Thread: Romney captures Wyoming Republican caucuses

Republican Romney wins Wyoming presidential race
Last Updated: Saturday, January 5, 2008 | 6:25 PM ET
CBC News
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney sealed his first victory in the Republican presidential race on Saturday, winning the Wyoming caucuses.

Romney won eight of the first 11 delegates chosen at county conventions held across the western state, while candidate Fred Thompson won two and Duncan Hunter won one.

One more Wyoming delegate was still to be chosen Saturday, but regardless of the outcome, Romney has won enough delegates to be declared the winner in the state.

The win is a boost for Romney, who lost to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucus on Thursday.

Republicans in the state appreciated the fact that Romney campaigned in Wyoming, which has little political pull in the presidential race. Huckabee did not visit the state, and neither did prominent Republicans like Arizona Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

"Number one, he campaigned here," Leigh Vosler, a delegate, said of Romney. "I think that helped while some other candidates ignored us. But also he's the right person for the job."

Hunter, a California congressman, and Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, also campaigned in Wyoming, as did Texas Representative Ron Paul.

Wyoming held its caucuses earlier than usual this year, in January instead of March, in the hopes that the state could garner more attention by being between the first two big races — Iowa and New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

Tom Sansonetti, the county convention organizer, maintained Saturday that moving the state's caucuses ahead was the right thing to do.

"The ultimate goal is not how many times we appear on Katie Couric," Sansonetti said. "The ultimate goal was to have attention paid to rank-and-file Republicans by national candidates."

But Wyoming Republicans were penalized for holding their caucuses in January, as Republican rules state that nomination contests must be held after Feb. 5. The Republican National Committee cut in half the number of delegates Wyoming can send to the party's national convention in September, from 28 to 14.

Iowa is not being penalized because, technically, its caucuses are not binding on convention delegates.

While 12 delegates were chosen Saturday in Wyoming, the state will name its remaining two delegates at a statewide convention in May.

The Democrats will hold their caucuses in Wyoming in March.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/01/0 ... -race.html

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-2842--0-0.html

Great News!!!

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It's amazing how the media has decided to boycott this conservative state with more delegates than New Hampshire.

what we need to do is start contacting (bombarding) fox advertisers. hit them in the pocketbook, and they'll have to stop their slanted reporting. we can stop watching fox and should, but if advertisers know how angry we are and how many of us there are who will quit watching, they will bring pressure to bear on them. i'm a ron paul fan and am mad as hell that fox is excluding him from the debate. he beat giuliani in iowa for crying out loud.

So how does this work? Who will ultimately get their parties nomination to run -whoever gets the most delegates?

I've never been as interested as I have for this election -it's going to be a real civic's lesson.

The national political conventions are made up of delegates from each state. Those delegates are selected in different ways, depending on the party and the state. The key here is that the delegates are not only party members; they are supporters of a particular candidate.
The Democrats use a proportional system, in which the percentage of party members in favor of a candidate in the primary or caucus is reflected in the percentage of delegates representing that candidate who will be sent to the convention. For example, if two candidates split the primary vote, then each gets half of the delegate positions for that state.

Republicans favor a winner-take-all system, although they do allow states the option of using a proportional system. Under a winner-take-all system, the candidate with the majority of votes in the primary or caucus gets all of the state's delegate seats.

Deciding how many delegates each state gets is a very complicated process. Essentially, the number is based on the state's population, as well as how much support that state has given to party candidates in recent elections.

Now we know who gets to go; but how do they decide where they're going? In the age of modern travel and mass communications, the national conventions no longer need to be held in centrally located cities. The main factors today are:

sorry. meant to cut that off earlier. you can go here to see additional info. http://people.howstuffworks.com/politic ... /printable

can also see how delegates are chosen here. glad you're taking an interest. if you don't vote, don't bitch!!

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/politics/ ... egates.pdf