Saturday’s Republican caucus got a whole lot less interesting with Mitt Romney’s decision to drop out of the presidential race. Conventional wisdom has been that Mike Huckabee’s continued presence in the GOP presidential race helped John McCain — that if Huckabee were out, Romney would have done better on Super Tuesday. But David Brooks of the New York Times notes that polling says the opposite. When asked their second choice, Huckabee supporters overwhelmingly pick McCain. Now that Romney is out, will most of his supporters in Kansas go for McCain (who is coming to Wichita today and is almost certain to be the nominee) or for Huckabee (who is also coming here today) or Ron Paul (who is airing campaign commercials here)?
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83 Comments
Huckabee should get out also and leave the contest to John McCain and Ron Paul. The next big decision will be the vice presidential candidate.
My guess it will be a 70/30 split in favor of McCain, as there will quite a few that think Huckabee is not electable.
They’re coming to Kansas?
Hoo boy they ARE desperate.
Prediction is Huckabee wins the Kansas caucus.
Reg..you really think Huck can get that many votes? I thought the last election here in Kansas showed that the extremists were not welcome. Remember how the school board changed again? And, the moron Jan Beemer got her head handed to her. The hard core extreme right wing lost out big time last time. It seems that people are tired of the holier than thou approach.
Will be interesting…I don’t have any scientific or “insider” knowledge, but am guessing Huck will poll less than 20%…just my guess.
Well, I think McCain is looking to winning the nomination of the party.
He will probably ignore Huckabee as a VP choice and go for someone like Bill Frist, Gingrich, Fred Thompson or who knows?
LOL In case you all missed it on the open blog from yesterday, I got my first Push poll call!
It seems no one had told the recording that Romney had suspended his campaign.
I have to admit it is funny in a sad way, the leading candidate at one time that had not been married multiple time was the Mormon. And the only candidate that I have received a dishonest campaign call from is the former Southern Baptist Preacher!
The only remaining question is if Romney dropping out will help Huckabee make a charge. I can’t predict who folks vote for who or why. We will find out Saturday.
Duh, of COURSE Romney dropping out most of his voters go to Huckabee.
Probably just like Willard plans.
The female John Stewart of the Republic party stated today on “Today” that she would vote for Hillary if McCain got the nomination. Ann Coulter a legend in her own mind told Matt Lauer that hordes of Republics would jump ship and vote Democrat if McCain were the nominee ……
McCain seems to inspire such loyalty in his party. “Legs” Coulter said most (70%) of McCains support comes from people who only know about his POW experience —- typical GOP —- no substance, little style.
Ann was all sexed up, way too short a skirt for her boney legs, a cleavage revealing sweater that was baggy — and of course no cleavage. and the most telling —- a lying hateful look in her eyes, thought she was trying a Limbaugh impression — why not she used all his talking points ……… … GOP needs to get a better spokesperson
Heard the professional troll Ann Coulter on the Today Show. She said she didn’t think McCain was a conservative and could not determine whether she would vote for John McCain or Hillary Clinton. The coalition conservatives have a very curious definition of conservative at times. And oh yes, Mitt Romney was the true conservative in the race. Mitt Romney is a pander bear (to borrow a term used to describe Bill Clinton in 1992) who has remade himself as a conservative after a very moderate tenure in a liberal state and a run as a moderate for a senate seat.
Down is up and up is down.
Here are the 2006 ratings from the coalition conservative (i.e., the knee jerk coalition put together by people like Vingurie and Phillips) for Senators Clinton and McCain.
McCain 65
Clinton 8
But Ann Coulter isn’t sure who the most conservative candidate is…
BTW, Brownback and Inhofe get 100 ratings from the ACU, which tells you where their heads are at.
BTW, Ben among others have predicted a McCain/Huckabee ticket, which I think is a real possibility. However, I think it could be a mistake. The hardline conservative stance is a losing proposition this election year.
Paul, by the way, gets a 76 from the ACU.
I agree it is hard to judge just where the supporters will go, of course at times it was hard to judge where Romney was going. I do feel that if Huckabee drops out his supporters will turn to Ron Paul. His message on Roe V Wade is at least a compromise for the Pro-life set. Returning it to the states to decide, it gives the Pro-lifers at least a hope that they could have better luck in the individual states then over turning R V W on the Federal level. Of course then the question is what kind of luck would there be in Kansas?
