Summing up Romney’s big wins: the delegate count

Mitt: 655 delegates

Rick: 278 delegates

Posting at The Fix (Washington Post), Aaron Blake sums up Romney’s delegate wins yesterday, April 3, compared to the few garnered by Rick Santorum:

Mitt Romney expanded his delegate lead significantly on Tuesday, taking at least 83 delegates from Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia and reinforcing that he is on a clear path for the GOP presidential nomination.

Rick Santorum, meanwhile, is projected to have won six delegates, with six yet to be determined.

Romney has expanded his delegate lead over Santorum to 655 to 278, according to the most recent AP projections. (For all the numbers, see the Post’s delegate tracker.)

The 83 delegates Romney won for sure makes Tuesday his second-biggest single-day delegate haul of the GOP primary season.

The former Massachusetts governor now has 57 percent of the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination. He only needs to win 42 percent of the remaining delegates in order to seal the victory.

Read More:

More Super Tuesday results: Romney wins my home state of Ohio

Update: Wed. a.m.: I confess I didn't lie awake last night anxious to hear the results of the GOP primary on Super Tuesday. And I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see that Romney won in my home state of Ohio. I had feared Ohio would go all out to embrace the ultraconservative Santorum.  I was disappointed, though, to learn of the defeat of  Rep. Dennis Kucinich in Ohio's newly created ninth district. Kuncinich lost to Democrat Mary Kaptur.

In addition to Ohio, Romney's wins also included Va., Mass., Idaho,Vt., and Alaska.


Update: Santorum adds North Dakota to his column. Ohio remains too close to call. Brian Williams at NBC said we won't know the winner in the Buckeye State until 6 a.m. tomorrow morning.

RealClearPolitics reports:

Santorum wins Oklahoma and Tennessee;

Romney wins Mass., Vermont, and Virginia.

Gingrich wins his home state of Georgia.

So far Santorum is leading Romney in Ohio 38.7% to 36%.

The birth control debate: The Right wing’s selective support of Catholic teachings

St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican. Photo courtesy of Idealinthewest.com

 

Juan Cole at Informed Comment calls to account Rick Santorum and others on the Right for their selective support of Catholic teachings:

The right wing Republican politicians who have been denouncing the requirement that female employees have access to birth control as part of their health benefits as an attack on religious freedom completely ignore the church teachings they don’t agree with. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are both Catholics, and wear their faith on their sleeves, but they are hypocritical in picking and choosing when they wish to listen to the bishops.

1. So for instance, Pope John Paul II was against anyone going to war against Iraq I think you’ll find that Rick Santorum managed to ignore that Catholic teaching.

2.The Conference of Catholic Bishops requires that health care be provided to all Americans. I.e., Rick Santorum’s opposition to universal health care is a betrayal of the Catholic faith he is always trumpeting.

3. The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty for criminals in almost all situations. (Santorum largely supports executions.)

4. The US Conference of Bishops has urged that the federal minimum wage be increased, for the working poor. Santorum in the Senate repeatedly voted against the minimum wage.

5. The bishops want welfare for all needy families, saying “We reiterate our call for a minimum national welfare benefit that will permit children and their parents to live in dignity. A decent society will not balance its budget on the backs of poor children.” Santorum is a critic of welfare.

6. The US bishops say that “the basic rights of workers must be respected–the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions…”. Santorum, who used to be supportive of unions in the 1990s, has now, predictably, turned against them.

7. Catholic bishops demand the withdrawal of Israel from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967. Rick Santorum denies that there are any Palestinians, so I guess he doesn’t agree with the bishops on that one.

8. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops ripped into Arizona’s law on treatment of immigrants, Cardinal Roger Mahony characterized Arizona’s S.B. 1070 as “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law,” saying it is based on “totally flawed reasoning: that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources.” He even suggested that the law is a harbinger of an American Nazism! Santorum attacks ‘anchor babies’ or the provision of any services to children of illegal immigrants born and brought up in the US.

9. The Bishops have urged that illegal immigrants not be treated as criminals and that their contribution to this country be recognized.

10. The US Conference of Bishops has denounced, as has the Pope, the Bush idea of ‘preventive war’, and has come out against an attack on Iran in the absence of a real and present threat of an Iranian assault on the US. In contrast, Santorum wants to play Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove and ride the rocket down on Isfahan himself.

Read more:

True believers of conservative dogma victorious

Yesterday, Republicans voted for conservative extremism over sanity and moderation. (Katalusis eschews extremism from either the left or the right.)

Paul Begala at the Daily Beast reports Rick Santorum’s big wins in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado:

Rick Santorum's impressive victory in the nonbinding Missouri "beauty contest" began an ugly night for Romney. Mitt, who garnered 29 percent in Missouri in 2008, limped in with 25 percent—fewer than half the votes Santorum earned (55 percent).

Then came Minnesota, where Romney lost again. Big time. He won the state four years ago—earning 41 percent, But Tuesday night, he won only 17 percent, for a stunning third-place finish behind Santorum and Ron Paul.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Santorum’s positions or have forgotten where he stands on important issues, here’s a quick update from his Wiki page:

Santorum holds socially conservative positions, including opposition to same-sex marriage.^[2][3][4] On fiscal issues, his record is more mixed; in Congress, Santorum used earmarks and supported big government programs in education and transportation,^[5][6] but had a leading role in enacting welfare reform,^[7] and voted for tax cuts, a balanced budget amendment, and cuts in entitlement spending.^[5][6] As a presidential candidate, he has supported fiscal restraint and a ban on earmarks,^[5][6] and has expressed hawkish views on foreign policy, including Iran–United States relations.^[8]

Following Obama’s example in 2008, Romney has waffled on some issues in order to woo extremists in his party’s base, but as shown on his Wiki page, the record of the former governor of Mass. tends toward more moderate positions:

Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 but did not seek re-election in 2006. He presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated a projected $3 billion deficit. He also signed into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, which provided near-universal health insurance access via subsidies and state-level mandates and was the first of its kind in the nation. During the course of his political career, his positions or rhetorical emphasis have shifted more towards American conservatism in several areas.

The true believers of extreme conservative dogma continue to dig in and demonstrate their strength as the Republican primary heats up.