The Republican primary has come and gone for Hillsdale County.
GOP candidate Rick Santorum, while second in the state, won the county with 43.6 percent of the vote. Hillsdale’s votes accounted for 2,269 of the nearly 380,000 votes Santorum received in the state — enough to make opponent Mitt Romney sweat but not enough to make the former Michigander lose.
“We didn’t win by a lot, but we won by enough, and that’s all that counts,” the former Massachussetts governor said in his victory speech Tuesday night.
Romney won Michigan’s primary after receiving just less than 410,000 votes, or 41.1 percent.
Former Sen. Santorum followed with 37.9 percent. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich were a distant third and fourth, finishing with 11.6 and 6.5 percent, respectively.
Romney placed second in the county primary with 32.9 percent. Paul was third with 15.0 percent and Gingrich fourth with 5.6 percent.
President Barack Obama, running uncontensted on the Democratic ticket, received the last 5 percent of Hillsdale County’s votes.
“I was 95 percent sure Romney was going to win in Michigan,” said Gary Wolfram, professor of political economy and Hillsdale City resident.
Wolfram served as a policy adviser for Romney’s campaign. Over the past month, Wolfram has written op-ed pieces, fielded questions on Romney’s tax policy for the national media, and helped the campaign frame policy issues for Michigan voters. He was even thanked by Mitt Romney’s wife, Anne Romney, in Tuesday night’s victory rally.
“My wife pointed out I was the only non-politician to be thanked,” he said.
The Romney campaign asked Wolfram to help with the Michigan primary after he defended Romney’s conservatism in his weekly column for Detroit News’ opinion blog, The Michigan View, in January.
“Anne had called me months ago and I’d just sort of gotten a little bit busy and forgotten about it,” Wolfram said. “I wasn’t thinking about getting that involved, but then it became more obvious to me that Romney was the best candidate and I should do something about it.”
Senior Johnny Burtka, who described himself “uninformed” politically, got involved with the Romney campaign too, but for a different reason.
“With the primary coming up, I felt like I should go out and find out more,” he said.
On Monday, Burtka and four other Hillsdale students drove to a Romney rally held just outside of Albion, Mich. They helped pass out signs for the campaign.
“The rally itself was good,” Burtka said. “He seemed to focus more on Obama than the other Republican candidates.”
Burtka said Romney seemed to be trying to talk himself up as “a Michigan guy.”
Kid Rock songs were played as the candidate took the stage and Romney told the crowd he had gone to high school in Michigan and how he met and married his wife here.
At the end of the speech, Burtka said he and the other students got to shake hands with him.
Although Romney won the popular vote, of Michigan’s 14 congressional districts, Santorum won eight.
CNN reported Wednesday, Feb. 29 that each candidate received half of Michigan’s 30 delegates.
“Overall, I think the people [of Hillsdale County] made it pretty clear who they like: Rick Santorum,” said Park Hayes ’67, former city clerk and long-time Hillsdale resident.
Hayes said he doesn’t have a favorite candidate. He said he thought all the candidates had a lot to work on.
“I think Romney has a lot of work to do, but I think Washington has a lot of work to do, and especially Congress,” Hayes said. “So far they have not shown they have the fortitude to do what they have to do.”
Voter dissatisfaction with the GOP candidates has been a theme of the 2012 primary.
That was what got Wolfram writing on Romney in the first place. He said he didn’t like voter’s or the media’s misconception of Romney as a non-conservative.
“I have that column and when things start to irritate me, I’ll write about it,” he said.
Sophomore and Hillsdale resident Ethan Gehrke is irritated too, except he’s irritated at Mitt Romney.
Gehrke attributed Santorum’s success to his connection to blue collar voters.
“The truth is the working class is tired of rich guys,” Gehrke said. “People of the working class like to be stared in the eye and told the truth. That is what Santorum did in Iowa and I think that’s why he won [in Hillsdale County].”
Wolfram said he believes Romney will be the Republican nominee.
“[T]he problem is, by making him spend money from this point forward, and the Republicans trying to spend all this money on the nomination process, it’s all money that can’t be spent on the general [election],” Wolfram said. “It would I think be our best interest to get behind him.”
The next primary will be held in the state of Washington on March 3, followed by primaries in 10 states on March 7, “Super Tuesday.”