If it came down to just Paul and Mc’ Cain, Paul’s best hope would be that Mc Cain would put his foot in his mouth and really upset the GOP. Or and this in not hoping it happens, but if Iraq really went South and hit the front pages big time. Between the two I would want Mc’ Cain to eat his foot!
I got a call last night, there is a possibility that Paul will be in Kansas tonight too.
Just a chance though, it all depends on what happens in Washington.
I’m glad that Mitt is out.
I thought he was just an ordinary hateful Repuke–the corporation in a suit type–but turns out he’s one of the vicious hateful Repukes:
“voting Democratic means the terrorists have won.”
Tell me who on the other side would say anything half as meanspirited about RepubliCONs.
Comes now Annthrax Coulter after her morning pitcher of Hateraide saying that she’d rather vote Hillary than McCain . . .
Somebody better check Nathan’s skull for rents and fissures–it’s gonna blow, I tell you what!
Hopefully the votes will go to Paul. As for McCain’s running mate, I’d bet the farm on Gov. Rick Parry of Tejas or Ghouliani.
RE: Mormon Mitt Romney’s assertion that voting for Democrats means to surrender in Iraq and that the terrorists have won.
Matt Taibbi expresses my feelings exactly in this column from the Rolling Stone–
Then there’s this whole business of liberals who are accused of “rooting” for failure in Iraq. I’m sorry, but the next pundit who whips that one out should have his balls stuffed down his throat. You c*cks*ck*rs beat the drum to send these kids to war, and then you turn around and accuse us of rooting for them to die? F**k you for even thinking that. We’re Americans just like you. You don’t have the right to get us into this mess and then turn around and call us traitors. Your credibility is long gone on this issue. Shut up about us.
Beyond that, what you say doesn’t even make any sense. For most of us, if we thought there was any chance this thing could work, we’d have been for it, or at least not so violently against it. Instead, our opposition to the war was based on our absolute conviction that it would end in disaster — which it incidentally has. But according to Klein, if we see a guy step off the top of the Empire State Building, we’re supposed to root for him to nail the dismount. The whole issue is irrelevant and absurd. This is a catastrophe, not a baseball game. “Rooting” is a kid’s word; grow the f**k up.
Rick Perry was at Bilderberg (king maker extraordinairs)this year. See?
Ron Paul, if they show up at all. Makes a statement
albeit a lost cause.
I’ve read around a third of Romney supporters despise McCain, and Huckabee so they will go to the Ron Paul camp, and the rest will be split, Huckabee taking more than McCain.
Capn America, Great Post, albeit a little bit of hatred, but nonthless all very good points made to the neo-rats who try to label everybody un-American who don’t support their radical views.
I was told by some local Paul supporters that Romney’s staff turned their table in the exhibit hall over for Ron Paul’s use. According to one of of these supporters (his name tag read Kevin O), the guys at the Romney booth, who only had ten minutes advance notice that Mitt Romney was going to drop, are now planning to vote for Ron Paul.
http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/02/07/blogging-pac-ron-paul-bob-barr-others-respond-to-romney-dropping-out/
Ann Coulter is a huge rotting k unt lined with teeth that reeks so bad her asshole is migrating to her lower back.
I think that Republicans are expecting something like the Democratic caucus, and it just isn’t going to happen. First, they have never had the enthusiasm for any of their candidates that we have for ours. And second, McCain is most likely going to be the nominee, mainly because Republicans have no one else to turn to. It will be ironic since there are many more Republicans in this state, and yet they will not even come close to the numbers we had at our caucus. That is my prediction.
What does happen to Romney’s delegates? Does he give them to whoever he wants?
McCain being the nominee will only help the Democrats, I for one will be flocking to the Obama camp if McCain gets it.
I was figuring up the delegates for the GOP, and Paul would be able to win if he received EVERY SINGLE REMAINING DELEGATE. I don’t think that is very likely. But as I posted before, I don’t know what happens to Romney’s delegates, so if he can give them to whoever he wants, and chooses Paul, then I guess there’s a chance. However, after seeing Sol’s post that they didn’t even have Paul on the ballot where he lives must be discouraging for Paul supporters.
