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February 23

Maine GOP needs to repair damage caucuses caused

The leadership of the Maine Republican Party needs to restore the confidence many Republicans lost in its ability to conduct fair and transparent business.

I hope that it will not conduct the upcoming state GOP convention in the manner it did to declare Mitt Romney the winner of the Republican straw poll and the election of delegates to the state convention.

You would be hard-pressed to find any competent statistician who could conclude Romney beat Ron Paul in the recent Maine straw poll.

* Only a minority of Republicans voted.

* More than 175 towns in the state did not participate in polls, as reported on the Maine GOP web site.

* If the polls taken in Maine's three largest cities, Bangor, Portland and Lewiston, were the measure, then Paul won the vote by a significant margin. (www.mainegop.com)

* The Maine GOP headquarters and the state capital are in Kennebec County, where Paul beat Romney.

The following week, the Maine GOP canceled the caucus in Washington County, a Paul stronghold. The reason given was severe weather when, in fact, the forecast was 2 to 4 inches of snow for the time of the caucus. The resulting snow turned out to be a dusting. The Romney supporter appointed by the Maine GOP to chair the caucus said the votes of Washington County would not be counted.

* If one were to guess the outcome in Washington County, based on the results in Aroostook County, Paul would have won by a margin of nearly 4 to 1.

Hopefully, the Maine GOP leadership will repair some of the damage it has done to its reputation leading up to the state convention in May.

 

Patrick Eisenhart

Augusta

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