The mood was grim at a Ron Paul election night party here when it was announced that the former Massachusetts governor had won the state’s non-binding caucuses.
The crowd booed, then went eerily silent, when the results were revealed.
“Liar!” shouted one supporter when state chairman Charlie Webster announced the results. “How many dead voted?” cried another.
Even as Webster continued to speak, the crowd resumed talking among themselves and ignored the remainder of the announcement.
Earlier Saturday at a caucus site in Sanford, Maine, Paul had been noncommittal about his future plans.
“Well, I’m gonna stay in as long as I’m in the race, and right now I’m in the race,” he told reporters, when asked if he planned to stay in the race through to the convention.
If anyone is responsible for raising the expectations for a win, it is Ron Paul himself. Immediately after his losses in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri were announced, Paul pointed to Maine as a caucus state which he would be competitive in.
“The No. 1 place where we’re going to be keying in on, working on is Maine,” Paul said on Tuesday, according to CNN. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm there.”
The Ron Paul campaign had tried to lower expectations somewhat Saturday, alleging that the Romney campaign had been involved in some tricky business, and predicting that the results would be very close.
In particular, a senior Paul aide had suggested that the Romney campaign was involved in the cancellation of a caucus where Paul’s campaign had expected to do well. “It’s not completely insidious, but they knew we were going to swamp it up there,” said Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton.
The state GOP said that the caucus was cancelled due to inclement weather.
“His visits to the state have done him immeasurable good. Romney supporters, there is a much bigger spring in their step. Before Romney got here, there was a bit of a feeling of being left out, that Ron Paul supporters got to see their boy but they didn’t get to see theirs,” said Andrew Ian Dodge, a tea-party candidate challenging Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) in the GOP primary.
Notably, not all of Maine’s municipalities have held a caucus yet – tonight’s results only represent about 80 percent of Maine’s towns. According to state GOP chairman Charlie Webster, there are 505 municipalities in Maine, of which 420 have caucused. An additional 40 or so small municipalities will not hold a caucus at all, and the remaining will hold a caucus in the coming weeks.