What was the dem. caucus count?
“Rick Perry was at Bilderberg (king maker extraordinairs)this year.”
So was Sebelius.
Here ya go on the Dem Caucus numbers.
http://www.ksdp.org/SuperTuesdayResults
Might have missed it but I didn’t see the reported number for total turnout.
It was just over 37,000. I’ll go see if I can find the number.
I did find it here, kind or, more than 33000
Large turnout overwhelms Democrat caucuses in state
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Democrats were stunned on Super Tuesday when three times as many voters as expected showed up for presidential caucuses, overwhelming organizers and forcing them to open secondary sites to handle the overflow.
Party officials had predicted between 10,000 and 11,000 people would participate. But an intense national race between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton brought more than 33,000 participants to 50 caucus sites across the state.
It is my understanding that the GOP caucus in Wichita is the site for the Fourth District caucus, and as such, will be drawing from not only Wichita and Sedgwick County but from the surrounding counties that are in the Fourth District. Hence, the site at Century II. Haven’t paid attention to whether there are any other sites within the Fourth District for a caucus.
Here is what I found:
Statewide results all caucuses reporting
36,663 total votes
73.3% Obama 27,172 votes / 23 delegates
25.3% Clinton 9,402 votes / 9 delegates
0.1% Edwards 53 votes
0.1% Kucinich 35 votes
0% Richardson 1 vote
IIRC, Kansas is 3:1 registered republican. So they are starting out with a big advantage. I’d STILL like to know how many people registered on site as Democrats. That would tell how many I’s and R’s crossed over. I hope some grad student is hard at work…
I also hope that on Saturday, the media will tell us how many people were turned away from the Republican caucuses because they were not registered on time, or crossed over to the dem events and then found out they couldnt re-register in time to vote in BOTH.
At the caucus location I attended it was so crowded it was difficult to tell who was in which line. I did see a group of high school students I knew in the line to register. They will be 18 before November, if they aren’t already, and they are excited! Warmed the cockles of my heart!
The logical thing for caucus-goers to do it vote for their choice for VP. And I still predict it will be Huckabee although Paul might take Kansas now.
I find it interesting that the conservative meeting enthusiactically embraced massive borrow-and-spend policies and the biggest deficits in the history of the universe. I had always thought conservatives favored fiscal restraint. I guess I was wrong.
linda – I think we had about 840 people at Newman.
That’s the number I remember too, Ben. It was a wonderful crowd of excited and determined people. Happy ones too! Come November we will be a force to be reckoned with.
“the media will tell us how many people were turned away”
They aren’t even reporting on New York refusing to let voters vote for Ron Paul. Great job MSM.
Sol, while I’m not a supporter of Dr. Paul, it pains me to see how his candidacy is ignored in the MSM. There is no excuse for this. Kind of like Gravel on the Dem side (last I knew, he was still running, but one would not know it either way).
VT,
It is the blatant voter fraud that really pisses me off. And the total acceptance by the voters.
http://www.gravel2008.us/
Looks like he is still alive. I honestly never heard of him.
Sol, thanks for the link. You’re not the only one, it seems, that never heard of Sen. Gravel.
And look what the media did to Dennis Kucinich too. And of course, personally, I think the media has been VERY unfair to Hillary. They are CLEARLY promoting Obama. I know I sound like JR when I ask…
Why?
kfg – They promote Obama because they are the media. They have attention spans of gnats and are distracted by shiny objects. You know that I am an Obama supporter, but I don’t like them tearing down Hillary either, because I think eventually she will bear out and win, so she will be my candidate.
I’m going to ask again, does anyone know what happens to Romney’s delegates?
Hey farmlady,
Why?
Could it be they are just tired of Hillary? Or maybe they don’t get treated like crap by Obama? Or maybe thy’ll always be for the candidate that is most liberal?
TDT, Romney’s delegate disposition is governed by GOP party rules. From something I read on cnn.com or realpolitics.com yesterday (sorry, don’t recall which one), by suspending his campaign, he retains the statewide delegates he’s already won, but not local delegates. Given that, I speculate that with a suspended campaign, if Gov. Romney would pick up any delegates in Kansas that are state wide as the result of tomorrow’s caucus, he keeps them. Again, mere speculation on my part.
