Conservative Minority

I am a minority all over the place. How is that? Let’s see: I am a black conservative and I am a Republican in a household, family and friend circle of Democrats. And now as a (just registered) Republican in my county, it appears that the majority county political party registration changes are going Democrat, while I am in the minority with the registration changes to Republican. Remember the PA primary is not opened. Republicans vote for Republican candidates (Sen. John McCain already won enough delegates to get the GOP nomination) and Democrats vote for Democratic candidates. No cross over voting in the primary. Independents can only vote if there are any Independent candidates on the PA ballot. Read more about the PA primary here.

Read this interesting commentary by Carl Rove at the Wall Street Journal on new sets of rules for presidential campaigns, which are causing upsets everywhere. The new rules have not totally supplanted the old campaigning rules, but they sure are making a difference this time around. Just look at who was and is currently in the front runner status (Rudy Giuliani and John McCain). Predictions on the Republican side have already put just about all of the pundits in the false prophet category.

This primary season so far is nothing like those of past years. New rules make campaigning a little tricky. In some instances they cause surprising upsets, but then the old rules comeback into play; thus the upsets become muted (Mike Huckabee). In this primary season, Mr. Rove’s views the Democratic presidential campaign as nasty, with an undertone of race and gender. I agree. His view of the Republican presidential campaign is one of serious debate about serious ideas from different spectrums of the GOP. I agree, but the spectrums are not including true conservatism, which has quite a few conservatives considering not voting for the Republican candidate (from the current top 2 choices, Mitt Romney and John McCain) in the general presidential election this fall.

Mitt Romney has won the Republican Michigan primary. It was his home state. It was reported that if he did not win, most likely he would have dropped out of the race. He appealed to the horrible unemployment status of the State. Mr. Romney has a wonderful record of turning businesses around. People believed him when he campaigned on restoring jobs. Michigan voters came out in strong number to vote in a heavy snow storm.

Senator John McCain came in 2nd and Mike Huckabee came in 3rd. The state's GOP mistakenly congradulated Sen. John McCain as the winner. Mr. Romney won with the support of Michigan’s Republican base which is much stronger in number over Democrats and Independents. Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson continue to do poorly and get fewer votes than Ron Paul. Duncan Hunter should have dropped out. Read more here.

Again this was an open primary; thus Michigan’s registered voters can vote for any primary candidate outside party lines. Sen. McCain won Independent and some Democratic voters, but that was not enough to win the primary. Many of Michigan’s Republican base are evangelicals and surprisingly their vote went to Mitt Romney instead of Mike Huckabee. Mr. Romney being a Mormon did not work against him with evangelicals in Michigan.

Sen. Hilary Clinton won the Democratic Michigan primary. Senators Obama and Edwards did not have their names on the Michigan ballot; therefore, they could not be a choice for the voters in that state.

With most of the major presidential contenders taking turns winning primaries thus far, we will definitely have to wait for Super Tuesday on February 5th get a good idea of who will be both parties’ nominee.