Tuesday, February 05, 2008

MITT ROMNEY, MIKE HUCKABEE

West Virginia Done, Huckabee Wins (UPDATED)

CHARLESTON — The first round of voting has ended at West Virginia's Republican Convention.
With 55 counties voting:
Mitt Romney has 464 votes (41%)
Mike Huckabee has 375 votes (33%)
John McCain has 176 votes (16%)
Ron Paul has 118 votes (10%)
Because no candidate won a majority of the delegate votes, a second round of voting will occur between the top three vote-getters: Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Mitt Romney. As soon as those results are known, they will be released to the public.
The Convention is currently taking a one-hour recess, and is scheduled to reconvene at 1:30 PM.

UPDATE: Freddoso hears the Ron Paul backers will determine the winner between Huckabee and Romney.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Game, set, match, Huckabee wins West Virginia. Put 18 delegates into Huckabee's pile.

It appears on the final ballot, the McCain and Paul folks shifted to Huckabee over Romney.

This is perhaps a reflection of the risks of a negative campaign. Give people a chance to hit back at the guy who ran negative ads, and the target's supporters will take the opportunity.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh is discussing "collusion" between the Huckabee and McCain folks. But when McCain was knocked out*, didn't his supporters have to go somewhere? (Same deal for Ron Paul's supporters.) If they had decided to go for Romney, would that have been considered "collusion" between McCain and Romney?

Interestingly, according to a local television reporter, Mike Huckabee pledged three national delegates to Ron Paul in exchange for his backers' support. Not confirmed. Sounds a little odd, as Huckabee doesn't exactly have a ton of delegates to throw around.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Fox News reports McCain supporters were told to vote for Huckabee if their man didn't survive the early rounds.

I'm getting e-mail suggesting this is nefarious or underhanded, and I'm not sure why. Team McCain needed to make sure Romney doesn't close the gap, so they vote for the guy who is less of a threat to close the gap in terms of delegates, Huckabee.

UPDATE: Romney responds:

Today, Romney for President Campaign Manager Beth Myers issued the following statement regarding the outcome of West Virginia's Republican Party convention:

"Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain's inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney's campaign of conservative change.

"Governor Romney had enough respect for the Republican voters of West Virginia to make an appeal to them about the future of the party based on issues. This is why he led on today's first ballot. Sadly, Senator McCain cut a Washington backroom deal in a way that once again underscores his legacy of working against Republicans who are interested in championing conservative policies and rebuilding the party."

So McCain's people should have gone home when it appeared their man was on his way to defeat?

* McCain was not yet knocked out, but it appeared clear early on that he was on his way to being knocked out when his folks shifted to Huckabee.

02/05 02:35 PM Share