The SCGOP Palmetto Pick Begins ... And Ends
Ron Paul gives an answer during the last debate before the primary vote in South Carolina. Image Credit: CNN
The SCGOP Palmetto Pick Begins ... And Ends
After a ton of debates over about an eight month period, and two spirited debates in South Carolina, Republicans get their first real pure test as to who they would like to see replace Barack Obama as the leader of the free world, oh, and the president of the United States.
The two warm-up acts, the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary, had an element to them which have both voting processes tainted by being loose as it relates to who could sign up to vote (in Iowa, one may not even live in the state) or which political party affiliation one happened to be representing in order to vote.
South Carolina wants registered Republicans to vote in the Republican primary for president, or any other office for that matter. Good, clean, and clear democratic politics.
It turns out that the candidate that has the most money, and the backing of the Republican professional politician elite (the string pullers) has the most to lose here in the Palmetto Pick because, as it turns out, Gov. Mitt Romney did not win the Iowa Caucuses by eight votes over Sen, Rick Santorum, but lost to Rick Santorum by about 34 votes with a total of around 120,000 votes being cast. That is one win for Senator Rick Santorum.
In New Hamshire, where registered Democrat Political Party voters can openly go to the polls and vote for a Republican in a Republican Political Party primary, Governor Mitt Romney won by 39% of the vote over Congressman Ron Paul who got about 23% of the vote (this will be the best that this Libertarian purist Republican will post - it is usually 15% - the rest of the primaries due to a substantial Democrat crossover vote). Mitt Romney expected to win in the low 40 percentile range because he is very moderate and he was the elected Governor of a neighboring liberal state, Massachusetts.
So now we come to South Carolina, the Palmetto State, where the politics are big "C" Conservative, a little big "C" Christian, and always big "C" Contentious!
Continued on the next page
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