Wall Street Willie To Skip Texas Convention

Rick Santorum may not be a presidential candidate anymore, but he will be coming down here to Texas to attend the state Republican convention. It fact, he will be one of the featured speakers at the convention. But there will be one big-name no-show at that convention -- Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie), who is now pretty much assured of winning the Republican presidential nomination.

Now you may think it's odd that Wall Street Willie would skip this convention. After all, Texas is a Republican state and has a ton of electoral votes. But it doesn't surprise me at all. Romney knows that Texas is not really a Romney-loving state, although a majority of Texans will likely vote for him grudgingly next November. I think he's afraid he'll come off looking bad if the convention-goers give Santorum a much better reception than they give him -- and that would very likely happen if he showed up.

Romney's trying to make his candidacy look like he is formidable competition for President Obama, and getting embarrassed at the Texas convention by Santorum is not going to help with that at all. The Texas Republicans did invite Wall Street Willie, but his campaign didn't even bother to answer the invitation. They just ignored it.

The primary will be held on May 29th, and now that he's the only candidate still in the race (Paul has no chance in his home state, being too crazy even for Texas teabaggers), Romney will probably win the majority of the state's delegates (which are designated proportionally according to the primary vote). But don't be surprised if there is still a strong anti-Romney vote in the primary. A lot of Texas Republicans will have a problem supporting the "Yankee flip-flopper" (as he is viewed down here).