We can see how much of a leadership role President George W. Bush has over the Republican Party by looking at the results of the Republican caucuses in the state of Washington. John McCain had already lost Kansas and Louisiana to longshot rival Mike Huckabee, but it was expected that McCain would easily win in Washington.
What actually happened is that John McCain barely got more votes than Mike Huckabee, and even came close to being beaten by Ron Paul, who has admitted to his supporters that there is no way that he can win the nomination. McCain didn’t get anything near to a majority of votes in Washington.
Only 87 percent of the Republican vote is counted at this hour. What’s been counted show far shows John McCain ahead of Mike Huckabee by just 242 votes. With a relatively low turnout among Republicans in Washington, that still counts for around 2 percent of the vote, but that’s not the kind of gap a frontrunner typically shows. McCain has 26 percent of the vote, but Mike Huckabee is right behind at 24 percent, and Ron Paul got his strongest showing in any primary yet, with 21 percent.
The vote for not McCain won the hearts of Republican voters in Washington. Republicans against McCain are proving to be a powerful force. However, there’s even worse news for John McCain than that. Those of you who are mathematically adept will have noticed that the votes for McCain, Huckabee and Paul don’t account for 100 percent of the votes. Mitt Romney, who isn’t even a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination any more, got 16 percent of the vote. 13 percent of the Republican vote in Washington refused to commit to any candidate.
Mitt Romney is officially a nobody in the Republican presidential race. The uncommitted voters chose to vote for nobody rather than any of the candidates available to them. 16 plus 13 is 29. So, that’s 29 percent of Republican voters in Washington who decided to vote for nobody. Nobody got 3 percent more of the vote than John McCain.
That’s nothing that supporters of Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul should be bragging about. Nobody beat their candidates by an even wider margin.
Wrong on this being Ron Paul’s best showing in a primary caucus yet. Ron Paul got second place in the Montana caucus and easily beat Huckabee and McCain.