Republican presidential frontrunner John McCain walked away with commitments Saturday of an overwhelming majority of Louisiana delegates to the party’s September nominating convention.
The development shuts out former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who finished first in Republican balloting in Louisiana’s Feb. 9 presidential preference primary.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, is guaranteed no delegates, although he won the popular vote. He earlier called Louisiana’s delegate selection process, “goofy.”
“Party activists and party leaders believed — as they looked at the field and what’s going on — Huckabee does not have the numbers to win,” said state Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere.
Villere said the odds are that McCain “is our presumptive nominee and it’s time to coalesce around one person and McCain is that person.”
Huckabee received 43 percent of the state’s presidential primary vote to McCain’s 42 percent. But McCain is far outdistancing Huckabee in the national delegate count.
Under party rules, the 47 Louisiana delegates chosen at the state party convention Saturday are supposed to go to the national convention uncommitted. That’s because no GOP candidate got 50 percent of the vote in the state’s Feb. 9 presidential primary.
But uncommitted delegates may cast ballots at the national convention for anyone of their choosing.
McCain forces said they had signed affidavits from 39 delegates elected Saturday at the state party convention and verbal commitments from others that would bring the number of backers to 44.
That would mean three of Louisiana’s 47 delegates would remain uncommitted as the delegation heads to the Sept. 1-4 national GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Huckabee and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul supporters clearly were unhappy about the move toward McCain. A couple of times there was a smattering of boos as McCain was touted as the party nominee. Paul supporters challenged the delegate selection procedures, but to no avail.
Party activist Vincent Bruno asked state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, why he had placed “politics over principle” by backing McCain with Huckabee still in the hunt for the nomination.
“Honestly, I wish Huckabee was in this (leading) position, but he’s not. My position was and is — beat Obama and Hillary,” said LaBruzzo, referring to Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“It’s going to be McCain and I believe we need to get behind him,” said LaBruzzo, a delegate who originally backed Fred Thompson. Former state Rep. Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge said he, too, would support the Arizona senator as a delegate to the national convention even though he disagrees with him 15 to 20 percent of the time.
“I think on the issues that are truly important, John McCain is right on all those issues” from the right to life to national security, said Jenkins.
Former Gov. Buddy Roemer, a delegate, said he has known McCain for more than two decades from when the two were in Congress together. He said McCain has been supportive of Louisiana through the years and that McCain is a “family man, a man of faith.”
Some say Democrats have the advantage in the 2008 presidential election, said Roemer. “We need to send our best warrior,” said Roemer who has campaigned for McCain around the nation.
Delegate state Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, was one of several speakers who asked party activists to unite behind whoever becomes the nominee even if he isn’t their first choice. He said the alternative is so much worse.
“Can you believe the United States is on the verge of electing Barack Hussein Obama or … the wife of Monica’s ex-boyfriend. Really, it’s enough to make you cry,” said Kostelka. “If your candidate doesn’t get the nomination, don’t give up on the party.”