Rumbling Romney and Mubarak’s "Cool" Ties

TAPPED, “Might Mitt”

Robert Farley poses an excellent question in today’s posting: “Why isn't Mitt Romney being treated as the overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican race?” As I read the posting, I realized that there is no reason, given Romney’s current primary record, why this is so.

In the interest of simplifying this case, I figured I’d make a little chart to show Romney’s dominance over the other Republican candidates.

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Republican Primary Records, as of January 16, 2008

Candidates	First Place	Second Place	Third Place	Point Tally*	Est. Delegates**
Rudy Giuliani	–	–	–	0	1
Mike Huckabee	IO	–	NH, MI	5	22
Duncan Hunter	–	–	WY	1	1
Alan Keyes	–	–	–	0	0
John McCain	NH	MI	IO (tie)	6	15
Ron Paul	–	–	–	0	2
Mitt Romney	WY, MI	IO, NH	–	10	52
Fred Thompson	–	WY	IO (tie)	3	6

* For the “Total Point Tally,” I’m using a system similar to that of the Olympic scoring, where a first placing receives three points, a second two points, and a third one point.

** Estimated delegates from counts made by CNN.

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Considering the data I tried to show here, in addition to the money Romney has raised, I really cannot discern why Romney isn’t being recognized, as Farley said it, as the overwhelming Republican frontrunner.

Meryl Yourish, “Cooler Ties in the Middle East”

Yourish gives her readers an entertaining blog entry about Egypt, Middle Eastern fashion, and US diplomacy. I appreciate a bit of humor from my bloggers every once in a while, though I suppose this is the first (intentionally) entertaining blog I’ve read from either Meryl or TAPPED.