Another day, another caucus:
Showing his strength among conservative voters in the heartland, Rick Santorum decisively won the Kansas caucuses on Saturday.
Mr. Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania had won a majority of the votes, was easily outpacing his rivals Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.
Clayton Barker, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, called the state for Mr. Santorum.
But the victory comes with an asterisk: his rivals, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, largely bypassed the state, focusing on the greater stakes in Alabama and Mississippi, which hold primaries on Tuesday.
Still, Mr. Santorum extended his winning streak of Midwestern and Southern states with the help of evangelical Christians and other voters calling themselves “very conservative,” a streak that began in Iowa and included Tennessee and Oklahoma on Super Tuesday. He is expected to garner many of Kansas’s 40 delegates. But other candidates may also claim some, including Mr. Romney, who may end up faring well in Kansas City and its suburbs, the more socially moderate parts of the state.
I’m not sure what it would take for me to vote for Santorum, and I don’t understand why anyone would pull the lever for him. What is wrong with these people? Someone should investigate and write a book.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Now you know why America is having a heart attack.
Raven
The Westboro idiots picketed one of his events.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
The wingnuts are so white in Kansas, they glow in the dark.
erlking
@Raven: For copyright infringement?
Redshift
That’s BS. The Virginia primary deserves an asterisk for Romney, because half the candidates weren’t on the ballot. Winning because the other candidates concede the state to you is just a win, not an asterisk.
David Koch
Everyone knows Kansas loves their frothy mix.
Cliff in NH
Mar 10, 2012 (100% of precincts reporting)
Rick Santorum 15,290 51.2%
um, that’s only 0.5325% of the state population, can that possibly be right?!
Only 15,290 people voted for him? wow, that’s 51.2% of the vote?!
Raven
@erlking: They are some real pips!
“I really don’t know much about Rick Santorum,” said one of the young picketers when asked whether he had come to protest Santorum’s appearance. “We typically come out in the streets just to warn people.”
lamh35
And once again Ron Paul loses another one, but hey…noun…verb…”war on drugs” or “kill the fed”
JWL
What would it take to vote for Santorum? It’s the old Jack Benny conundrum, “Your money or your life! [pause] “Well?” “I’m thinking, I’m thinking”.
Naive and Sentimental
Think you should end it “What’s the matter with these people” for a cleaner reference :p
Michael
Looks like Santorum will get all 40 delegates
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Yeah, really, what’s the matter with Kansas?
Update: Oops, Naive and Sentimental got there first.
.
Narcissus
I’m not ready for the Republican primary to be over yet.
Raven
Who could imagine that they would freak out somewhere in Kansas…
Kansas Kansas tototototodo
Kansas Kansas tototototodo
Kansas Kansas
Who could imagine that they would freak out in Minnesota…
Mimimimimimimi Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
Who could imagine…
Who could imagine
That they would freak out in Washington, D.C.
D.C. D.C. D.C. D.C. D.C.
It can’t happen here
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
It can’t happen here
It can’t happen here
lamh35
btw, Romney won the Wyoming primary so suck it Santorum or whtever
JGabriel
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
That’s just the phosphors from the detergent in their white sheets.
.
PaulW
The best explanation is that Santorum is not Romney.
And whereas Gingrich can’t position himself as a true social con because of those -massive acts of adultery- youthful indiscretions, Santorum has social con bona fides.
JGabriel
@lamh35:
Or: “We’re all Austrians now.”
Can’t leave that one out. Because it never stops being funny.
.
dollared
@JGabriel: Austrians before or after the Anschluss. One has to ask.
dollared
Kansas: Because the only wrong with the Wars of Religion is that they ended after only 100 years and ten million dead.
amk
lil ricky – “I didn’t sit on the couch with anybody. I would only sit on the couch with my wife. Period. No other women — particularly not Nancy Pelosi.”
KG
@amk: I still can’t get over that quote… It just sticks in my head as so bloody uptight
Baud
@amk: @KG:
I thought that quote was snark or parody…
I’m just going to my garage to hang myself now.
amk
@KG: I don’t know which one has made amurikkka a laughing stock of the world more – shrub or the kurrent krop of klowns.
Geoduck
As PaulW said above, they vote for Santorum because he’s not Romney. They’ll hold their nose and vote for Romney in the general, but only because they hate Obama more.
lamh35
@amk:
Santorum, Gingrich ratchet up conservative rhetoric in the South
Sad Iron
15,000 people voted for Dictorum. There are more people at the Washington Wizards game right now.
