Tagged: Rick Santorum

A rally was scheduled for last night to protest the Michigan Republican Party’s decision to award both of the state’s at-large national convention delegates to Mitt Romney. Supporters of Rick Santorum say he was denied his fair share of the delegates because he won almost half the statewide vote.

But only a handful of people showed up at the state Republican headquarters in Lansing, and they were quickly invited inside for a closed-door meeting with party officials. One of them was Spencer Austin, who said he was with Students for Santorum.

“I’m here to, uh, I’m not going to say protest -- because I think that’s a flaky term – I’m here just to prove a point: I feel that Santorum was cheated out of delegates," Austin said.

Matt Frendeway is a spokesman for the state Republican party.

“Republicans, from time to time we have disputes, we have disagreements, but we settle it within the family. We’re focused on November. We’re focused on defeating President Obama. And we’re going to sit down and talk about any differences we have and we’re going to settle them because, most importantly, we’re going to focus on November," said Frendeway.

A Facebook posting by a rally organizer says the effort is focused instead on recruiting people to run as delegates to the Michigan Republicans’ statewide convention in May that will decide who goes to the Republican  national convention.

State Republican Chairman Bobby Schostak has sent a letter to party activists apologizing for the confusion over how the delegates were allocated.

Though the state's primary was almost a week ago, the Rick Santorum campaign is continuing to dispute the primary's results. The campaign has taken their fight over the way the Michigan Republican Party apportioned two of the state's at-large delegates to the Republican National Committee.

The campaign is also organizing a rally to be held later today in front of the Michigan Republican headquarters in Lansing. Santorum supporters will call on Michigan GOP leaders to reconsider their decision to award both the party’s statewide delegates to Mitt Romney.

They say party leaders changed the rules to avoid awarding one apiece to Romney and Santorum, who ran a close second in last week’s Michigan primary and won half of the state’s congressional districts.

Last week, after the committee voted in favor of giving the two at-large delegates to Romney, Mike Cox, the state's former Attorney General - and Romney supporter - called the decision, "kind of like third world voting."

A state Republican spokesman says that decision is now in the hands of the national GOP and calls the rally a needless distraction from the focus on helping Republicans win in November.

We took a closer look at the controversy over so-called "dele-gate" on Friday. You can take a listen at the link above.

I was a teenager back when Mitt Romney’s father, George, was governor of Michigan, and made his own run for the Republican Presidential nomination. I was already fascinated by politics, and followed that race closely. And here’s something you may find interesting. Back in nineteen-sixty-eight, nobody seemed to care that George Romney was a Mormon. Now, his formal campaign didn’t last very long. He dropped out of the race at the end of February.

But for much of the preceding two years, Romney was talked about nationally as a potential nominee. There was some discussion of the fact that George Romney had been born while his parents were on a trip to Mexico. People wondered if that would make him ineligible to be president.

But nobody mentioned his faith.

The tussle over every last delegate in the GOP nomination battle could get ugly, if what happened in Michigan late Wednesday is any indicator.

In a 4-2 vote, the Credentials Committee of the Michigan Republican Party apparently reversed course on a stated delegate selection formula and awarded both statewide delegates to Mitt Romney. The committee includes three Romney supporters, but no Rick Santorum supporters.

The move changed the final Michigan delegate count from a 15-15 tie between Romney and Santorum to a 16-14 Romney win.

A new report from the Michigan Campaign Finance Network shows Super Pacs outspent the candidates in Michigan’s Republican president primary.

It should be no surprise that a lot of money was spent in the days and weeks leading up to Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary. It’s probably also not a surprise that much of the money was spent by third party groups.

Winner Mitt Romney’s campaign spent one and a half million dollars on TV ads during the primary campaign. A pro-Romney Super Pac spent nearly two million dollars during the campaign.

Runner-up Rick Santorum spent just under a million dollars, while a pro-Santorum Super Pac spent over a million dollars.

Third place finisher Ron Paul spent less than 60 thousand dollars for TV ads in Michigan.   Paul had no support from Super Pacs.

"Money prevailed in the end as it usually does," says Rich Robinson of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

Breaking down the numbers, Mitt Romney and his Super Pac spent about $8.45 for each vote the former Massachusetts governor received in the primary.

Rick Santorum and his Super Pac spent about $5.81 per primary vote in Michigan.

Third place finisher Ron Paul spent a relatively frugal 48 cents per vote.