Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Gingrich Carries South Carolina, Still Trails in Delegate Count

As expected, Newton Leroy Gingrich of Georgia secured a plurality of votes in the South Carolina Republican primary with 40.4% of the ballots cast. His margin of victory over Willard Mitt Romney, was 12%. Immediately, the chatter-boxes on TV proclaimed it a completely new ballgame. They are wrong. Winning here, losing there, these are sideshows. Focusing on individual states is like judging a basketball game based on who dribbles the best. The ballgame has always been to collect 1,144 delegates to the nominating convention. Mr. Romney, despite the South Carolina result, is still winning,

So far, 56 delegates have been elected to the convention. Another 19 superdelegates (that is, party apparatchiks who get to attend because of their standing in the party and who make up about 6% of the total at the convention) have announced their preferences. Mr. Gingrich leads in elected delegates with 25 -- won all the delegates in South Carolina (with a huge exception that one will explain shortly). Mr. Romney has 14 elected delegates in his camp, Ron Paul 10, and Rich Santorum 7. However, Mr. Romney has the most superdelegates who have made their choices public so far; he has 17 (for a total of 31 delegates). Messrs. Gingrich and Santorum have 1 superdelegate each, and Mr. Paul has none. Thus, Mr. Romney is winning.

Mr. Gingrich's 25 delegates won in South Carolina is not written in stone. The Republican Party rules clearly state that any contest held too early will result in a smaller number of delegates being seated. South Carolina is clearly in violation of the rules, and it will be up to the credential committee to decide what to do about it. Politico.com notes "five states -- Arizona, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- will have only half their allotted delegates because the RNC already has acted on Rule 16, allowing such a penalty. RNC chairman Reince Priebus told ABC News: 'The penalty is there, the penalty is going to stick, and that?s all there is to it'." Perhaps, the credential committee will allow a full delegation but only if Mr. Romney's people fill it out. There is plenty of insider fixing to be done.

Much has also been made of the role of Superpacs -- organizations that have no official ties to the campaigns who are spending likie crazy to destroy some candidates to the benefit of others. Millions are being donated and spent in ways that have not been considered legal before now. There's one huge factor, though, that this ignores. Mr. Romney is worth about $250 million in his own right. His rivals may have rich friends, and they may be willing to pony up a million here or a million there, but Mr. Romney's wealth puts him in a different league. He can write himself a $10 million check and not flinch. His rivals' backers may do the same, but the candidate had better look like a winner as the ink dries.

And that brings the discussion back to organization. Mr. Romney has a national organization. Mr. Paul just about has one as well. Messrs. Santorum and Gingrich have nothing of the sort. For example, they won't even be on the ballot in Virginia to compete for that state's 49 elected delegates (double South Carolina's count) because they failed to get their ballot access petition drive organized in time. In caucus states, this will prove fatal. The early caucus states include Nevada, Maine, Colorado, and Washington State. Mr. Romney will hold an advantage in each of these.

The coronation of Mr. Romney was stopped in South Carolina, but that is all. He leads on the only score that matters, the delegate count, and by that standard, it's still too early to call.

© Copyright 2011 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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