From The Detroit Free Press
The Mitt Romney-Rick Santorum Michigan primary results just got a little more contentious.
Michigan’s two at-large delegates to the Republican National convention will be awarded to Michigan native Mitt Romney, following a vote last night by the state party’s credentials’ committee.
The vote came despite the party’s rules that the two at-large delegates are supposed to be awarded on a proportional basis based on the statewide popular vote. Romney won the statewide vote by a 41% to 38% margin over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
The rest of the state’s delegates will be split evenly between Romney and Santorum because each won seven congressional districts across the state.
This is the biggest example of why there's animosity between tea party groups and some committees within state party. If Santorum won the statewide popular vote, would you change the delegates after the fact? We all know the answer to that. Stick with the rules you made before the election. This is going to set off a firestorm among the grassroots, and also have repercussions in other states.
How is this going to factor down south (if they do the same for Santorum) or with states on Super Tuesday? Not very well. It will again feed into the perception (and reality here) that the elites are pushing Mitt Romney on us no matter what. It's bullshit. State committee as a whole needs to reverse this decision for their credibility, and stick with the original results. Procedures are important, and it's bad precedent, reminding me of a couple of convention votes (and cheating) from the old days before Saul Anuzis implements actual voting machines in voting. By this lame attempt to save face with a Romney "win" in Michigan, the credentials committee is getting egg on the entire state party, reflecting back on all members of party leadership down to district and county level. It's not worth one delegate.
This bullshit needs to be reversed ASAP. Kudos to Mike Cox and Eric Doster (election law attorney) for voting against this.
7 comments:
Is anyone really surprised Republicans are dishonest? They should have just saved taxpayers $10 million and gave Romney the delegates. This is such a waste of time; all we are doing is deciding who is going to lose to President Obama in November.
Personally I'd rather have the caucus even if the results would have been more favorable to Romney. Unfortunately this bullshit gave you a great talking point to use against us.
Talking point? It’s not a talking point; it’s about the basic dishonesty of your party.
Who is on the Credential Committee?
I can't even imagine how expensive this one delegate for Romney is going to be to the Michigan GOP!
The credentials committee vote was as follows:
For:
Sharon Wise
Saul Anuzis
Bobby Schostak
Bill Runco
Against
Mike Cox
Eric Doster
Not voting, rumored to be against
Holly Hughes
Mr Spartan - I don't understand this decision. I think it was an attempt to save face for their candidate, based on what I've read in the papers, Right Michigan, and Jack Hoogendyk's blog. http://coreprinciples.blogspot.com/
There was also hard feelings and this talking point about 100,000 democrats voting 3-1 for Santorum. I personally think it is a myth (despite exit polls) based on the results I've seen. Santorum only got a few hundred votes in Pontiac compared to 4400 for Obama.
If I'm a Romney guy, I wouldn't be happy about this either. It makes things tougher with the base, and Romney himself didn't have much if anything to do with this.
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