I “think” he gets to take them to the Republican Convention where he will “influence” the decision of who they will go to.
Or, the media believes it will sell more soap by concentrating on Sen.Obama. Hank, I don’t think it’s because he’s more liberal; I think it is because he is “new”.
Vaugh – So they won’t be going to another candidate?
Not until released by Gov. Romney, TDT, as I understand these things (not too well, BTW).
I don’t need to come up with anything sinister about the press – they just like a good story. The Giants upsetting the Patriots. Obama’s Cinderella rise. McCain’s rise from the dead.
I think I kind of get it, maybe, oh hell, I don’t know. I was just trying to figure out if it was at all possible for Ron Paul to win. It would seem as if he would need every single delegate left, and since he isn’t on all the ballots, I find that hard to fathom.
“What does happen to Romney’s delegates?”
As VT stated, Romney retains his delegates because he merely suspended his campaign, as did John Edwards.
Similarly, Rudy the Ghoul has retained his one delegate and is now trying to sell it to the highest bidder.
So far, the bids are up to fifty cents.
Not bad, spend $49 million to make fifty cents.
So if he really wanted to, he could try to bribe McCain or Huckabee with his delegate to get a VP spot on the ticket? I know bribe is a strong word, but having trouble coming up with another.
delegate = delegates
“but I don’t like them tearing down Hillary either, because I think eventually she will bear out and win, so she will be my candidate.”
My thoughts exactly. And I think it is in the collective minds of the MSM as well. Whoop up on the Democrats early and often.
Heheh. Hank. Nice spin on the “media is liberal” mememe. Dont forget, the truth has a liberal bias.
KFG, Holy crap!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn’t know that about the wench going (and I thought I kept myself abreast of these evil people). What Sebelius and every elected official have done by attending a secret, closed door conference is TREASON. No if’s and’s or but’s. TREASON. They are gearing up for the NAU (and folks can say it doesn’t exist, but do so at their own and my peril). Do you realize that Mexico has sovereign territory in Kansas City?
Did you see this?
Republican’s MUST vote for Dr. Paul or say goodbye to America. These people don’t even have to hide this stuff anymore because they know us dumbed down idiots will believe anything they say, disregarding the truth.
I guess I spoke too soon, it’s being “held up” in the Senate (for Mexican sovereignty).
Hello Amero, but only after they tank our dollar.
what? Nobody liked my rip on Ann Coulter?
“Hello Amero, but only after they tank our dollar”
Uh, I think we can say “mission accomplished” on tanking the dollar.
I got an email last night to go to my county polling location to help Ron Paul get the Romney delegates. Guess I don’t get it either.
The dollar will go back up don’t worry, this isn’t the gold standard when the dollar is down it stays down, the feds and world banks can do plenty of manipulation to bring the dollar back up, with the fiat system a recession is short lived from the pure corruption, I guess thats one thing to look forward too.
They can do what they want to try and “revive” the dollar, but when nobody uses it to buy oil, then those still willfully ignorant will see how worthless it really is. Gold is floating around 900 but it should be up around 2500-4000 (and soon it will be). Glad I got mine.
Yea, we’re not making ourselves very useful, well, I think our top exports are corn, jobs, and bombs. Don’t ask me what a corn job is.
Thanks KFG, now I’m pissed. It makes sense that she went but it makes my stomache turn knowing that she did. I’m not a “hater” but I hate-her now.
Some pretty informative stuff here.
I guess peace on earth means forming a one world cooperative, where the idea is to be drugged up, and have copious amounts of sex so you don’t care about the way the world is being ran. Anyways, I’m getting all this from the book of A Brave New World, our current path seems to be headed in that direction, which actually dosen’t sound too bad compared to the 1984 scenairo. I imagine thats still 50-80 years away, but the foundation is already being laid. Whether intentionally, or not.
H.G. Wells books was quite a fortune teller, or possibly they were just good ideas that the powers that be are now using.
Technology is a bitch, a feisty and spicy bitch. If you don’t like the sound of that future, don’t worry it probably won’t be that extreme, everything slowly evolves, plus we’ll all likley be long gone by then.
