Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Willard "Mittens" Romney has been outspending his rivals 12-1 with money from his millionaire and billionaire friends in the "one percent."

The political punditry declared that Mittens had to win Michigan last week or his campaign was over.

Despite his decisive financial advantage, Mittens barely eked out a popular vote win last Tuesday in his birthplace home of Michigan. It was first called a tie in delegates awarded, but the Michigan Republican Party in awarding at-large delegates gave Mittens the edge. Rick "man on dog" Santorum cried foul and promised to challenge.

Mittens also won a non-binding straw poll caucus in Wyoming, and a low turnout caucus in Washington. This was the set-up to the so-called "Super Tuesday" in which 11 states were holding primaries and caucuses on that date.

The political punditry declared that Mittens had to win Ohio or his campaign was over.

There was little chance that Romney was going to lose the all important delegate count in Ohio because of the way the Ohio Republican Party awards delegates and the fact that Rick "man on dog" Santorum failed to file the necessary paperwork to qualify to be on the ballot in every congressional district.

Despite his decisive financial advantage, Mittens barely eked out a popular vote win in Ohio last night. With 99% pf the vote counted, Mittens has only a 12,000 vote lead. Mitt Romney wins Ohio Republican primary | cleveland.com. But thanks only to the disorganization of the Santorum campaign, Mittens faired better in delegates to be awarded. Mitt Romney claims at least 34 delegates and Rick Santorum at least 19 in Ohio | cleveland.com:

If the unofficial vote from Tuesday's primary holds when the official tally is announced in two weeks – after adding late-arriving absentee ballots and provisional votes – Romney will win 38 delegates and Santorum 21.

One factor that could change things is if Santorum is successful in contesting the party rules allocating the delegates.

A major reason Santorum lost ground in the delegate count is that he was not on the ballot for delegates being awarded in three Congressional districts: the 6th, 9th and 13th districts. In other districts, he did not have a full slate.

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Three delegates were to be awarded to the winning presidential candidate in each of the 16 districts. However, in some cases, Rick Santorum could not win three delegates, because he fell short of filing procedures, the state Republican Party announced on Friday.

It also benefitted Mittens that Governor Goodhair Rick Perry and Governor Jon Hunstsman were still on the Ohio ballot even after having withdrawn many weeks ago, collecting some 14,000 votes between them. What were these voters thinking wasting their votes?