Thursday, February 07, 2008

Is a vote for Ron Paul a vote for Mitt Romney?

For me, the most surprising thing about last night’s election results was the dependence of Romney on Ron Paul to siphon votes away from other candidates. Romney won his home state (MA), and Utah (so much for the idea that his religion is irrelevant). Aside from those states, every other state he has so far except Colorado and Wyoming (MT, ND, MN, ME, NV) has had a double digit Ron Paul vote. Wyoming was an uncontested caucus, while in Colorado, Paul had 8%. In contrast, the Iowa caucus was the only double digit Paul vote (10%) that Romney did not win. In all primaries won by either McCain or Huckabee except New Hampshire (8%), the Ron Paul vote was 6% or less. So it appears that Ron Paul has the ability so siphon voters away from McCain and Huckabee, but not Romney. Anyone wanna guess why?

6 comments:

Eric Dondero said...

Is it that hard to figure out? Romney is the most libertarian-leaning of the major contenders. Of course, Ron Paul would take votes away from Romney.

C W Magee said...

But the opposite is what happened. Paul took votes away from everyone EXCEPT Romney.

ezflex said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cJWbPd1Pyw

C W Magee said...

Was that made by his supporters or people taking the piss out of him?

ezflex said...

By Ron Paul supporters! There are a lot of long faces after Super Tuesday but this has only begun. Let's do this!

Contact said...

Well, I am afraid to say, he didn't siphon as many as I thought. Maybe it was other way around. Ron Paul's potential voters fell back into the Lesser Evil Voting ...

FJH
http://brushfires2008.com/

"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams