The South Carolina Election Commission released some stunning news on Sunday regarding the GOP Primary on Saturday. While John McCain won the primary, Election Commission records indicate that he did NOT win with a majority of registered Republicans.
Only 30% of the McCain vote came from registered Republicans. A whopping 70% of his vote came from Independents and Democrats, who are allowed to vote in S.C.'s 'open primary' system.
These particular persons will be in for a shock next Saturday if they expect to vote in the state's Democratic primary. While S.C. allows anyone to vote in either the GOP or the Democratic Primaries, a voter can only participate in ONE of the two, not both.
Thus, registered Democrats who decided to vote in the Republican primary to prevent candidates such as Thompson or Huckabee from winning will be in for a shock next Saturday if they try to vote in the Democratic Primary.
They will not be allowed to vote.
The fact that McCain won only with the support of Independents and Democrats is very telling. Most of the remainder of the state primaries are not open primaries, and thus, only Republicans will be allowed to vote in most of the remaining GOP primaries.
And this, my friends, means that John McCain may be in deep trouble.
It is entirely unclear at this point who registered Republicans actually prefer. My hunch is that their vote is split between Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, McCain, and Thompson.
In addition, McCain faces a dire uphill struggle in Florida, where Giuliani has been quietly working on his organization and getting out the early vote and the absentee votes.
And this is why I say it is not over by a long shot. It may not even be over on Super Tuesday. I make no predictions on this, but this could be the year of a brokered GOP Convention.
So, stay tuned and stay motivated. It's not over until it's over, and the fight for the soul of the Republican Party may well go right into the national convention in the summer.
Monday, January 21, 2008
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2 comments:
I agree... McCain doesn't stand a chance in a truely conservative state--that allows only Republicans to vote in the primaries.
Someone... should compile a list of all McCain's anti-conservative stances over the last 8 years. It would be long.
Joel, nice to see you. Glad you stopped by.
If McCain is the nominee, I will hold my nose and vote for him, I suppose...although I won't like it.
So far there is absolutely no viable alternative on the horizon--a 3rd party candidacy this late will do nothing but play the spoiler role...
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