Wednesday, February 6, 2008

John Cox wins thousands of votes on Super Tuesday

Many of my regular readers know that I have been writing about Republican presidential candidate and Illinois businessman John Cox on an irregular basis since before the New Hampshire primary. I've been a bit curious about the guy since interviewing him at a New Hampshire radio station where I worked in 2006. After the interview, he chastised me on his blog, saying I was getting my "liberal" views across during the interview. I corrected him saying that I hold both liberal and conservative views. Most everyone I know who heard the interview said I was too easy on the guy. He did, however, send me a nice letter thanking me for the radio time, which was pretty impressive considering most folks don't bother doing that.
Anyhow, some have blogged my stories on other blogs about the Cox campaign and others have wondered why I'm ribbing him about his run [one commenter suggested I was, "obsessed"]. As I have said before, I was a bit surprised that he would quit so soon after blowing through more than $1 million of his money on his race. At the same time, I have been curious about how he would do, even though he dropped out. What did that money buy him beyond rent in an office few people visited or staffers who were hired and fired [or quit] and hired and fired?
For example, I was curious about the number of votes he received in the Iowa Caucuses, since the party refused to release the vote totals for the lower tier candidates. So I emailed the press person for the state party requesting the figures and never heard back. So, I emailed again and even called. And yet, they refused to release votes. I was pretty shocked by this. Why are they afraid to release numbers for Cox, Alan Keyes and others? I really wanted to know now! Some on the Web have stated that they believe Keyes won the Caucus there but the party refused to release the votes. I seriously doubt this. But how would anyone know, if they don't release the vote totals.
Later, I posted Cox's numbers in New Hampshire, 39, including a single vote he received in Concord.
I haven't seen much else for the guy and I know he did not make a lot of state ballots.
Well, as an update, Cox did receive 2,628 votes in the California primary, coming in 10th, ahead of Sen. Sam Brownback.
I was also surprised to not see his name on the Illinois ballot. According to the AP, with 99 percent of the Republican ballots counted, "uncommitted" received 0 votes. So, either Cox blanked his own ballot and it didn't count, wrote his name in, voted for another Republican candidate, or did not vote in the primary at all! What's up with that?
I don't know if he is on any future ballots but we'll see. In the end, after all the Republican primary votes are cast, we can take the number of votes Cox received and divide it into the amount of money he spent and see how much he paid for each vote. In the end, it will probably be less than what Mitt Romney spends!

Update: Here is the Chicago Tribune's take on John's numbers: ["The also-ran also gets votes"].

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