Speaking of Aldous Huxley, read this transript of a speech he gave in 1962 at Berkeley. His brother Julian, was a scary man as well.
Yup, Pleefer, in the future they will have humans bred to grow fat while hooked up on life support machines while they have powerful psychotropic drugs constantly administred so they will be oblivious to their real existence, then they will have there fat harvested periodically to be converted into feul and possibly other numerous products. Yup, the future is wikidly weird. They just mentioned today on NPR that human fat has the capability to produce quite a bit of voltage from a small amount, google it.
Gross. But at least ANWR would be left unharmed. Right? =] Wasn’t that movie “Super Size Me” a warning?
Folks
I am not advocating such, as a policy position, however:
A WEAK dollar discourages imports (like oil).
A WEAK dollar encourages exports, like agriculture and airplanes.
Btw, I’m not serious about harvesting human fat, I just made that up off the top of my head after listening to NPR today, I have a wild imagination sometimes, lets hope we never sink to a level like that.
Actually come to think of it, we wouldn’t have to, all they would is have to grow cloned fat from petry dishes, but who knows if that would be efficeint compared to other energy sources.
SOYLENT GREEN!
where the idea is to be drugged up, and have copious amounts of sex so you don’t care about the way the world is being ran.
Damn I do not do drugs! AS for the other, whats that?
I was just pointing out with the way technology is growing exponentially, it won’t be too far off until we resemble a sort of utopian world comparable to A Brave New World.
Another thing, about this conspiracy of a NAFTA superhighway being planned, which I myself mistook as reality, is false. People like Ron Paul, and Tancredo think its real, it is real but their blowing it out of proportions. The NAFTA superhighway already exists, its simply called I-135. Turns out the internet is full of conspiracy kooks, some sane, and some insane. So I’ll take away a lesson to be learned, theres a fine line between reality and kookiness. As much as I admire Ron Paul, I’m starting to think he’s a little out of touch, he’s undoubtedly one of the most honest canidates but his views are grounded in the past that are afraid of the future. I’m starting to fall back to earth, and Obama is looking o.k. to me. He really seems to be the canidate most grounded with very down to earth views, he dosen’t seem to be drunk with power, or political fantasies, he dosen’t seem to have extreme ideologies that will pose further damadge to our country.
Obama’s CFR like the rest of them. Paul is afraid of the future, the one that will exist after another 4 or 8 years of the same old same old. People talk about change but that’s just so they can hear themselves speak.
The NAU is real enough to me. Of course it’s I-135 (at least the route is) but it’s the building up of it that is the worrisome part. In comes the highway and more Chinese-slave-labor goods, out goes even more of our jobs.
“As much as I admire Ron Paul, I’m starting to think he’s a little out of touch, he’s undoubtedly one of the most honest canidates but his views are grounded in the past that are afraid of the future.”
{posted by White Eleph.}
White Eleph.. I think Paul may well be honest. But he can be an honest fruit cake too! And with someof his views, I think thats just what he is!!
Volcanoes produce, on average, only about ONE percent of the amount of the CO2 that humans emit. And we do not have a way of stopping volcanoes from emitting CO2.
But Ron Paul believes that we have to “deal with” the natural CO2 emissions from volcanoes, to stop human-caused global warming.
And Ron Paul does not have a strategy to stop human-caused global warming.
In other words… fruit cake!
some classic ron Paul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHB2I83_N_k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88REf0tjZHo
This Romney supporter overwhelmingly endorses Ron Paul.
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[...] WE Blog » The Wichita Eagle Editorial Department Blog wrote an interesting post today on Where will Romney supporters go in caucus?Here’s a quick excerptWhere will Romney supporters go in caucus? Posted6:05 a.m. Saturday’s Republican caucus got a whole lot less interesting with Mitt Romney’s decision to drop out of the presidential race. Conventional wisdom has been that Mike Huckabee’s continued presence in the GOP presidential race helped John McCain — that if Huckabee were out, Romney would have done better on Super Tuesday. But David Brooks of the New York Times notes that polling says the opposite. When asked their second choice, Huckabee [...]
[...] Where will Romney supporters go in caucus? [...]
ann bancroft…
Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts !…