McCain Wins Puerto Rico's 20 GOP Delegates

(AP)  Republican Party members in Puerto Rico awarded all 20 delegates at stake Sunday to Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has vowed to help resolve Washington's complicated relationship with the U.S. Caribbean territory.

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.

The delegates from Puerto Rico helped McCain move closer to clinching the GOP nomination, giving him a total of 996 delegates. His rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee trails McCain with 254 delegates.

It will take 1,191 delegates to secure the Republican nomination.

On Saturday, McCain picked up all nine delegates awarded by the GOP in American Samoa, as well as the nine GOP delegates from the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

In a letter to Luis Fortuno, Puerto Rico's nonvoting congressional delegate and a superdelegate, McCain pledged to support a process that would enable Puerto Ricans to decide if they want to remain a commonwealth, become a state or an independent nation.

"The people of Puerto Rico deserve a process of self-determination and a congressionally defined referendum that gives them a fair and unambiguous choice among status options," McCain wrote. "That is one of the many important things that we will accomplish together."

[juan343]

McCain will definitely have all the conservatives sitting out of this election, unless Huckabee or Paul run as a third party candidate.

[maggg1]

PR has had this affiliation for years, my biggest concern is that the electoral college is revamped from its inception over 200 years ago.

[antizion]

can someone tell me why Puerto Rico is even voting? Are they paying taxes for that right? I sure hope Ralph Nader will stop this, when he is elected.

Posted by cuttingras

-----------------------------

Why don''t you Google "Puerto Rico IRS General Tire" and you will see that the IRS is a private corporation based out of Puerto Rico.

www.supremelaw.org/sls/31answers.htm

[random_radar]

Puerto Rico is one of our original imperial provinces. Make them an independent nation and get rid of them. They deserve to be free and take care of themselves--whether that is a blessing or a punishment doesn''t matter, its just.

[jonesforch]

CBS? why not let everyone respond on this? Ralph Nader Announces Run For President. Maybe save all the
responds for ones who can respond at work.

[jonesforch]

ontheleft

Chuck Norris !! Now that is a person to listen to.

[kaly1984]

Wow...
Congratulation!!!he is a great man,support him.
many fans on a tall dating site~~~~Tallmingle.com~~~~ will be happy now,especially those models.

~~~~~~Selina1987,as a model playing that site,hope to know you.

[ontheleft]

Has anyone seen this guy lately? He is OLD. Chuck Norris made an excellent point about his age. Presidents age three times as fast because of the stress of the job. McCain would be 72 1/2 when he takes office and would go into hyper-aging at that point. That''s scary.

It''s too bad he lost to Bush in 2000. That would have been his time.

[donbl1]

gce, I thought public financing was ONLY for the national election not the primaries.......

[gce65]

Oh, forget the delegates from Puerto Rico. McCain''s pretty much got it locked up...HE''S JUST OUT OF MONEY! He''s spent something like $49 MIL and his cap under federal funds is about $56 MIL.

The FEC notified him last week that it had not approved his request to withdraw from the public funding system.

McCain applied for public funds last year when his campaign was strapped for cash. After he won some early primaries he requested to withdraw from the system. Candidates can withdraw if they have not spent any of the public matching funds, or used the promise of federal money to obtain a loan.

But McCain DID obtain a loan this way. Now his lawyer buddies and lobbyists are trying to save his bacon, but he''ll say or do anything to get around this. He''s already caved into the religious right, flip-flopped on immigration and tax cuts, and is now GW Bush''s newest hug buddy.