“Mitt Romney scored a decisive victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary on Tuesday, tightening his grip on the Republican front-runner’s slot and improving his chances of locking up the nomination by the end of the presidential primary season in June,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
“Santorum, meantime, suffered a serious setback in his effort to send the GOP battle spilling onto the floor of the nominating convention in late August.
“Turnout in the Chicago metro area, where most of the state’s voters live, was said to be light, despite clear skies and record-high temperatures in the mid-80s. But Romney carried the largely suburban collar counties around Chicago by 20 percentage points, according to exit poll data, building a lead that Santorum was unable to overcome in other parts of the state.
“The Republican race has increasingly solidified into a divisive contest between the party’s monied interests, which overwhelmingly back Romney, and the conservative grass-roots base, which has favored the more meagerly financed and loosely organized Santorum.”
The rest of the article is here.
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Not only the collar counties, but many of the outer ring of Cook County suburbs are Republican majority. That’s where I grew up and where I come from. I never registered with either party while I lived there because I didn’t like the Cook County machine, but I was never truly a Republican, either.
In Illinois, especially surrounding Chicago, these are old school Republicans. The Republicans there largely are not the conservative Christian/social conservative base that is Rick Santorum’s strength. It does not surprise me in the least that Illinois went to Romney. In an area were many Republicans are Republican in response to the Cook County Democratic machine politics, it is not surprising that the moderate Romney (who only plays a Santorum style socially conservative hard right-winger on TV) would be the victor.
See Gail, we do have much in common. I was born at Chicago Lying in Hospital, southside. Father grew up in Morgan Park. And our last house @105th & Seely ave. wasn’t very far from Al Capone’s grave. (Learned that much later) Moved to NYC area in ’54, but I returned to Champaign/Urbana for freshman year of college. Fraternity house next to where I lived was the Deke’s, my father’s; around the corner my uncle’s frat house and across the street was frat house of my grandfather, class of ’11, or near that. My mother was in a sorority on the quad, a Theta I think. She was from northwestern, Ill., Sterling, up in Sac and Fox Indian Territory and Chief Blackhawk. The family farm was in Prophetstown. After a year, I transfered to UCONN.
Never spoke much with my dad, but he never liked Italians, and in NY, the town we lived in was mostly Italian. And boy did those guys swarm like bees around my older sister–driving my old man nuts. She was, and still is, beautiful. After he died in ’71, at some point I figured out he must not have liked Italians because he lived in Chicago during Johnnie Torrio and Al Capone’s reign and then in WWII he slogged his way up Italy, Anzio–where his best friend, a guy named Ed was killed on the beach– Monte Casino, etc. Cheers,
How would these people posting and commenting score on the NC happiness index? Yikes.
http://2012nevadacounty.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/reality-check-or-something-more/
Apparently, Mittens Romneys consultant described him and his eternally resetting campaign as an “etch-A-sketch”. Get ready for “the real Mitt Romney”. 5.0 real soon. YeGads, bet Romney will love to fire him later.
Kate