Mittens Family Truckster
Posted on 02/28/2012 7:48:25 PM PST by Red Steel
DETROIT, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Mitt Romney was a double winner Tuesday, capturing the Michigan and Arizona Republican presidential primaries, results showed.
The Detroit Free Press declared Romney the victor over his GOP rivals in Michigan.
With about 74 percent of the precincts counted, Romney had 317,258 votes (41 percent) to Rick Santorum's 286,530 (37 percent), results posted by the Free Press showed. Ron Paul was third with 88,521 votes (12 percent) and Newt Gingrich followed with 50,726 votes (7 percent). Another 2 percent voted "uncommitted" and a handful of votes went to several other Republicans who are no longer contenders.
CNN called Romney the winner in Arizona. With 71 percent of the vote counted, Romney had 191,182 votes (48 percent) to Santorum's 101,232 votes (25 percent). Gingrich was third with 65,182 votes (16 percent), with Paul bringing up the rear with 33,505 votes (8 percent).
Exit polls in the two states Tuesday had indicated electability was the top priority among Republican primary voters.
Thirty-three percent of Michigan voters said beating President Obama is the top priority when selecting a GOP nominee, while 38 percent of voters in Arizona said the same, CBS News exit polls indicated.
Romney and Santorum slashed at each other ahead of the Michigan primary, which was too close to call. The contest in his home state is seen as crucial to Romney and his claim of the front-runner's mantle.
Despite the closeness of the Michigan race, the Post said Romney was expected to win about three times as many convention delegates as Santorum Tuesday. Arizona is a winner-take-all primary. Michigan's 30 delegates are allotted proportionately to the primary winner in each of the state's 14 congressional districts. Arizona's winner picks up all of its 29 delegates.
The Washington Post said Romney was expected to garner 45 delegates from both contests, with Santorum picking up about 15.
Gingrich and Paul were not expected to win any delegates, and did not seriously campaign in the two states.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, have been shooting fireballs at each other in recent days.
Romney blasted Santorum's use of robocalls urging Democrats, who can vote GOP in Michigan, to vote for Santorum.
"I know why [President] Obama doesn't want me to face him but I just think it's outrageous and a terrible dirty trick at the last hour, by the way, late in the afternoon on the day before the election, maybe hoping no one would notice, they start sending out calls to Democrats, union members telling them to go into the Republican primary and vote against Mitt Romney," Romney told Fox News.
"This is a new low for his campaign and that's saying something," he added.
Santorum told Fox News Monday night he's just trying to attract the Democratic voters he'll need in November.
"When he runs a robocall of my voice from four years ago saying good things about him, that's not a low moment, and when I run a call basically saying, calling Democrats that are eligible to vote here, to vote for us, that's a low?" he said.
I will Vote for Mitt...I think he can fix this country and I want that bastard out of the WH....
miserable much? ha!
I didn't bother to predict it on this forum, but I knew the "cult of personality" would win out, no matter which political party. I've seen it building and coming for years...sure you have, also.
It's over. We had a great run, but even if Mittens can beat Bambi in the general election, our Country is going down, even if at a slower pace. Do what you can for yourself. If Bambi or Mittens doesn't kill our great experiment, I'm sure that political correctness will. We will be Greece in so many years.
History always runs its course and repeats itself. Too bad. I thought that the USA would be the exception to the rule.
To quote Alexander Tyler:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage."
I'm so glad that I'm so old and will not see the above happen. Best to you.
I know, all they know to do is what John McPain tells them to do.
Good points. Here’s my take:
Virtually all Democrats, and a plurality of Republicans, believe that “the system” can/should go on. The Romney vote (which, it goes without saying, will remain smaller than the Obama vote) is made up of people who think the reason for the impending failure of “the system” is that Obama is incompetent/inexperienced/too focused on race and that a better manager could turn things around so that taxes stay low, spending can continue to rise, and that all the free sh*t keeps coming.
A majority of Republicans believe that “the system” is going to fail unless changed. But this majority is not united behind a single candidate, and, even if they were, the Romney anti-change bloc and the Obama solid Democrat mass would beat that candidate in the general election.
It is not possible, for good solid principled reasons, for the party to unite behind Santorum or Paul or (probably) Newt. And the Romney vote, probably 25-35% of the GOP, will go to Obama if any of them are the nominee.
I have been predicting a four-way race, like 1860, for two years. I just read yesterday that Huntsman and David Boren are cooking up the modern version of the Bell-Everett ticket, so all that’s missing is a major party that is so divided that it cannot choose a single nominee, like the Democrats of 1860.
