Are Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum playing a Republican game of “let’s take turns?” Could be, as Saturday was Rick Santorum’s turn to claim victory, with a win in the Louisiana primary.
Before Saturday night, Romney won in Illinois and Puerto Rico. Prior to that, Santorum won in Alabama and Mississippi. Before that, it was Romney again — and so on. But this trickle toward the nomination has not been effective and looks to only drag the race out until the convention.
Appearing at a small restaurant in Wisconsin, Santorum savored the fact that he won all but 1 of the parishes in Louisiana, with that 1 lone parish going for Mitt Romney. But even with a loss, Romney will almost evenly split the delegates with Santorum from the night. Here is the final vote tally:
RICK SANTORUM – 49%
MITT ROMNEY – 26%
NEWT GINGRICH – 16%
RON PAUL – 6%
Despite his poor showing (again), Newt Gingrich vowed to remain in the race. Either he’s bluffing or he has some trick up his sleeve. Still, there is no conceivable way he could snag the numbers to reach 1144 and secure the Republican nomination.
Perhaps the bigger story of the night was the extremely low turn out of Louisiana voters. Their lack of participation sent a huge message to the GOP that voters are simply disinterested in the remaining candidates, particularly presumed nominee Mitt Romney.
So the question is: Will Republican voters eventually coalesce around the eventual nominee and turn out in record numbers to support him in November? Or should Romney (or Santorum) be very worried that they could get the cold shoulder from their own party in the general election?
And once again there was a record LOW Repub voter turnout.Repub talking-heads keep insisting that as soon as their nominee (Romney) is officially chosen the conservative "base" will automatically "coalesce" around him and turnout to vote for him because they're "united" in wanting to defeat Pres. Obama.I think those Repubs are blowing smoke….either that or they're *playing* themselves.Nobody…and I do mean NOBODY…is excited about Mitt and EVERYBODY knows it. The "base" can't stand the man. Their disdain for him equals almost that of their disdain for the President.Will the "base" turnout to vote for Mitt in November? Yes. But I don't think it's going to be in large numbers. And they sure aren't going to do much_if any_ground work for him.