Redstate

Posted at 11:06am on Apr. 14, 2008 Why You Should Care About Puerto Rico

By Ben Domenech

Over at Human Events this morning, you'll find my latest column on the importance of Puerto Rico in the 2008 cycle.

There's a point that I make later in the piece which might be worth considering here - namely, that neither Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton offer a cure for what ills Puerto Rico. Regardless of what you think of the statehood-independence issue, this is a situation where there's no question that there's a need for pro-free market, anti-corruption, pro-trade leadership.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Hillary Clinton | Puerto Rico — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:50am on Mar. 27, 2008 Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, Puerto Rico Democrat, Indicted

Another bad day for the Community-Based Reality

By Neil Stevens

Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, a Democratic Party superdelegate and endorser of Senator Barack Obama, was indicted today as part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to systematically violate federal campaign finance law and obstruct FBI investigations into his now apparently illegal campaign for Congress (as a non-voting member) in 2000.

So it's official: Let's add another Democrat to Þe Olde Culture of Corruption List.

Read on...

Posted in Aníbal Acevedo Vilá | Barack Obama | Culture of Corruption | Democrats | Puerto Rico — Comments (18)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:36pm on Feb. 24, 2008 McCain Gets Puerto Rico

By California Yankee

Joining Republicans in American Samoa and the Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico Republicans awarded 20 delegates to Senator McCain:

The at-large delegates each will cast one vote at the Republican National Convention this summer. Three "superdelegates," who are not bound by Sunday's results, also have pledged to back McCain, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

With the delegates from Puerto Rico, McCain has 996 of the 1,191 delegates he needs to secure the Republican nomination. Mike Huckabee continues to be stuck at 254 delegates.

Posted in 2008 | John McCain | Mike Huckabee | Puerto Rico — Comments (16)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:28pm on Feb. 14, 2008 Puerto Rican (D) Unanimity Splintering? [comments open]

By Dan McLaughlin

A lot of us have been assuming that the Puerto Rico Democratic primary is winner-take-all, and thus a potential ace in the hole for Hillary Clinton. But is the delegation legally required to be winner-take-all, or is that just a practical consequence of traditional practice? I ask because Michael Barone's update to the post that first focused attention on this issue seems to suggest that it's the latter and that will not hold this time. Here is what Barone originally wrote:

Democratic delegates are supposed to be allocated by proportional representation. But that notion is alien to highly competitive Puerto Rican politics. In practice, the dominant figure in Puerto Rico identifying with the Democratic Party has seen to it that his faction gets all the territory’s delegates. This was true of Govs. Carlos Romero Barcelo and Pedro Rosello of the New Progressive Party (PNP) as well as Gov. Rafael Hernandez Colon of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). PPD politicians almost always identify with mainland Democrats (an exception was Sila Calderón, governor from 2000 to 2004, who identified with neither party and concentrated, successfully, on persuading Congress and the Bush administration to close the artillery range on Vieques Island). It’s not clear to me at this distance whether the current governor, Aníbal Acevedo of the PPD, will have similar clout. He’s at odds with Rosello, and the legislature is in the hands of the PNP. But if Acevedo doesn’t determine who gets Puerto Rico’s 63 votes, someone else will. And they aren’t likely to be proportionately distributed.

And here is the update he posted yesterday:

Puerto Rico's Governor Anibal Acevedo-Vila has endorsed Barack Obama for president. This obviously reduces toward zero the chance that Puerto Rico will produce a unanimous delegation for Hillary Clinton. Other Puerto Rico politicians of Acevedo-Vila's Popular Democratic Party and the opposition New Progressive Party have been seen as leaning to Clinton; it will be interesting to see where they end up.

Comments open.