Mark Wright Continues to Complain About the Outcome at Greene County Caucus

If you don't like the results enough, complain and take it to the courts or use whatever means possible to claim the results unfair. It's a tactic we have seen from the Democrats and now Republicans appear to be heading in that same direction after the Missouri Caucus. In the center of the latest argument is Mark Wright, who continues to whine his Rick Santorum delegation lost the Greene County Caucus. Wright writes:

Rick Santorum received 54% of Greene County Republicans vote during the primary election on February 7^th and his supporters were almost half of the attendees at the Greene County caucus last Saturday.

However, when all of the delegates were awarded at caucus, Santorum only received 6 delegates out of 111, representing less than 5%. Romney and Paul split up the remaining 95% of the delegates who will now go on to represent Greene County during the coming Congressional and State Conventions.

The question is: How did the voice of the conservative majority in Greene County and the candidate they supported get suppressed twice in five weeks?

Oh yeah, that meaningless primary vote--let's distract them right off and look to a vote that made no sense at all. It was a waste of taxpayer's money as the Missouri GOP decided to take more voters out of the equation by going to a caucus system. Wright asks the question, "how did the voice of the conservative majority in Greene County and the candidate they supported get suppressed twice in five weeks?"

What Mark Wright is doing here is arguing the St. Louis Cardinals finished 10 games out of first place, but they deserve to be in the playoffs because they were ten games ahead in first place in the preseason.

But wait a minute! Mark a majority is 50%+1. He contradicts the idea of a majority by pointing out the Santorum supporters made up less than 50% of the attendees at the GOP Caucus. Wright writes, "his [Rick Santorum] supporters were almost half of the attendees." See the flaw in his logic as he asks the question? There wasn't a majority at the caucus yet through trickery language Wright tries to pass off less than 50% of the attendees as the majority.

This is language that is often used to rally the troops even though it's full of flaws. Over the past week Wright has criticized Ron Paul supporters who attended the caucus--Ron Paul being the only true conservative in the race--especially when you compare Paul to Santorum, who has voted for five debt ceiling increases, expanded federal involvement in your child's education, wants to launch an attack against the First Amendment, and of course helped push Medicare Part D, which built up more unfunded liabilities for the federal government to pay. Yes, I don't think Wright knows what a conservative is considering Santorum is a big government guy.

Mr. Wright needs to be helped with two definitions in this piece--majority and conservative.

Here's the problem with Wright's argument. First he is obviously upset Robert's Rule of Orders requires a 2/3 vote to make changes to the rule. How unrepublican is it, knowing Republicans believe in the rule of law, to point the finger at the other factions who turned out the numbers while ignoring the fact they simply did not have enough Santorum supporters at the caucus. Not only did they not have 2/3, they didn't have 1/2. Who should Mr. Wright point his finger at?

That's right--Santorum voters who didn't show up to the Greene County Caucus to back the meaningless primary vote. Over the years I have learned conservatism requires a belief in self-responsibility. Here is Wright claiming he represents the conservative majority in Greene County by not taking responsibility for getting enough Santorum voters to the caucus--no he blames all the other people that showed up.

Caucus observers claimed Romney supporters numbered less than 5% of attendees, which is understandable due to the lack of votes he received from traditional conservative voters on February 7^th. However, Romney was disproportionally given almost 45% of the delegates. That is truly fuzzy math!

Romney party operatives unfazed by the lack of support for their candidate at the caucus, decided to make an end run around the conservative majority. By combining their efforts with the libertarian leaning Paul operatives they were able to virtually shut out conservative champion Rick Santorum.


Conservative champion Rick Santorum? Please--how many generations are going to have to pay for Santorum's big government ways? Don't get me wrong, Romney is no saint when it comes to smaller government, but I can't let Mr. Wright get away with these claims. The Santorum record isn't conservative.

None the less, what Wright isn't telling you as he claims fuzzy caucus math was used against Santorum is Santorum's delegation wanted 100% of the delegates in Greene County--and this is without even 50% showing up. So it's fair when the fuzzy math works out for Mark Wright's delegation, but the fuzzy math sucks when it doesn't work to Wright's desires.

The bottom line here is the Santorum crowd got greedy. They got real greedy, and it cost them tremendously in the end as Billy Long whored for deals with other groups who showed up to caucus. It's probably only a matter of days until Wright files papers to contest the election just like Tera Sukman did in Taney County. Go to the courts to get the decision you want--isn't that what liberals do?

I remind Mark he should be happy he at least got some delegates. In neighboring Christian County, the Santorum supporters took all of them in an act of fuzzy math that didn't consider that 1/3 of the attendees there when the caucus began was for Ron Paul. Want to complain about the fuzzy math in Christian County Mark, or do you just want to come to terms this is how the caucus process works.