Raven
@Sad Iron: What’s the score?
MikeJ
@Sad Iron: There are more people eating shark’s fin soup. (crossing the streams)
Sad Iron
@Raven: Tied at 27!
Sad Iron
@MikeJ: I believe it. Still, to be safe, we should probably get Politifact on the case.
Irving
I’m baffled. Romney’s got the money to bomb Kansas with ads at the last minute, and the resources to do a 50-state fight. If he wanted to end this, pulling a strong showing in Kansas would have done it. Why didn’t he try to fight here?
mclaren
My attitude toward Reagan. Yet he’s the most beloved president of the past 50 years…and for trashing America, wrecking the middle class, and starting all the policies that are ruining this country today.
Raven
@Sad Iron: The Baylor-Mizzou game is a big sellout in KC!
Sad Iron
@Raven: So you’re saying the attendance is twice Gingrich’s Kansas vote total? (4,000). Or is it triple?
quannlace
Raven
@Sad Iron: 19,000
KG
@Irving: because Romney is not good at politics.
Sad Iron
@Raven: Awesome. That beats most of the candidates combined.
Tom Q
@Redshift: It was actually a little worse than that, from what I understand. The others went in and tried to compete, found they couldn’t catch Santorum, and vacated the field as the day approached — then somehow persuaded the press the fact they didn’t stay the last week meant it didn’t count. Total racket.
Redshift
@amk: It’s shrub unless one of the klowns wins. The point when the country’s reputation really took a hit was in 2004, when people elected Shrub after knowing what he was actually like.
Triassic Sands
A rational person would either write in a qualified candidate or abstain from voting altogether. But since we’re talking about Republicans, we’re not talking about rational people. They simply have no acceptable choice. Good Ol’ Erick Erickson couldn’t bring himself to vote for any of the four remaining GOP candidates, so he voted for Rick Perry instead, proving that there simply aren’t any good Republican candidates anymore, and EE is an idiot.
To understand the Republican voters’ dilemma, imagine having the following four Democrats to choose from: Ben Nelson, Harold Ford, Zell Miller, and Evan Bayh. Who would you vote for? If that’s not hard enough, give each of them a lobotomy — now, they’re closer to what the Republicans have to choose from. Ugly, no?
(Candidates were chosen for their undesirability, not because they are supposed to be analogous to the four GOP candidates.)
HRA
I thought I was late to the dance, left and came back here.
Santorum winnings are no surprise when you consider there is the reason of Willard’s religion as a factor that seldom comes out in the open or is mentioned in interviews after the primary voting or caucuses. Nevertheless, it does exist and for the most part keeps him in the 20-30%.
mclaren
A person can only catch Santorum by exchange of bodily fluids, I believe.
Anton Sirius
BREAKING: Santorum caught shamelessly sitting with a woman who isn’t his wife!
Persia
@Anton Sirius: But they have separate chairs, so that’s okay.
Tehanu
I know what it would take for me: advanced Alzheimer’s, a gun held to my head, and someone to drive me to the polls and hold the pencil for me.
James Hare
I make it a point to vote for the craziest Republican I can find in Republican primaries. On Tuesday in Vermont I had a very hard decision. Santorum won because I just couldn’t believe that Newt or Mitt were really telling the truth. Like all Santorum voters, I have no question about Rick’s beliefs. I know he’s bringing the true crazy.
Mart
For you coastal elites, Kansas City, KS about 1/3 the size of Kansas City, MO. A lot of white flight went to the Kansas suburbs, so you know how they vote.
Gretchen
@50: The Kansas-side Kansas City suburbs, while heavily Republican, have a lot more Democrats than the rest of the state, excluding Lawrence (home of KU). We had a Dem congressman for the last 10 years, until he retired, and Johnson County went for Obama. But we’re swamped by the vast swaths of rural voters.
Death Panel Truck
@Raven:
I remember, do, do,
I remember, do, do,
I remember, do, do,
They had a swimming pool!
And they thought it couldn’t happen here!
gocart mozart
@Death Panel Truck:
Ricky, Ricky Creamcheese.
Bago
You really have to understand what it’s like to grow up in a Christian cult. You aren’t allowed to access secular (non-cult) resources, like radio, music, etc. The Internet is kind of driving a stake through the heart of this vampire, sucking 10% from the flock entirely tax free, but like all cults, isolation is considered a virtue. This perception is perpetuated with guilt and the pathology of persecution. This is why the moral majority suffers from a persecution complex when they are a majority in a democracy.
You gotta have faith.
-signed, a product of religious education.