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Republican 2012 Nomination Thread


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http://qctimes.com/news/local/government-a...l#ixzz1igBFenQU

 

Iowa man claims caucus votes were miscounted

 

James Q. Lynch | Posted: Thursday, January 5, 2012 9:05 pm | (9) Comments

 

Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks during a campaign stop with college students, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

 

Mitt Romney’s razor-thin margin of victory in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses Tuesday has been called into dispute.

 

A southern Iowa supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul has filed a notarized statement claiming former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is the real winner. Edward L. True has informed the Republican Party of Iowa there was a 20-vote error in the caucus results from Appanoose County.

 

According to True, the number of votes Romney received from Washington Wells Precinct in Appanoose County was inflated by 20 when recorded by the state GOP.

 

True said he helped count the votes and kept a record of the outcome to post to the Ron Paul Facebook pages. He noticed the error when he looked at the state GOP website.

 

If his claim is accurate, then Santorum would be the winner with 30,007 votes to 29,995, rather than 30,015, for Romney.

 

Santorum, campaigning Thursday in New Hampshire, told the Huffington Post he was “not surprised to hear” that Romney’s vote total might have been overcounted.

 

“We were ahead and they told us that 20 votes were undercounted for Romney and that’s what changed it,” Santorum said. “We will see what happens.”

 

In the meantime, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party of Iowa said True is neither a precinct captain nor a county party leader and, according to what she told KCCI-TV in Des Moines, “has no business talking about election results.”

 

She said Thursday that the party will have no further comment until the county-by-county results are certified, which could take a couple of weeks.

 

True, who said he hopes the discrepancy is a simple mistake, said he was told the same by the Appanoose County GOP chairman and when he contacted the party headquarters.

 

State Party Chairman Matt Strawn did not respond immediately to a request for a comment.

 

If true, the error changes little in terms of the race for the Republican presidential nomination beyond bragging rights.

 

“This will make Iowa look a little foolish in the eyes of the rest of the country which already questions the seriousness of the caucuses,” Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford told KCCI. “But in terms of Santorum’s results here, the caucuses have made him a player in presidential politics and if he should nudge ahead of Gov. Romney for the final certified result that’s really not going to make any significant difference at this point.”

 

The real damage, if the error is confirmed, is that other state Republicans parties — many both critical and envious of Iowa’s lead-off role in the nomination process — could use the error to attack the integrity of process.

 

The party concedes precinct leaders have wide latitude in how votes are cast and counted. Almost as soon as caucuses were adjourned Tuesday, there has been discussion about the various methods used to cast and count ballots in the non-binding straw poll of caucus-goers’ preferences for a nominee.

 

Read more: http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/governme...l#ixzz1izFISyYL

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QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 11:31 AM)
Huntsman is the General Wesley Clark of this primary.

totally agree.

 

it's a shame that the best candidate is unelectable because he's not bat-s*** crazy enough.

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QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 11:31 AM)
Huntsman is the General Wesley Clark of this primary.

Wesley Clark's problem was that he got into the race too late to actually catch on to anything, and wound up being an also-ran because he didn't have anything that really distinguished himself policy-wise. If I'm going to compare him to anyone in this race it's Perry...although Clark didn't make himself look like a fool nearly as much.

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QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 01:37 PM)
Does Ron Paul have any real chance of winning the nomination? He's the only candidate (besides probably Huntsman) on either side that I'd vote for.

Zero chance. If there was a legitimate chance, he'd face a super-pac funded onslaught that would make the one that beat down Gingrich look laughably small. The Republicans know that not only could they not afford him winning, but that he'd probably destroy the candidates down the ticket as well.

 

And given his decades of pretty much outright racist writings published under his name, it wouldn't be hard either.

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QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 01:37 PM)
Does Ron Paul have any real chance of winning the nomination? He's the only candidate (besides probably Huntsman) on either side that I'd vote for.

after watching that debate, what is it about Ron Paul that you LIKE?

 

the other candidates are right - he lies constantly, makes s*** up, and is just a senile old man...

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QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 01:51 PM)
after watching that debate, what is it about Ron Paul that you LIKE?

 

the other candidates are right - he lies constantly, makes s*** up, and is just a senile old man...

I don't think this part is fair and frankly I find it borderline offensive.

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QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 12:51 PM)
after watching that debate, what is it about Ron Paul that you LIKE?

