Even if Rick Santorum wins the popular vote in Ohio on Tuesday, he will lose the state unless his margin of victory is otherwise extraordinary.
via ABC News
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Even if Rick Santorum wins Ohio on Super Tuesday, he won’t be able to claim all of its delegates. In fact, he is at risk of forfeiting more than one-quarter of them.
In three of the state’s 16 congressional districts, including two that are near Ohio’s border with Pennsylvania, Santorum will lose any delegates he might have won because his campaign failed to meet the state’s eligibility requirements months ago.
Those three districts alone take 9 delegates out of a total of 66 off the table for Santorum.
But it gets worse: Nine more Ohio delegates may also be in jeopardy.
Sources say that in six other congressional districts — the third, fourth, eighth, tenth, twelfth and sixteenth — Santorum submitted fewer names than required to be eligible for all three delegates up-for-grabs in each district.
I can only conclude that the GOP has done such a comprehensive job of purging competence and intelligence from their ranks that they can no longer properly conduct a primary competition. Because this isn't the first time the process has been less than sound, and it probably won't be the last.
Besides, you never know when the state party will vote to just hand the win over to Mitt Romney anyway, as was the case in Michigan.
Meanwhile, not only does Mitt Romney continue to boast a low approval rating among self-identified conservatives, those in opposition to him are increasingly facing a situation where their votes literally don't count. And that's not a recipe for enthusiasm come November.