Mitt Romney Officially The Republican Nominee For President

To the surprise of nobody, Mitt Romney is now officially the nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States:

TAMPA –Mitt Romney became the Republican nominee for president on Tuesday afternoon, passing the required threshold of 1,144 delegates in a roll-call vote of convention delegates here.
Romney’s nomination–long assured, after he triumphed in a bitter and expensive primary fight–became official at 5:40 p.m., with 50 votes from New Jersey. Later Tuesday, the same delegates are expected to nominate Romney’s chosen running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for vice president.
“Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!” the convention crowd chanted afterward. More than 160 other delegates went to other candidates. Many of Romney’s rivals had released their delegates to vote for the presumed nominee.

In the final tally, Romney ended up with more than 2,000 delegate votes with roughly 200 votes being cast for “others,” with most of the “other” being votes for Ron Paul from various state delegations, including Iowa where the majority of the votes went to Paul. Under the rules governing the convention, however, Paul’s votes were not officially counted in his favor because he did not have the support of a plurality of delegates from at least five states. One of the “other” votes, though, actually went to Buddy Roemer, the former Louisiana Governor and Congressman who ran a quixotic campaign for the Presidency that essentially began and ended in New Hampshire.

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