Romney ekes out slim win in Maine, or not

Mitt Romney allegedly won the Maine caucus yesterday, or rather the state Chair declared Romney the winner even though the results were incomplete:

At a gathering in Portland, state Republican Chairman Charlie Webster announced Romney had won with 2,190 votes, or 39 percent, compared to 1,996 — about 36 percent — for Ron Paul, the only other candidate to aggressively compete in the state. Rick Santorum received 989 votes and Newt Gingrich won 349, but neither actively campaigned there. Other candidates drew 61 votes.

The totals reflected about 84 percent of the state’s precincts. Webster insisted that any caucus results that come in after Saturday wouldn’t be counted no matter how close the vote.

So the GOP establishment is willing to disenfranchise even its own voters in order to get the results they prefer? Don’t understand how it’s even legal to just unilaterally decide which votes get to be counted. Particularly since Romney only “won” by 194 votes. Even more interesting is the now discounted districts were likely to go for Ron Paul.

The Paul campaign is understandably crying foul and refuse to concede. Certainly it’s odd that in snow country like Maine, a local GOP honcho decided to postpone the caucus based on a forecast of 3 inches of snow that ended up barely dusting the ground. Especially when the Girl Scouts in the same county didn’t postpone their event.

Looks like the establishment GOP isn’t going to bother to even pretend to care who the rank and file Republicans want to nominate. Feels like Iowa all over again.