Republican voters simply cannot make up their minds. It seems as though they decide to hate whoever is in the lead and vote for the underdog. Santorum surprised many Americans when he won the primaries in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri last week, but he is still a long way from becoming the Republican national candidate. Yesterday Romney won the Maine straw poll with 39 percent of the vote, while Ron Paul received 36 percent. This was a difference of less than 200 votes, and only 6,000 were cast, which accounts for 2 percent of Maine’s registered Republicans.
Republican candidate Rick Santorum
Romney also won the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) straw poll with 38 percent of the vote. The fact that Romney took the CPAC poll does speak to his efforts to convince conservative voters that he is the best candidate to take on President Obama, but still, he didn’t win by that much. Santorum received 31 percent of the vote.
I don’t think Paul or Newt Gingrich have a shot at this point, but then again, no one believed Santorum had a real chance either. The beginning of the race for Republican primary saw a different candidate in the lead every week. Even Herman Cain was at the top. And yet, this far into the race the same trend continues. There doesn’t seem to be one candidate who all Republicans can agree is the best, so I’m sure there will be plenty more flips and flops in the months to come.
Photo (cc) republished here under a Creative Commons license. Taken by Gage Skidmore. Some rights reserved.
