The Green Papers has these election returns for Puerto Rico’s presidential primary. Six candidates were on the ballot: Mitt Romney 82.88%; Rick Santorum 8.02%; Buddy Roemer 2.21%; Newt Gingrich 2.05%; Fred Karger 1.43%; Ron Paul 1.22%; write-in 2.18%. UPDATE: here is a picture of the ballot. The order of candidates (at least on this particular ballot) is Roemer, Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Karger, and Santorum.
This is absolutely stunning news… Fred Karger beats Ron Paul? What in the world? Bet nobody saw that coming.
This is a huge embarrassment for the Ron Paul folks. Guess they’re leftist/isolationist foreign policy views don’t sell well on an Island a stone’s throw from Communist Cuba.
Below is the source used by thegreenpapers. Thanks to Manuel Alvarez-Rivera for sending it to us!
http://64.185.222.182/cee_events/PRIMARIAS_PARTIDO_REPUBLICANO_2012_36/NOCHE_DEL_EVENTO_55/default.html
Does anyone have a picture of the ballot or know what order the candidates were listed in?
#3, I updated the post to show the ballot.
While it’s interesting about Buddy Roemer, that’s not the story here. The story is the almighty Ron Paul getting beat by a nobody.
Where’s Lew Rockwell? Justin Raimondo? Jesse Benton? Why are we not seeing all the Paulbots all over websites trolling and shouting about how they were “robbed”?
Dudes, Fred “Nobody” Karger beat Ron Paul. That is a HUGE! defeat for left-libertarians and their idiotic philosophy of isolationism, non-interventionism and appeasement of Islamo-Fascism. (No offense intended to Karger.)
From lewrockwell.com — “It’s no surprise that Ron Paul came in dead last in Puerto Rico.” writes Ralph Raico. “It’s an island that lives totally from welfare from the taxpayers of the 50 states. Ron’s becoming president is their worst nightmare.”
Look out! Buddy Roemer is gaining ground! I will be voting for him.
And it’s an island that has legalized prostitution and legalized marijuana. I thought Ron Paul was a “libertarian,” and favored those two stances. Has he changed?
He could have also emphasized not paying taxes in Puerto Rico and how that should be the case for all Americans.
This is a major fail for the Paul campaign. I cannot believe this isn’t a bigger story. 5th place! Less than 1%! And this was the guy who was “gonna win” the Iowa Caucuses, and “slam” Mitt Romney in New Hampshire? He’s now fallen to less than 1%???
While I am and have been a big Roemer supporter, I have to concede that his third-place finish is not the big story here.
Roemer ONLY accepts $100 campaign contributions from his grassroots supporters, with no PACs or Super PACs working his corner and they excluded him from every single televised national debate while he was seeking the GOP nomination. He did no advertising and, unlike Karger, did not travel to Puerto Rico to campaign. It’s understandable that a candidate with only his word-of-mouth reputation and his online-presence on Facebook, Twitter, and the Americans Elect primary website would the way he did.
No, the big story is that even with extremely vocal Ron Paul online support, with $10M contributions to a Newt Gingrich Super PAC, with appearances by both in 23 nationally televised debates (every one of which Roemer was excluded from on the basis of constantly-changing qualification requirements), Paul and Gingrich STILL can’t win.
The fact that they don’t drop out of the race immediately is a shame to themselves and a further shame to the entire GOP.
The reason for these results is obvious. The Puerto Rican primary ballot has photos of the candidates, which favors the better-looking ones:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://images.politico.com/global/2012/03/120319_puerto_rico_605_ap.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74162.html&h=328&w=605&sz=35&tbnid=4UjXAQMy6W3dFM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=166&zoom=1&docid=f41VV4WhRgbofM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k8VoT9bXMIGvsQKfp7SaCQ&ved=0CF0Q9QEwBQ&dur=355