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I’ve been busy and haven’t posted anything on this, but better late than never, right?

Yesterday, Mitt won his first victory of the primaries: He took the gold in Wyoming.  I said earlier that I thought Mitt would do well there, but it was a situation where if Mitt did well, it was going to be ignored (of course Mitt was going to do well - there are a lot of Mormons in Wyoming!) and if he did badly, it was going to be trumpeted all over America (the primary that everyone ignored, Wyoming, was something Mitt should have paid attention to, because an “easy win” for him was just lost.  You know, that sort of coverage.)

So I was fairly confident of a Wyoming victory (but still nervous in case something went wrong) and so late last night before going to bed, I snuck onto my husband’s computer for 30 seconds, just long enough to make sure that Mitt had indeed gotten the gold.  And he had!  Great news!

Then I read an article that brought up a statistic that I had never heard before: Wyoming’s population is 10% Mormon.  I was shocked - I thought the percentage was much higher than that.  I had been thinking 30% - 40% Mormon.  One of the commentators was trying to make a point that the reason that Mitt did so well was because it was such an LDS-populated state.  Really?  10% is not that much.  If every single Mormon in the state voted for Mitt (which would never, ever happen, because you’ve got kids who can’t vote, people who don’t care enough to vote, and of course people who are for other candidates, but we’re playing pretend here) you still aren’t going to have enough Mormon votes to win the election based solely on that - 10% is not exactly a majority, in case you were wondering.  So if you get real, and estimate that half of the 10% didn’t vote for Mitt because of the above reasons, and the other half did, then you’re down to a whopping 5% of the state voting for Mitt, who are also Mormons.

Wow, a whole 5% huh?  Stop the presses - you might be onto something!!!!  People win victories all the time because they got 5% of the vote, right?  What?  You mean you can’t carry a state because 5% of the population supports you?  I guess that’s true.  After all, if it worked that way, Brownback and Tancredo might still be in the race.

Well, in case anyone was wondering, I thought I’d reveal the magic formula for Mitt’s victory: He campaigned there. Doesn’t sound overly complicated, because it isn’t.  He visited there twice himself, and his sons visited there three times, of course campaigning on their father’s behalf.  It also probably doesn’t hurt that Josh Romney, one of Mitt’s sons, owns a ranch in southwest Wyoming.

But I think it’s interesting that Huckabee, McCain, and Giuliani all didn’t even bother showing up there, even once.  None of them won any delegates either.  Anyone seeing a pattern here?  People don’t like being taken for granted, which is the biggest reason that Wyoming moved its primary up - so that it wouldn’t be ignored like every year previous.  Huckabee, McCain, and Giuliani ignored them anyway, and it cost them. (Side note: I know the feeling.  Living in Idaho, you get taken for granted by the Republican party all the time.  I got to meet Mitt while he was campaigning here this past summer, and I have to say, it was the first time that I remember a presidential candidate visiting Idaho while on the campaign trail.  We just don’t get that much coverage out here.)

The final count: 8 delegates to Mitt, 3 to Thompson (who campaigned in the state) and 1 to Hunter (who also campaigned in the state.)  Yup, definitely seeing a pattern.

So cheers - here’s to Mitt’s first Primary victory, and to a continued string of them.  After his excellent debate showing tonight, I think he’s got a chance to pull this one out of the bag.

Here’s hoping!

Havs

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