Liberty in America
columnist: rtbohan

Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
The Vote in Mississippi

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The Mississippi Primary is over. What it means for the campaigns

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by rtbohan
(Libertarian)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The results of the Missippi primary are in What do they mean for the remainder of the campaign.

Among the Republicans, John McCain, who already has the delegates necessary to win the nomination on the first ballot won, but more than twenty per cent of the Republican voters turned out to vote against him. With 98% of the precincts reporting, the Vote was 110,751 (79%) for McCain, 17468 (12%) for Huckabee, 5422 (4%) for Paul, with the other candidates on the ballot splitting the other 5%).

This is a quite heavy vote against the candidate who not only has an insurmountable lead in delegates but who has been endorsed by most of his one time opponents, including Mike Huckabee. The vote for Huckabee is at least in part a vote by conservatives against McCain, but it is almost certainly also an effort to promote Hckabee as a running mate for McCain. Ron Paul is the only candidate who has not formally ended his campaign, although he has admitted that he no longer has the expectation that he will win the nomination and, with no "brokered" convention, little influence on the nomination. He did not campaign in Missippi, having spent most of the weeks leading up to it ensuring his return to Congress next year. He has indicated that he may campaign in some of the upcoming primaries, so he still could make a great impression in terms of the campaign of principle he is running.

A mong the Democrats, the outcome was in line with the polls. With 98% of the precincts reporting, the vote was 243.539 (60%) for Obama, 52,898 (38%) for Cinton, with five other candidates sharing the remaining vote. Obama won 17 delegates to 11 for Clinton, which boosts his lead among committed delegates slightly.

The result in Missippi increases Obama's lead over Clinton, but at this point it appears that the ground she lost today will be more than made up by the vote in Pennsylvania next month. This ,means that the contest will continue to the convention and be decided by the super delegates. This decision will not be determined so much by how these super delegates vote on the presidential ballot but how they vote on the admission of the Michigan and Florida delegates. There is some talk about the state of Michigan running a mail-in revote of the primary, but this is unlikely to be done and equally unlikely to be accepted by the party. The only recourse, other than either keeping the delegates out or admitting them would be to have a second primary, paid for by the state Democratic Party rather than the State.

So the campaign in both parties can be said to still be going on with the Democratic nominee for President and the level of support for the apparent Republican nominee still to be determined. The other thing to watch is theamount of energy Ron Paul and his supporters bring to the campaign for liberty in the remaining contests.

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2008 rtbohan, all rights reserved.
Published: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of rtbohan only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. rtbohan is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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