the GOP reverses it’s decision.
I don’t know how they decided which caucuses would do real delegates, and which would do alternates.
All this delegates business is very alarming...it’s going to be a very strange election. I just hope it isn’t one filled with illegal activity!
Good question. As I understand it, the process was flawed, because the straw polls didn’t really count. In that case, I don’t know why they had them. It sounds as if they wanted to give the illusion of popular input, whereas the results were basically predetermined by the party pros and insiders.
Regretably, by doing it this way, the state party gave the media the chance to pretend that Romney won the straw polls. I think that was dishonest on the part of the state officials, and that it was probably deliberate, because they did nothing to correct the false impression when they spoke with the press.
This is one more regretable example of how the pros can screw up if they try to tell the base what to do, instead of at least listening to them. It’s like what happened in California, when Parsky imposed first Riordan and then Arnold on the base—which has probably succeeded in sinking the party there permanently.
Mitt needs 1,191 delgates to win. So far he has 30. He’s spent almost $2 million per delgate. So, if cost don’t rise, which they will against Rudy, Mitt at this burn rate needs to spend $2.4 billion for the nomination.
No wonder nobody paid any attention to Wyoming. I think the Caucus and Convention Delegate selection process in some of these states is very confusing and not representaive of any Democratic process.
This is akin to what happened back in the early years of the Iowa caucuses. In 1976, Reagan supporters such as myself went to the caucuses believing we were making our choice for the GOP candidate. We got to the end of the caucus and I asked if we were going to vote. The precinct chair said that really wasn’t on the agenda so we took an informal vote and Reagan won. It turned out that the delegate process was under the control of party hacks supporting Ford. In 1980, Reagan got screwed by the party hacks again. Finally, after that the party got a whole lot more serious about getting a quality vote count since the media was questioning their credibility.
So how much has Fred Thompson spent per delegate? He has 6. Has he spent $12 million yet?
That is a real question, I frankly don’t know where people are getting the actual numbers of how much candidates have spent, I haven’t seen numbers for the last quarter published yet.
Anyway, he spent up front, so while he’s still got to be spending a couple of million a month, if he manages to win the race, the cost won’t be prohibitive.
In Iowa, the “vote” was a non-binding straw poll, and delegates weren’t really chosen to reflect the vote at all.
In Wyoming, each caucus had to choose a delegate, so the people who showed up DID make a selection of a delegate. That delegate was NOT chosen based on the straw poll of candidates though.
I’m certain that for each caucus, each campaign who was competing sent found someone from the region who was promised transportation to the convention.
However, the caucus didn’t have to choose from the delegate nominees the candidates had prepared, anybody who showed up could run to be the delegate.
Of course, it would make no sense to run for delegate if you couldn’t go.
So unless you think Fred Thompson couldn’t find 12 people who would be his official delegate candidate for the 12 real caucuses, the suggestion is rather meaningless.
I just reiterated what the article stated. Take issue with the reporter, not the messenger.
A New York or California Senate race is 50 million, easy.
You think he’s not going to try to take New York, with Rudy for less? or Rudy’s not going to go for broke in California? There’s a near 100 mil just for those two states.
Anyways, we do know for a fact, that Mitt has got to spend 10 to 25 times what the number one guy spends.
Not really good trend line for Mitt.
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