How dare you!
Posted on 01/24/2008 6:58:24 AM PST by meandog
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Senator John McCain has won the Republican party's caucuses in Louisiana while longshot candidate Ron Paul took second place, the state party said Wednesday, citing preliminary results.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a leading candidate for the Republican nomination, came in third, Louisiana Republican party Chairman Roger Villere said in a statement.
"I offer my congratulations Senator John McCain on his success in the Louisiana caucuses," Villere said in a statement.
"Senator McCain is an American hero and this is further evidence that he enjoys strong support in Louisiana and throughout the South," he said.
Villere did not release any figures from the caucuses held Tuesday evening, stressing that that the results were preliminary.
The Louisiana contest, however, is not a battleground state in the race for the Republican nomination as candidates have focused on bigger prizes in South Carolina and Florida.
McCain, who won the New Hampshire primary earlier this month, took first place in the South Carolina contest on January 19.
Romney has captured Wyoming, Michigan and Nevada, while former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucus on January 3.
Republicans are now campaigning hard in Florida, which holds a crucial primary Tuesday that has become a do-or-die contest for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has focused his campaing in the large southern state.
A new Florida poll by the St. Petersburg Times on Wednesday showed McCain leading the state with 25 percent, followed by Romney with 23 percent. Giuliani trailed at 15 percent.
Giuliani Wednesday sidestepped the question whether he would continue his race if he loses in Florida.
Asked by CNN interviewer Larry King if he would fight on regardless of the result of Tuesday's Florida primary on which he has staked his high-risk campaign, Giuliani said: "I do not contemplate loss."
"We're going to win in Florida. I have a very good feeling about it," said the ex-New York mayor, who is betting everything on Florida after all but ignoring the early nominating contests in states where he has limited support.
"The polls that we see when you average them out are all within the margin of error," Giuliani said on CNN. "We think they're going to break over the weekend."
UNCOMMITTED won, the others ALL came in a rung lower than this article states.
Ron Paul came in THIRD behind “uncomitted”.
This may get settled at the GOP convention when ANYONE can be brought in as the candidate. The RINOs can be told that they have NO confidence from the party. The crossover Democrats who’ve been voting for McCain and Paul will find themselves without a say.
Multiculturalist immigration is just one problem with McCain.
The War Secrets Sen. John McCain Hides
But there was one subject that was off-limits, a subject the Arizona senator almost never brings up and has never been open about -- his long-time opposition to releasing documents and information about American prisoners of war in Vietnam and the missing in action who have still not been accounted for. Since McCain himself, a downed Navy pilot, was a prisoner in Hanoi for 5 1/2 years, his staunch resistance to laying open the POW/MIA records has baffled colleagues and others who have followed his career. Critics say his anti-disclosure campaign, in close cooperation with the Pentagon and the intelligence community, has been successful. Literally thousands of documents that would otherwise have been declassified long ago have been legislated into secrecy.
Also see:
Ron Paul beats Romney!
HaHa!
Here's the truth on the results from National Review's Campaign spot blog by Jim Geraghty (http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/):
The Winner in Louisiana Could Have Been... Fred?
A veteran of Louisiana state campaigns offers this ironic suggestion about last night's Louisiana GOP primary — Fred Thompson won, or would have done well, had he not dropped out hours earlier.
Louisiana's social conservatives created the winning "Pro-life, Pro-family" slate in early January largely because we didn't know if Fred was still going to be a candidate at the time of our caucuses (turns out that he wasn't, by a few hours). Because we had almost all the state's social conservative leaders for Fred, we were also able to stave off Huckabee by use of this "pro-life, pro-family" slate. I was really pleased with the win last night, as it's not easy to beat McCain, Romney, and Paul without a candidate, but that's what we did.
About 90 percent of the pro-family slate was actually Thompson supporters. If Fred were to jump back into the race, he would almost certainly pick up all 47 of Louisiana's delegates (the whole point of LA's complicated system was to have an early vote while still not losing half our delegates like all the other early states have). That would put him AHEAD of McCain in the delegate count and only narrowly trailing Romney.
This Louisianan's take contradicts that of the state party, who contended there was overlap between the pro-family slate and McCain.
I bounced the above comments off another campaign, who said it was plausible that most, or at least a good chunk, of the "Pro-Life, Pro-Family" folks were Fredheads.
I almost hesitate to post this, as I realize that for Fredheads lamenting the end of his campaign, the thought of him getting out right before a potential win is like rubbing salt in the wound...
and...
A Few More Points on Louisiana's Caucus
A few remaining notes on the Louisiana caucus, after hearing from a few delegates and a few aspiring delegates...
1) There is a bit of grumbling between the pro-life uncommitted and the McCain camp, as some PLU folks find McCain unacceptable, and feel like the overlap between the PLU slate and the McCain slate has been overstated in some reports. Several PLU folks wrote in to say that yes, they would have voted Thompson, and that if he had remained a candidate would have had a strong showing.
2) There are provisional ballots that still need to be sorted out - folks who voted, but it wasn't clear if they had registered as a Republican before the November 30 deadline. There are claims that the verification list was outdated and missed people who registered right before the deadline. Some Ron Paul folks think that enough of their folks voted provisionally to change the order of finish.
3) This is only half the game; the other half is on the state's primary on February 9.
4) One of my readers asks if the Uncommitted who finished first in Louisiana is the same Uncommitted who came within 15 points of Hillary in Michigan. Wise guy.
****
Don't be fooled GOP! Don't vote for the lying RINO McCain!
the only R i would not vote for still in the race is Ron “Magneto” Paul. Rudy i would hold my nose and vote for - more as a protest vote than anything else as he would not win a general election
Mitt Romney
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BTTT Dooood.
:)
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