Romney Loses West Virginia
Here’s why it’s not a good idea to have the other candidates hate your guts.
At West Virginia’s GOP convention today–yes, a convention during the day on a Tuesday–Mitt Romney won the first round of balloting for Presidential delegates. However, he didn’t get a majority so it went to a second vote minus Rep. Ron Paul. On the second ballot Sen. John McCain’s supporters knew their guy could win. So they threw their support to Mike Huckabee to give him a victory, get him 18 delegates, and give Romney some bad press on all-important Super Tuesday.
Tom Seals reports from Charleston:
Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, McCain’s representative at the event, then conceded defeat and asked McCain boosters to support Huckabee on the second ballot in order to block Romney.
“The truth is, John didn’t win, and John wants a strong organization,” Roemer said.
On his radio show Sean Hannity is griping about the sleaziness of it. The Romney camp calls it a “Washington backroom deal.” I don’t see anything underhanded. The McCain and Huckabee camps played by the rules and outmaneuvered Team Mitt.
Matt Lewis brings up the possibility that this maneuver could backfire and hurt McCain in California. I doubt that very much. Even with the speed of information on the internet and talk radio only a marginal number of voters will know what happened in West Virginia until after they vote.
No, any backlash will add to the animosity conservatives have towards McCain. He’s not reaching out to them. Instead, he sticks more fingers in their eyes.
Conservatives won’t forget and won’t bother volunteering, donating, or voting for McCain in November. Like Romney ticking off his fellow candidates McCain will only have himself to blame.
UPDATE: Quin Hillyer writes about the animosity Romney has built over the months,
The reality is that, one way or another, the Romney campaign has made itself the major point of agreement among ALL the other campaigns: The other campaigns all dislike the Romneyites (or Romney himself). Hey, if I were in West Virginia, I would have voted for Romney. But Romney’s failure to figure out how to attract the supporters of the other candidates is a failure of effective politics. And it may well be a microcosm of his whole effort, explaining why he hasn’t (yet) caught on with enough voters to become the front runner.
Increasingly, I get the sense that when you say “conservative” you have a rather narrow view of conservatives. Limbaugh, we all know, claims to be a spokesman for “conservatives” when he lambasts McCain. Yet people calling themselves conservative report supporting McCain in polls by the Pew Centre, NPR, The Economist, and others. Who are the conservatives that Romney claims are backing him?
Neither Romney nor McCain is compellingly conservative (which could explain their pleading otherwise). At least McCain can claim appeal among a broader base of voters because he has demonstrated an ability to work with and accomplish goals with “the other side.” This sort of ability to work with others, while disagreeing with them, recommends one for democratic leadership. But it also seems to taint McCain in the eyes of Limbaugh and the talk-radio circuit. Who listens to them, anyway? And how do they intend to backtrack and rally the party which they supposedly support?