DETROIT FREE PRESS | Kathleen Gray | February 28, 2012
A diehard Democrat and retired autoworker, Budziszewski REALLY doesn’t like Romney, and instead cast a ballot for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Come November, he will vote for President Barack Obama.
But today, he just wants to embarrass Romney.
“I’ve been pushing this on Facebook for days,” he said. “There’s a very real possibility we can pull this off.”
Some Democrats have put together a fairly organized effort to get Democrats to vote for Santorum or Ron Paul in order to rob victory from Romney. The Santorum campaign joined the effort Monday with a robocall aimed at Democrats urging them to vote for him because Romney opposed the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler. The call didn’t note that Santorum also opposed the bailout.
Romney called the effort a dirty trick by a desperate campaign. Other Romney supporters called the robocall “pathetic.”
“This is no way for a person to act that wants to be the Republican nominee to take on President Obama in the fall,” said Saul Anuzis, a Republican national committeeman from Michigan.
Budziszewski got two of those calls today, but he made up his mind about Romney long ago. He said Romney betrayed Detroit by opposing the federal auto bailout.
His wife, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend also voted for Santorum.
Minutes after posting an inquiry on Facebook.com/detroitfreepress looking for Democratic crossover voters, a half-dozen voters had replied to the Free Press.
Brad O’Donnell, 22, of Lansing said Republicans only have themselves to blame.
“The Michigan Republican Party made a big mistake by basically inviting Democrats to vote in their primary,” said O’Donnell, a firm Obama supporter. “Voting for Santorum was a no-brainer. The longer the primary goes on, the more time there will be to find some more skeletons on Mitt Romney.”
Herb Harris, 55, of Detroit joined a movement to have Obama supporters in Detroit vote for Ron Paul to get the Texas congressman some delegates from Detroit congressional districts.
“It will make Romney look bad,” Harris said. “He was very offensive to Detroit. He brags about his five homes and that he’s a Michigander, but not one of those homes is in Michigan.”
Elisabeth Steegman, 44, of Sterling Heights also voted for Santorum to help Obama.
"My father is probably rolling over in his grave" because she voted for a Republican, Steegman said.
Her father, a metal shop model maker, was a union steward at the GM Tech Center for years and made all of his eight children go out and vote Democrat, she said.
"It's one way to get a vote for the person you want to win. It's a little stinky,” she admitted, but worth it.
She has no qualms about not voting for Michigan's own Mitt Romney for his lack of support for the auto bailouts.
"He kind of turned his back on his own state," she said. "That's why I'm willing to turn my back on you, too."
I wonder if all of this has any bearing on the confidence level of polls.
ReplyDeleteIf it has, obviously Santorum will win with a margin.