What Happened in West Virginia

There’s a lasting controversy over how Mike Huckabee won the West Virginia Republican Convention on Super Tuesday. At the time, Romney griped about it, losing respect from those in the Republican Party who understand how conventions work.

The job of the Huckabee Campaign was to win for Huckabee, not to worry about Romney. The rules of the convention stated that whoever won the majority of the vote would get the delegates. If no candidate comes in with a majority, that’s where deal making and coalitions come into play.

On Rush Limbaugh’s show, the allegation was made that Huckabee and McCain ganged up on Romney to defeat him at the West Virginia Convention. However, that’s not what happened. It was actually a Huckabee coalition with Ron Paul supporters that made the difference. On the first ballot at the West Virginia Republican Convention, Mitt Romney indeed led:

Romney 464
Huckabee 375
McCain 176
Ron Paul 118

Paul was eliminated on the first ballot vote. Where were his supporters going to go? They cut a deal with the Huckabee campaign to vote for Mike Huckabee in exchange for getting three of the eighteen delegates awarded. Now, we don’t just have the word of Governor Huckabee on Rush Limbaugh’s program, but news reports indicate it as well. Paul spokesman Edward Burgess said, “We struck a deal with the Huckabee people. They came to us and dealt with us honorably and with respect. And so we told them that if Dr. Paul didn’t make it through the first round, that we would go for their man. They pledged us three delegates to the republican national convention.”

Huckabee swapped three delegates with the Ron Paul folks for their votes on the floor. It should be noted that thirty-three delegates who voted in the first round, didn’t vote in the second. It’d be reasonable to conclude that none of these were likely Huckabee or Romney supporters, but rather supporters of Paul or McCain, who were not going to win. To keep our math simple, let’s assume that twenty-two of these people were Paul supporters, and eleven were McCain supporters. Therefore, Huckabee would have picked up ninety-six delegate votes from Paul.

This would make the total of state delegates for Huckabee 471 to Romney’s 464. McCain’s 165 delegates could vote for their man, but all that would do is guarantee a third ballot for the unpaid delegates. News reports indicate that McCain staffers were seen holding signs urging people to vote for Huckabee. Perhaps, but it appears to have been an effort with limited success.
In addition, the final result of the second ballot was:

Huckabee 567
Romney 521
McCain 12

This means that McCain’s first ballot delegates split this way assuming that 11 delegates went home:

Huckabee 96
Romney 57
McCain 12

Maybe all of McCain’s supporters were mavericks. This type of breakdown is hardly indicative of a wide-ranging deal. Regardless, if one assumes that Paul’s supporters signed on with Huckabee (otherwise would mean that Huckabee gave away three delegates for nothing), this doesn’t look like a backroom deal cut with Camp McCain. Indeed, while Ron Paul got three delegates, what exactly did McCain get?

Other than stopping Romney from picking up West Virginia, McCain got nothing. He got no delegates. He didn’t get Huckabee to drop out as a sign of gratitude as Huckabee outlasted Romney in the campaign.

What would appear likely is that the majority of McCain delegates voted for Huckabee over Romney because they’d rather give Huckabee a win than Romney. Given that Romney and McCain were engaged in close quarters political combat at the time, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

In addition, it should be noted that, according to Paul supporter blogs, Camp Romney also tried to cut a deal with the Paul people, but it didn’t work out. At the end of day, Romney was outmaneuvered by Huckabee, and that’s why he lost West Virginia.

I said it seven months ago and I’ll say it today, “Get over it.”