Paul chosen in GOP caucus

By Jennifer McBride / Leader Staff

Abortion, stem cell research, the Internal Revenue Service and Thomas Jefferson all were the center of the discussion at the Lake County Republican caucus, held at Razooo's in downtown Polson. Ron Paul carried the day, winning despite having only a handful of national Republican delegates and low polls numbers. Paul won with 18 votes, Mitt Romney had 14, John McCain had eight and Mike Huckabee had three.

Romney is projected to be the statewide winner, however. As of the Leader's deadline, with 93 percent of the vote counted, Romney won 36 percent of the state, while McCain had 24 percent, Paul had 23 percent and Huckabee had 17 percent. Despite the close percentages, Romney will come out with all 25 of Montana's delegates under the winner-take-all system.

Critics of the new caucuses were worried about excluding the main Republican body. Only elected officials, Republican organizational officers and precinct captains can vote in the caucus. In an uncontested Republican primary like 2004, upwards of 100,000 people vote in the Montana Republican primaries. On Tuesday, only 1,817 people could voice their decision.

Despite the small numbers, Steven Robinson, Lake County Republican Finance Chair, thought that the caucus encouraged public participation on a wide scale, bringing new people into the organization.

"I'm excited because this is the greatest involvement of grassroots Republicans in ten years," he said.

Janna Taylor, the local State Representative, voted in the house to move the primary up and supports the earlier caucus date on Super Tuesday.

"It's put us at least on the map," she said.

Even people who felt like the caucus system wasn't perfect thought the move had been a good one.

"Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing to get the right thing done," said Republican Dan Stipe, former County Commissioner.