Romney wins Maine caucuses

[last_texas_dem]

Source: Yahoo! News/ Associated Press

>>>>AUGUSTA, Maine - Mitt Romney coasted to a win in presidential preference voting by Maine Republicans on Saturday, claiming his third victory in a caucus state and fourth overall.

The former Massachusetts governor had 52 percent of the vote with 68 percent of the towns holding caucuses reporting. John McCain trailed with 21 percent, Ron Paul was third with 19 percent, and Mike Huckabee had 6 percent. Undecided votes accounted for 2 percent.

The nonbinding votes, the first step toward electing 18 Maine delegates to the Republican National Convention, took place in public schools, Grange halls, fire stations and town halls across the state.

The Associated Press uses presidential preferences expressed in those caucuses to project the number of national convention delegates each candidate will have when they are chosen at Maine's state convention, calculating that Romney will wind up with all 18 delegates when all is said and done.>>>>

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080203/ap_on_el_pr/maine_caucuses

[patrice]

1. Please H or O, make yourself useful, and ask Romney about Choosing War.

Please and thank you very much.

[rusty quoin]

2. I think that's good news. n/t

[last_texas_dem]

3. I agree

I'm for anything that keeps the Repugs from coalescing around a candidate quickly. Since a Huckabee comeback seems unlikely, ol' Willard Romney looks like the only option of stopping McCain from getting the Repug nomination at this point.

[gratuitous]

4. Feel the Mittmentum!

Maybe it will hold Romney's interest for a little while longer. Ever since he had to declare how much of his own money he'd spent on his campaign when he released his finance numbers on Thursday, Mitt has seemed a bit subdued. Rumor has it that he doesn't have any ads bought for any of the Super Tuesday states between now and Tuesday, which is an indication that he's decided to quit throwing good money after bad.

As it is, neither the self-financing Romney nor the remarkably broke McCain are in very good financial shape to run a national campaign for the next nine months.

[Alexander]

5. Good. I don't want McLame to walk away with it just yet.

Let's have the Republicans eat their own for a while.

[momster]

6. I'm All In Favor

of the Republicans tearing themselves apart for a while longer but the truth seems to be that even if they pick Romney or McCain, they'll *still* be ripping each other to shreds. Neither one of them can bring enough Republicans together to win it in November. Too many true-blue conservatives think McCain is mental and too many religious conservatives think Romney isn't one of theirs. Add in immigration and the economy and they will be so busy chasing their tails that the Democrat nominee will surf in...more so if it's Obama than Mrs. Clinton just because they've had the talking points prepared on her for years and they don't need meetings or consensus to repeat it. They've got it memorized, just pull the string. However, I don't see the Republicans coalescing around either of their front runners until after their convention...if then.

[ursi]

7. and the whackjobs of the media were calling Maine for Paul yesterday

[MaineDem]

8. This is totally non-binding

It was nothing more than a straw poll. Delegates were not allocated at all based on this vote.

I've heard that a lot of the people elected to the state convention are actually Paul supporters.