Last week Dick Howe had the results of the Presidential Primary, here.
In Lowell 8.32% of the registered voters voted. Not a good number, but better than the state-wide number.
One of the things I found interesting was the number of voters for President Obama in the Democratic Primary. He received 1006. However, 236 voted no preference. That would be 18.44% voting No Preference, vs 78.59% for President Obama. The remainder were 38 Write-in votes (2.97%) We don't know if those No Preference votes were Unenrolled voters crossing over to vote as Democrats for the Primary, but why would they? Perhaps to vote for friends on the Democratic Ward Committees. If that is the case it is a bad sign for the President in November. Worse if those were Democrats.
On the Republican side, former Governor Mitt Romney garnered 71.80% of the vote, with only 11 (or 0.40%) voting No Preference. There were Five Write-in Votes. I wonder who those voters picked?
Interesting to me was that Ron Paul was second, with 11.44 percent of the vote. There are voters out there who like his story, his more libertarian approach to government. I suspect he might have attracted some Unenrolled who took a Republican ballot to register their support.
Equally interesting was that there are people who voted who are still loyal to Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, John Huntsman, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.
For the Republicans in Lowell the big news was that a small sticker campaign to organize some additional Ward Committees payed off. Wards 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 11 had at least three members elected. Ward 1 actually had people on the ballot, with nine people elected, plus a Write-in addition.
As an addendum, it Mr John McCormack, of The Weekly Standard is to be believed, the Limbaugh Brouhaha has not impacted the numbers as much as the economy, not that any of us should be saying that Mr Limbaugh's choice of words was edifying.
Regards — Cliff
Yes, at least one "drop in" vote for Ron Paul from an unenrolled voter...
ReplyDeleteThe plurality of voters here is unenrolled, making that fickle and unpredictable bunch the real power behind any election, and, I would expect, this is the same in most places. The ideologically-entrenched (witness Rush's inability to significantly move the needle even given such inflammatory commentary) appear long past possibility of open thought or action, so the power now shifts to the yet-to-be-enlightened middle. (The good news for all candidates being that they appear to be equally despised...)
Well, maybe not equally... Santorum's strategy of proud ignorance (i.e. he proudly proclaims his belief and intent to ignore all viewpoints to his contrary) plays least well. (For example, the majority of voters in this country are women, and he, with Rush's help, has guaranteed a landslide against him on the distaff side for the political blundering over the past weeks).
Let's face it--this upcoming presidential election is a "lesser evil" election if there ever was one, and the race is really to become the least objectionable candidate to the middle and not anything more. Between Obama's stupendous mismanagement of the economy, Constitutional rights and energy, this is the greatest tragedy of all.