Santorum wins Kansas GOP caucuses, gains blunted by Romney's island victories

Rick Santorum swept to victory in the Kansas Republican presidential caucuses Saturday, marking his strongest caucus finish yet but still struggling to make a dent in Mitt Romney's delegate lead.

Kansas offers a total haul of 40 delegates, and Santorum is expected to take at least 30 of them. If Santorum can keep Romney from crossing a certain threshold, he could conceivably take them all.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Santorum was well ahead with 51 percent. Romney trailed with 21 percent, followed by Gingrich with 14 percent. Ron Paul was in last place with 13 percent.

However, Santorum still trails Romney by more than 200 delegates. Romney frustrated the Santorum campaign's gains on Saturday with a series of smaller victories in far-flung locales like Guam. Romney picked up at least 23 delegates over the weekend.

The candidates head next into Mississippi and Alabama for primaries on Tuesday, as well as caucuses in Hawaii.

OF course, nobody actually lives in Kansas, and nobody cares at all what people in Kansas think. Rick is always running off to these no-nothing states that nobody wants to bother with.

Ya know, I live in Kansas. Moved here from corrupt New Jersey. Had it with the awful politics and people and moved to a place where God comes first.

Funny thing about KS (and OK and ND), we don't have the financial mess the rest of the country is in. Our banks always had sound lending practices so few closed, we have good honest politicians at all levels of government, our schools are top notch -- our kids are an inspiration, Unemployment is about 6.3% as of Dec (ND and OK are similar), KS ag exports were at a record 3.6 bil last year.

For the future, ours and surrounding counties are sitting on top of an oil field.

I'm proud that our state didn't go Romney. I'm proud that Santorum's values resonated so well with my fellow Kansans. You want to fix the country -- look here where we're doing ok despite Obama.

CharlesWayneCT: “Clearly, you took a different interpretation of what he said, and I can’t judge between them, as I didn’t hear it myself.”
OG: "No Charles, I wasn't the one who interpreted from something I hadn't even heard or quoted correctly. I actually heard Newt's interview on two occasions and went to the trouble of providing you with my comments and the supporting exact transcript. You, on the other hand, are the one who “interprets” things you didn't even hear!
Your argument makes no sense, so my guess is you simply didn't understand what I said, even though you quoted it accurately.
If you understood, you'd know that your "No Charles" makes no sense -- because I said exactly what you said, so we were in agreement (up until you ignorantly attacked me in your last sentence).
I said that you took a different interpretation of what he said than the journalist at the Washington Times. I presume the WT guy actually watched the video, and you watched the video, so the two of you were qualified to make an interpretation. And you clearly interpreted it differently.
Then I said that I couldn't judge between your interpretation and the WT journalist's interpretation, since I DID NOT HEAR IT MYSELF.
In other words, I was MAKING NO INTERPRETATION, nor could I judge WHICH interpretation was accurate, because I didn't see the speech, and the two of you did.
So your disagreeing with me was stupid on your part. And you attacking me for "interpreting" was also stupid, since I never interpreted anything, I provided a quote from a WT reporter who did the interpreting.
What I did was draw a conclusion from that interpretation, and then make a parody of a response a Gingrich supporter might make to Santorum beating Gingrich yet again, based on things Gingrich had said and the take of the WT article.
There is a reason the WT reporter took out the extra word; he clearly had a different interpretation tahan your "pause and repeat for emphasis". Or as you seem to imply, he just lied, although I have no independent evidence of that, just your interpretation; and since you have shown yourself to be quite in the Gingrich camp, please forgive me if I don't take your interpretation as gospel over a Washington Times news article. They aren't generally the "bad guys", as I said.
As to your protest that you; “can't judge between them” (the actual quote and the misquote) ...sure you can; in fact you DO in the very next paragraph; when you opine: “the entirety of the statement did suggest to me that Gingrich was being dismissive of Santorum’s resurgence.”
I can't judge them, so I can't state with authority which is the correct interpretation. But I can draw my own opinion of which is more likely correct. I'm simply not arguing that my opinion is more informed than your opinion.
Of course, my opinion was in this instance based on your provision of the different quote from Newt -- on an objective level, I didn't see the extra words to be persuasive that the statement wasn't still dismissive.
When you consider that Newt's response was to Crowley's question as to whether he should “drop out;” as Santorum’s top aide had recently suggested, perhaps Newt would have been within his rights to be a little angry in his response.
That would be reasoning that might push a disinterested observer to think that the Washington Times interpretation of things might be more accurate than what a Newt supporter thought. And I wouldn't argue that he wouldn't have a "right", or I would say "be expected" to respond in a dismissive way.
We are mostly 2nd-hand or 3rd-hand observers to the events we read about in the papers. We need to use many techniques to draw our own conclusions and create our own opinions about any matter.
If I have knowledge, I will argue the facts. I will judge based on the facts. If I don't have direct knowledge, I will create my own opinions, and argue why those opinions seem to be the best conclusion to draw from the different reports and contradictory facts we might be presented with. I won't argue that I am right and you are wrong, I will argue that I like my opinion, or that you have persuaded me to adopt a different opinion.
Charles you seem to be a person whose statements and opinions are often self contradictory and misleading at best. That reminds me very much of a certain particular candidate whom most of us here abhor and you probably secretly admire.

Your complete lack of skill at what you seem to think is your ability to read minds does not make your other opinions or interpretations of things seem very compelling to me. If you want to persuade people that your opinion is a better one, you should probably not accuse them of things at the same time, especially false things.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.