 

the other candidates are right - he lies constantly, makes s*** up, and is just a senile old man...

 

The Paul appeal is that he really believes in really small government. It isn't just a soundbyte to him, and he will keep that position even when it involves something seemingly popular, such as when he came out and said he wouldn't have ordered the killing of Bin Laden.

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So it'll simply be a repeat of 2004. The majority seems to want the incumbent president out (Bush/Obama), but the opposing party can't muster up a candidate worth voting for and just run a handsome moron (Kerry/Romney) that not enough people will vote for, so the voters merely stick with what they already know.

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QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 01:02 PM)
So it'll simply be a repeat of 2004. The majority seems to want the incumbent president out (Bush/Obama), but the opposing party can't muster up a candidate worth voting for and just run a handsome moron (Kerry/Romney) that not enough people will vote for, so the voters merely stick with what they already know.

 

Sadly that is probably going to be accurate. Though this cycle will be much bloodier, which leaves the door open a bit more.

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 01:03 PM)
Sadly that is probably going to be accurate. Though this cycle will be much bloodier, which leaves the door open a bit more.

 

Politics in this country is terrible. It's why I rarely post in this forum. There is simply no choice in our leadership, other than ultra-liberal or mega-conservative. Nothing goes anywhere, as the two fight like jealous siblings instead of working together and compromising to achieve goals. At any level of politics, your only real choice is between two caricatures of their respective parties, and anyone who has a middle-of-the-road view has no actual shot at winning.

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QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 12:51 PM)
after watching that debate, what is it about Ron Paul that you LIKE?

 

the other candidates are right - he lies constantly, makes s*** up, and is just a senile old man...

Not only inaccurate and offensive as Balta stated, but really, I think Paul is more honest than probably all the rest of the GOP candidates. I have yet to see him caught lying about anything or making stuff up in this cycle. Care to elaborate on your claims?

 

I think his libertarian views are far too extreme to be realistic, and I don't think he has any real chance at this thing anyway. But your analysis of him frankly seems completely apart from reality.

 

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QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 03:30 PM)
I have yet to see him caught lying about anything or making stuff up in this cycle. Care to elaborate on your claims?

I don't know if it counts as "Caught lying or making stuff up", but "I didn't pay attention to or edit the newsletters that went out in my name and were key to helping build up my popularity, so you can't call me a racist because of them!" is pretty darn impossible to take seriously.

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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 02:35 PM)
I don't know if it counts as "Caught lying or making stuff up", but "I didn't pay attention to or edit the newsletters that went out in my name and were key to helping build up my popularity, so you can't call me a racist because of them!" is pretty darn impossible to take seriously.

 

Except that they did find the writer of the newsletters.

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 03:42 PM)
So the slight of hand is intentional. Gotcha.

Of course.

 

He was perfectly content to build a following amongst the people who want to read racist crap in the 1980's and 1990's, for literally years.

 

So yeah, I'd call b.s. on him saying that he didn't pay any attention to a long series of documents that went out in his name and were even designed to look like he wrote them, if in fact he didn't.

 

Btw, where did the author actually come out at? It must have either happened in the last 2 weeks or the WaPo didn't know about it on Dec. 27th.

Certain passages in the newsletters suggest that Paul, or at least someone using his persona, wrote for the publications. One article from October 1992 refers to the congressman’s hometown, saying, “even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense, for the animals are coming.”

 

In an article earlier that year, the author — writing in the first person — announced his decision to chair the economic advisory committee for Pat Buchanan’s presidential bid, a post Paul took up at the time.

 

The libertarian magazine Reason cited an anonymous source close to the 2008 Paul campaign attributing much of the content from Political Report to Lew Rockwell, founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian economics center.

 

Rockwell, whose name appears on the newsletters under the title of contributing editor, told the New Republic that he did not write the controversial articles. He said that there were “seven or eight freelancers involved at various stages” during his tenure with the publishing outfit.

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QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 07:14 PM)
Politics in this country is terrible. It's why I rarely post in this forum. There is simply no choice in our leadership, other than ultra-liberal or mega-conservative. Nothing goes anywhere, as the two fight like jealous siblings instead of working together and compromising to achieve goals. At any level of politics, your only real choice is between two caricatures of their respective parties, and anyone who has a middle-of-the-road view has no actual shot at winning.

 

ultra liberal my thumb.

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