That translation may be too literal to be accurate, but the result is the same; Mitt wins huge in Puerto Rico.  The Common Wealth of Puerto Rico is a territory of these United States and as such they are permitted to vote in the primary.  They use an open primary system, democrats and republicans can vote in the same one.  They are not, however, allowed to vote in the general election for President in November.  Puerto Rico is a proportional delegate system, meaning you can win delegates without winning the total vote count.  However, if you manage to get more than 50% of all votes cast you get all 20 delegates.

Governor Luis Fortuno of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico holds their own elections for local issues and to elect a Governor, although I don’t believe Governor Fortuno’s term is up until 2o14.  This is a sharp dude.  He earned his BA from Georgetown and his law degree from the University of Virginia, the same school where one Derek Dooley, head coach of Tennessee Football, earned his degree.  Go Big Orange!

One of the local issues up for a vote in 2012 in Puerto Rico is the petition for statehood.  This particular issue was a big part of Mitt’s win tonight.  Both Romney and Santorum went to the island and campaigned.  Santorum spent two days there, which as it turns out was two days too long.

When asked about the issue of statehood, Santorum went off about the language Puerto Ricans speak before he ever said he would support a move to statehood.  He said Puerto Ricans would have to adopt english as the only official language to be considered for statehood.  He said prosperity would only come from english not spanish.  Then he said it was the law so to be a state they would have to adopt english anyway.  Then the next day when that all blew up in his face like a burning hot tamale wrapped way too tight, he blamed his Puerto Rican interpreter for getting his words all wrong and then the press for taking him out of context and then finally it was Mitt’s fault for making the whole thing up.

Doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict the outcome of that little fiasco.  I can name that island ass kicking in five words.  “Speak english you Puerto Ricans.”  It would have been much more efficient and probably saved Santorum a trip and a lot of wasted campaign funds had he just said those five words instead of blaming everyone for two whole days.  For all the guff Romney takes for being a flip flopper, ole Rick really means what he says until a large block of voters don’t like it, then all of a sudden it’s everyone else’s fault for not understanding or twisting his words.

So Romney stepped into the breach, said he supported the right of the people of Puerto Rico to petition for statehood; a move he believes will become reality when it’s put to a local vote in November.  Then he said the magic words.  Puerto Rico will prosper  no matter the language they speak.  How big of an issue was that whole deal?  Well on an island made up mostly of Catholics, the Mormon was crushing the Catholic by 88% of the vote at last count.  Now Romney already had the endorsement of Governor Fortuno, and Fortuno leads the party platform that is pushing for statehood, but Santorum really hurt himself when he went off, wait for it, wait for it… went off his note cards and told the reporter the english for statehood line.  Damn you mini paper prompters!

His own local party chairman remarked that Santorum should have done much better here because the Catholics were really turning out for him, but they were greatly offended about the degradation of their language by Santorum.  That blunder is not a small one.  Santorum has to be gaining on Romney.  In the last two primaries he only broke even, and now he just lost ground by 20 because by winning more than 50% of the vote Mitt got all 20 delegates.

Gingrich and Ron Paul did not campaign on the island, and really why are they even staying in the race.

As a Washington Post writer, who was more diligent than the rest to do the math, has reported, Santorum and Gingrich would now have to combine to win 55% of the total remaining delegates to stop Romney from getting 1144 delegates before the convention.  So even Newt’s days as a uni-bomber are running out.  His whole reason for staying in is to stop Mitt.  If Mitt takes any considerable number of delgates from Illinois on Tuesday the math really moves toward impossibility for Blocky McBlockerton (Newt) and Rick “english only” Santorum.

Santorum has already had a setback for Tuesday as he again failed to register in every county in Illinois.  That means he cannot win a majority of the delegates there.  Of course he blamed that on his grass roots campaign and the lack of organization they had early on.   Translation, we never thought we would get this far so we didn’t plan for it.

Well Rick, people who don’t think they will get that far normally don’t get that far.  This is also a big deal, Illinois has 69 delegates up for grabs Tuesday.  It would have been a good chance for Santorum to gain ground.  Instead he’s 20 delegates further in the hole, and can’t get a majority of the 69 on Tuesday.

This is why I said early on, balancing your own checkbook and doing your own taxes means squadoosh as a Presidential candidate.  It was a bad attempt by Santorum to relate with the common man.  Who cares if he can file a 1040EZ.  He can’t run a major campaign which is actually a microcosm of a Presidential Administration.  Writing a check to H&R Block is not the same as balancing the federal budget.

Santorum said today if he wins Illinois he wins the nomination.  Rick is apparently not reading Frank’s Place, because if he did he would know that he can win the overall state vote all day long, and Romney can still walk away with more delegates from Illinois.

Illinois is central time zone so reults will be coming in late.  It will be a close race, so counts might not be done until after midnight eastern time.

Rest assured Frank’s Place will be on the job.