Coming as no surprise to anybody who actually pays attention to politics Rick Santorum has officially endorse Mitt Romney:
In a late-night email, he urged his supporters to back the presumptive nominee in order to deny President Barack Obama a second term.
Mr Santorum said he was impressed by Mr Romney’s “deep understanding” of economic and family issues, following a meeting with him last week.
I’m told that during his address Santorum said he was unable to endorse Ron Paul in good conscious because of Paul’s stark opposition of war and his lack of hatred for “brown people” and “the gays.”
The only reason Santorum’s endorsement means anything to me is because he holds bounded delegates. Bounded delegates are those who are stuck voting for a candidate at the Republican National Convention (RNC). The question of what will happen to Santorum’s bounded delegates when he suspended his campaign last month has been the subject of debate. With his officially endorsement of Romney the question raised (at least in my opinion) is whether or not Santorum’s bounded delegates will now be bounded to Romney.
I’m sure somebody can point to an official RNC rule regarding this but I have no delusions of the RNC actually following any set of rules. They’ve already threatened to not seat any delegates from Nevada if the state sends too many Ron Paul supporters. It would be trivial for the RNC to announce that any delegate bounded to Santorum must not vote for Romney. Of course doing that would put their justification for threatening Nevada into question. The RNC claimed its threat against Nevada was done because they didn’t believe the Paul supporters would obey the RNC rules and endorse the candidate they were bounded to. Many of Santorum’s supporters were vehemently opposed to Romney for various reasons and outright refused to give the former Massachusetts governor any support. These people may not play by the RNC rules either so it would only make sense if the RNC refused to seat any delegates from states that hold bounded Santorum delegates.
Once again I’m really hoping the RNC pulls something incredibly shady with this situation. The faster people wake up and realize the Republican Party isn’t for the people or by the people the quicker they can reduce the party to ash and hopefully start one or more new viable parties.