Contemplating the West Virginia results

How coincidental that, just as the Republican presidential race kicked off with a victory by Mike Huckabee in Iowa's caucuses, he scored the first win on Super Tuesday, grabbing all 18 delegates at stake at a GOP gathering in West Virginia.

How telling that Huckabee's triumph resulted from an alliance between his forces and those supporting John McCain. The Republican that those two candidates clearly can't stand -- Mitt Romney -- led in the first round of voting, with Huckabee a fairly close second and McCain a distant third. But Romney had failed to crack the 50% mark, resulting in a second ballot that Huckabee won when the McCainites flocked to his banner. Romney's exasperation over the way the Huckabee/McCain dance has undercut his presidential bid -- a dynamic evident even before the year's balloting began -- is only going to intensify.

How odd that, on a day when millions of regular folks are flocking to the polls in states from coast to coast, the initial spotlight would shine on a contest decided by barely more than 1,000 party activists.

-- Don Frederick

UPDATE: Speaking of Romney's exasperation, one of his top aides, Beth Myers, recently issued this statement about what happened in West Virginia: "Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain's inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney's campaign of conservative change."

Comments

[Half Sigma]

This is incorrect anti-Romney spin. There's no evidence that Republicans "can't stand" Mitt Romney.

If anything, McCain's third place showing demonstrates that they can't stand McCain.

Most McCain supporters would probably have drifted over to Romney in the second round were it not for the fact that McCain strategists told them to vote Huckabee for the sole reason of denying the delegates to Romney.

[bob]

Huckabee and McCain = Sleezeball Politicians

[MK in Arizona]

Give me a break! You know full well that Romney won the first round and only by combining Huckabee and Mccains votes was Huckabee able to pull it off. Romney has had to, in a sense, run a campaign of one against two. Huckabee and Mccain are like two bullies on a playground that know they can’t win on their own so they play dirty tricks together to try and take the stronger candidate, Mitt Romney, down. The people of this country are taking notice and will not stand for these kind of low brow tactics and it will be the undoing of both McCain and Huckabee in the end.
Vote for Mitt Romney so that we can have a man of class and integrity running the White House!