Loading ...In the Republican Congressional Primary in CD-14, Ron Paul was successful in securing the nomination, despite supposed “internal polling” numbers spread around on sites such as redstate.com and Pajamas Media that he was trailing to Chris Peden. A thought that has been floated around by some is that the clearly inaccurate numbers were nothing more than an attempt to derail Paul’s run for President and force him to withdraw to focus fully on CD-14. Well, if it was, it did not work, as he both secured the nomination for it and is now one of two candidates remaining. When all was said and done, Ron Paul won 70% of the vote to Chris Peden’s 30%. (Check out some reaction from rightontheright.com to the revelation that the “internal polling” wasn’t quite as legitimate as they hoped.)
In the Republican race for President, McCain won Texas (52%), Ohio (59%), Vermont (72%), and Rhode Island (59%). This sweep prompted Huckabee to drop out of the race entirely, leaving only McCain and Ron Paul remaining. Paul received 7% in Rhode Island, 5% in Texas, 5% in Ohio, and 7% in Vermont. While much of the media has declared McCain the winner of the Republican nomination, the actual convention will not be until September, and many of the delegates to this convention have yet to be picked by State conventions.
In the Democratic race for President, Obama took an early lead in three of four races, but in the end he only took Vermont. His early lead in Texas (56-43%) was eventually wiped out entirely and by 30% of precincts in Clinton took the lead and never looked back. In the end she won with 51-48% of the vote. She also won Ohio (56%) and Rhode Island (58%), while Obama, as said above, took Vermont with 60%. While losing Texas was seen as potentially fatal for Clinton, her win doesn’t bring much clarity to the race, and it is set to continue into future contests.
Though many commentators are saying that this continuing competitive race is putting the Democrats at a disadvantage, nothing could be further from the truth - the press was already giving Republicans less air time before declaring McCain the winner. Now that, in their view, he has already won, they have little reason to cover the Republicans as the Democrats have a far more “gripping” storyline. This could, in a strange way, be beneficial for Ron Paul, as it will help lower the press coverage gap between him and McCain. McCain will be getting less free exposure on the press, and since you can’t get any lower than the amount of coverage Ron Paul was getting beforehand, the effect on him will be negligible.
(Photo credit to lambachialpha.)
2 responses so far ↓
1 Fascist Nation // Mar 5, 2008 at 1:57 pm
It is true that McCain has not won despite what the media says. And it is true that delegates attending the GOP convention in Sept. are the decidifiers in the parlance of GOPspeak. But, those delegates from all states are sworn to pick the candidate who won their state or election district on the first round. If McCain has enough first round delegates (he currently does not) then he wins. Those delegates sworn to Huckabee and Romney (others?) are free to vote for whomever they wish). McCain will either have to get sick or die before then or have one of his famous meltdowns attacking a supporter, staffer or friend in front of the cameras that is so terrible that no one will want to vote for him come Nov. That is possible and hence the importance of Ron Paul supporters going to the convention as delegates. But even if McCain falters there is no guarantee that Paul (the second most hated man in the GOP) would get the nomination. But after all the MOST hated man in the GOP — McCain — looks like he could, so why not Paul? And they lived happily ever after.
2 Rangeley // Mar 5, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Well, the rules differ from state to state. In Maine, for instance, both the state delegates to the state convention, and the national delegates they will elect there, are officially unbound. So it is important to know the rules of your state, because within that framework you can go farther than those who don’t bother to.
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