Between Gingrich/Palin and Romney, it’s hard to see who is Douglas and who is Breckinridge. But the outcome is very likely to be the same as 1860, two Republicans this time, a “moderate” candidate, and the radical transformer Obama.
The winner will have less than 40% of the popular vote, and the losing faction will not be able to live peacefully with the result.
I think neither Santornum nor Gingrich wants to be the other’s V.P. choice. Therefore, the Romney selection is as much a done deal as it was when GHWB and his old rival, Dole, announced for Romney.
Mittens Family Truckster
And, to add to the above, remember that the Constitutional Union party were actually NOT BAD GUYS.
They were the only ones who could hear the cannons and see the bodies stacked like cordwood. They saw clearly what Lincoln, and Breckenridge, and Douglas denied.
Unfortunately, the answer to their plaintive “can’t we all just get along?” was a resounding “hell, no!”
The “fundamental transformation of the United States of America” is, and always has been, a formula for war. Most Americans don’t want the war that’s coming, and they’re right not to want it, or, at least, to hate the thought of it.
The nomination of Romney, over the objections of between 60-75% of the Republican rank-and-file, far from postponing the conflict, will accelerate the timetable.
I started watching the county-by-county results on townhall.com when about 10% of the vote was reported. The split was 41-38 and the spread never moved through the entire result. Very bizarre. Usually you see some swing as different counties report, but last night the spread never varied by a single percentage point. Who programmed the voting machines?
***Congrats to those who slammed Santorum non-stop for the last few weeks. Romney thanks you all very much.****
If your sarcasm is directed at the few hundred Newt supporters on FreeRepublic - how do you account for the Romney win?? Romney should have been obliterated if voters were all pro-Newt FReepers.
While I'm a Gingrich fan, Gingrich himself knew he had no chance here in Michigan so I suggested that my friend give their votes to Santorum.
I'm hoping that it will come down to a race just between Santorum and Gingrich......
As a side note, there's another friend of mine whose family I would consider moderate Democrats and voted for Obama will be voting Republican in November. So you figure 10 less votes for Dems and 10 more votes for Republicans, that's a swing of 20 votes........I'm encouraged
In a nutshell, Mitt winning both contests is a blessing in disguise. It knocked the wind out of Lil’ Ricky’s sails going into the South where a real, big boy pants Conservative, Newt, can pick up the pieces and deliver a serious blow to the Massachusetts Marxist.
I listened to post-election speech. It was a timid echo of what the Speaker has been saying all along. Why settle for a pale imitation when you can get the real thing?
Go Newt!
I will not be voting for that Massachusetts son of a b*tch Romney...end of story. If he wants to turn this country into the same dog stool of a sewer that is Massachusetts; he can do it without my help.
My sincere congratulations on reaching the century mark...because if you are any younger than that; you are going to see it happen...I believe we are at the last step. :-(
...and my wife and I thank you for your service.
And what happens if Romney gets in? Given his history, will he govern to the left or right of Obama?
Looking at his time in Mass, he will run to the LEFT.
These are historic times. This is the end of the American democracy, and the beginning of tyranny. The Republic died a long time ago.
Emoting will not change things. Keep fighting, but realize it is better to focus on the fights you might win, rather than the one you probably won’t. Mitt and Barrack are two peas in a pod. If either gets in the White house, the agenda will be the same.
You are right.
Right now, it doesn’t matter if Obama or Mitt wins. They have the same track record.
“Right - conservatives have no one to blame but themselves for splitting the vote. So you can thank santorum and gingrich for helping mitt get in.”
So true. If ONE of those two massive egos would simply back out, the other one would probably be ahead right now, since they wouldn’t be splitting the anti-Romney vote.
The more I see Romney, the more I dislike him. Watching Fox News last night was literally nauseating. It was like a non-stop Romney infomercial, with the news babes having orgasms at the very mention of his name, and bringing on nothing but pro-Romney robots to blather on about how wonderful Romney is. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such blatant propaganda on something that purports to be news.
He barely squeaked by in his home state! That's downright embarrassing!
The anti-Romney vote is still winning!
I hope you’re not under the illusion that what we say here actually has any bearing on the outcome of the primaries.
The truth, I fear, is that informed FReepers are 0.003% of the voters. The vast majority of them are semi-brainwashed idiots who have grown up under public education and think that because Mitt Romney looks Presidential (if you don’t look too hard) he would make a good President. End of discussion. Throw anything else in their direction, and it’s just noise.
Yes... I’m feeling down after yesterday. It’s distressing. Hell, I think I even remember some Republican politician coming on Fox yesterday and exclaiming how great it was to have open primaries because it showed people what a “big tent” we have.
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