Wednesday’s post was concerned with the Texas Voter ID law going up against the DOJ, with the suggestion that the approach should include the unconstitutionality of section 5 of the 1964 Voting Rights Act.
J. Christian Adams followed up later Wednesday with the news that Attorney General Greg Abbott had indeed used this approach, by amending the complaint to aim it directly at the unconstitutionality of the law. Good news.
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| list provided by Townhall.com |
Delegate Count
On March 7th I commented on the actual result of Super Tuesday compared to the negative media about Mitt Romney—even though he increased his lead. I was amused to see that Rick Santorum has been complaining about Fox News being a shill for Romney, and that the media is all in the Romney camp. You can hear the clip here.
Santorum seems to believe that mentioning the delegate count (fact) while also spending a disproportionately large amount of coverage on Santorum’s wins is “shilling” for Romney. It’s not true, and the interviewer called him on it.
One thing this extended campaign has done: show us more of who the candidates really are. Here is my new assessment: Rick Santorum complains about unfair treatment even when he has been treated disproportionately positively. What is he likely to do against the Chicago machine? Plus, he’s aware that there is no way (barring Romney dropping out, which isn’t going to happen) for him to earn enough delegates to get the nomination—but he is staying in the race based on the fantasy that all those Romney voters were wrong, and their delegates will gladly flee to him during a brokered convention just 2 ½ months before the final election.
Then there is Gingrich. We have learned (if we didn’t know it), that he is vindictive and delusional. He has no path to the nomination; his only reason for remaining in the contest is to do whatever it takes to deny Romney the nomination. (Think about the dirty tricks of Huckabee last time around, but expanded to the entire national convention, instead of just a state caucus or two.) Gingrich continues to put out ads that are clearly false and damagingly negative against Romney—because in Iowa Romney PACs put out accurate but negative ads against Gingrich. Does this man have the best interests of the nation in mind? Or is he using followers and their money for his own misplaced passions?
In case you missed it (because, even though it has been covered, the most reported story has been Santorum’s “big wins,” here are the delegate increases since Super Tuesday (during which Romney won 276, Santorum won 90, Gingrich won 81, and Paul won 21):
· Romney 80[*]
· Santorum 70
· Gingrich 24
· Paul 4
Gingrich and Santorum both claim that Romney isn’t a strong front runner, because he hasn’t sealed the deal. Yet it was a similar situation four years ago. The difference then was that Romney looked at the odds, and at what was best for the country, and stepped out of the race. Then he worked to get the GOP nominee elected—and as many conservative candidates around the country as he could help. It would be better for our country if Santorum and Gingrich were more interested in making sure Obama is defeated than following their personal dreams.
One More Thing
Santorum has portrayed himself as the social conservative. While Romney has portrayed himself as the fiscal conservative—and economic turnaround expert—it might turn out to be a pleasant surprise to those Santorum devotees once they come to learn about the real Romney. There was an opinion piece in the Deseret News (the more conservative of the two newspapers in Salt Lake City), identifying Romney as much more conservative on all fronts than his opponents and the media have portrayed him. If you want to read something positive today, read this one.
[*] This list comes from the Romney campaign and coincides with Real Clear Politics. There are discrepancies in counts from one news source to another, because each state has its own formula for allotting delegates. One difference is accounted for because Wyoming was separated into two days (primary and caucus, one before Super Tuesday, and one after—both of which Romney won), plus the assignment of unpledged RNC delegates, which went up another 9 for Romney this week.
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