April/May 2012 Issue - Chicano Channel Magazine

The road for both candidates, Willard "Mitt" Romney and Rick Santorum, to get enough delegates to sew up the Republican Party Presidential Nomination prior to their convention, is looking mathematically impossible. I only mention these two, because it appears that Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are toast and probably only staying in hoping to get offered Secretary of Something. So far, Willard has won most of the Northern States, but not by much, in fact he only pulled out a squeaker in his "home" state of Michigan and Santorum has swept the South, where Willard’s money and his advertising blitz have meant nothing.

He is leading in delegates and it takes 1,144 to seal the deal, but as they travel down this road, splitting States and delegates, then a very real possibility exists that they get to Tampa, Florida, the site of their convention on August 27, 2012, without having picked a nominee. The result then is what is called a brokered convention, where after the first ballot vote is taken and no winner results, the delegates that had been garnered State by State by the respective candidates, are released and free to align themselves however they want. In other words, it’s a free-for-all where potentially even someone that had not been running in the primaries could be nominated.

The South has a real problem with Willard being from Massachusetts, having been the civil engineer of what is now known as "Obamacare", changing positions on abortion and thinking he has to say "Ya’ll" when he comes to the South. His main campaign spokesman said the other day during an interview, that Willard is like an "etch-a-sketch" and that once the Republican Primaries are over, which typically draw the most conservative voters, that he will "shake" himself up and get in general election mode to go against Barack Obama. He will have trouble living that one down and there is probably an ad being made as we go to print. Willard has not granted an interview to anyone in a very long time. Meanwhile Santorum trucks on, even winning delegates when he "loses" a State because some States use proportional apportionment of delegates, based on the actual percentage of votes received.