Trailhead

Wanted: Friends for Mitt Romney

Poor Mitt. Even when he does something right, he still screws it up. Today at the West Virginia GOP convention , Mitt Romney finished in a strong first place–on the first ballot. Romney racked up 40.9 percent to Huckabee’s 33.1 percent after the first round of voting. Because Romney didn’t clear 50 percent on the first round, the convention went to a second ballot, this time without Ron Paul on it. Realizing Romney might win, and there was no way McCain could win, McCain’s surrogate pulled McCain out of the race and told his supporters to support Huckabee, instead. It was like a politics-themed episode of Captain Planet . By your powers combined, I am Captain No-Mitt!

All green mullets aside, this means absolutely nothing for how the rest of the day will play out. The final vote tally in West Virginia was 557-522. Yes, you read that right. Eighteen GOP delegates were decided based on 1,100 votes. The Republicans who show up to a state convention are the die hards of the party and party officials–not exactly McCain’s crowd. Romney’s support there was probably as much of a McCain rebuke as Huckabee’s win was an anti-Romney alliance.

UPDATE 4:34 p.m. : Ron Paul tells us he brokered a deal with the Huckabee folks to grab three of the 18 delegates available at the convention. Kudos to the Paulies. But they should double check their math before sending out press releases: “With three national delegates, Ron Paul secured 20 percentof the 18 delegates that were decided at the State Convention.” (emphasis added) That’s 16.7 percent.