Romney Wins CT Primary With Lowest Vote Tally In History, He's a Loser!!!

Remastered: I'm a Loser

"and i'm not what I appear to be!"

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, the state’s chief elections official, officially released the turnout for Connecticut’s Republican Presidential Primary yesterday, and the turnout was a dismal 14.4% of the eligible Republican voters, or only “59,969 registered Republicans cast ballots out of a total of 415,725 active registered Republicans in the state” according to a statement released by Secretary Merrill’s office today. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won the primary with 67.5% of the vote, compared to 13.5% for TX U.S. Representative Ron Paul, 10.3% for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and 6.8% for former PA Senator Rick Santorum. The presumptive Republican nominee garnered only 40,229 votes statewide—a ridiculously dismal showing in a state with an official population of 3,580,709 on July 1, 2011 according to the most recent census data. Romney will receive all of Connecticut’s 25 delegates to the Republican National Convention with only 1.12% of the state’s population voting for him, an astounding figure (the math for that figure is definitely mine, not that of the Secretary of the State’s office). That’s right; Romney won the Connecticut Republican primary with only a tally amounting to ONE PERCENT and change of the state’s population.

Record Low Turnout Proves Lack of Enthusiasm

Yesterday’s turnout was a record low for any Presidential primary in Connecticut for either party since the current primary system was established in1980, and by a full 6 percentage points compared to the previous record low turnout, according to the numbers released by Secretary Merrill’s office. Romney is clearly failing to excite his own party, and has pretty much won the Republican nomination simply because no serious Republican with a national reputation wished to contend against the incumbent Democrat Barack Obama. In yesterday’s election, even though Romney IS the presumptive nominee, 2% of Republicans made the effort to turn out to vote for “none of the above” by casting their ballot for an uncommitted slate of delegates! Ridiculously low turnouts were recorded in all of the other 4 states holding primaries in the Northeast along with Connecticut yesterday. New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware all reported low turnouts or record lows, and Connecticut was the state in which Romney received the highest percentage of the vote, receiving only 58% to 63% in the other states, in spite of the inevitability of his nomination at this point. Even Republicans are not happy with the notion of casting a ballot for Mitt Romney, which is evident by yesterday’s vote, perhaps even more so than by the votes cast when the primary was still competitive.

Republican Turnout Low Entire Primary Season

By the way, even when the Republican contest was at its height, turnout in the primary was still low, indicative of the absolute lack of enthusiasm on the part of the nation’s Republican voters to vote in the primary. The independent Bipartisan Policy Center reported in March that turnout in 8 of the 13 states which had cast ballots to that point reported lower turnout in the previous three presidential primaries. In the great Commonwealth of Virginia turnout for the Republican primary was an unbelievable 5.1 percent of eligible voters! This is how Mitt Romney is winning this nomination, in the most pathetic manner in American electoral history.

Obama’s Performance is the Reason for Republican Malaise

Part of the reason for that is the aforementioned lack of desire on the part of serious potential contenders to contend against an incumbent with as strong a record and as popular as President Obama. In his 39 months in office Mr. Obama has been able to stem 24 straight months of job losses; ending the Republican “Great Recession” he inherited; provided private sector job growth each month for 30-plus consecutive months; saved the American auto industry; tracked down and eliminated Osama Bin Laden; ended the war in Iraq, wound down the war in Afghanistan; ended the tyranny and life of Muammar Qaddafi without the loss of a single American troop; negotiated, signed and ratified the world’s first Strategic Arms REDUCTION Treaty with Russia;  won the Nobel Peace Prize; kept interest rates and inflation at record lows; and has passed the TARP and the most significant health care legislation in U.S. history ensuring coverage for a record number of Americans. So in spite of the urging of other Republicans, many potential contenders such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan saw the writing on the wall and opted not to run for the office this year, preferring to defer their well-known desires for future years. Therefore this year’s crop of Republican candidates wasn’t even the ‘B-team.’ It was the “Group W Bench.” It was the “F-squad.” If it wasn’t a Presidential primary it would have been comical, and certainly was at times. Romney’s chief rivals for the nomination included a former Speaker who was censored by the House and fined, drummed out of the office by his own caucus over a decade ago! It included the last man standing, Rick Santorum who was drummed out of the Senate by his own Pennsylvania voters by over 16 percentage points when he lost his last election for office! And Herman “999” Cain was simply an art project who NEVER held public office before in his life, rather than a serious candidate, and yet until he was caught up in a marital infidelity scandal replete with years of lies and deceit, he led Romney in the polls! The reality is, and what does NOT show up in public opinion polls, is that many Main Street Republicans are very happy with President Barack Obama and staying away from the polls in droves and Romney, just like he won Connecticut yesterday, has won by default. He lost the nomination in 2008, and ran as an ‘also-ran’ this year, winning simply because of the lack of competition within his party.  

Denise Merrill Runs Smooth Primary, Leads CT to Important Elections Changes

It is well worth noting that the decision made by Connecticut to join forces with the other Northeast states for a one-day primary was a good one and bodes well for future presidential contests. Even though this year’s lackadaisical contest on the Republican side was decided weeks ago, by joining forces with other adjoining states, including more populous ones, in future contests Connecticut is likely to receive much more attention by presidential contenders in both parties and visits by those candidates, as well as access by local voters and media which otherwise would not be the case given Connecticut’s relatively small cache of delegates given our population.  Also, given the rules of both parties, it gives us more clout at the conventions to hold off on frontloaded primaries, since holding the primary a bit later in the game grants the states which choose to do so more delegates than would otherwise be the case. So kudos to Secretary of the State Merrill for her conduct of this primary! Next up for her and for the state as far as statewide elections is the primary for U.S. Senate in August and then the general election in November. Connecticut can be confident that these elections are in extraordinarily competent hands, as Ms. Merrill has performed yeoman’s work in conducting elections and in proposing legislative (and state Constitutional) changes to CT elections laws which will benefit the state for many years to come.
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