Republican establishment is sadly absent

You can almost hear Connecticut’s Republicans chanting, “We’re number 35, we’re number 35,” as they march to the polls on April 24, only to find the always exciting Mitt Romney has already won. Yes, April 24. Connecticut Republicans will not be selecting their candidate for president until 32 other states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands have had their turn.And by that time, the betting is Romney, or less likely, someone else many Republicans and other Americans can’t abide will have the nomination clinched. The contest between the unprincipled and the unstable will be over. (We’re assuming — wrongly we hope — that the principled Jon Huntsman doesn’t make a miracle.)Technically, Connecticut’s primary is tied for 35th place with Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New York, which also hold primaries at that late date. And how did Connecticut sink so low in the decision-making process? It was something of a bipartisan effort. The national parties both had frontloaded primaries in 2008, but John McCain clinched the nomination against weak opponents early — on March 4 — while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought on until June and got all the attention. To discourage too many early primaries this time, the Republican Party ruled that states holding primaries before Super Tuesday, March 6, would not be allowed to give all their delegate votes to the winner and have to award a share to the losers.Since the Democrats would not be having a presidential contest in 2012, Connecticut’s Democrats were happy to oblige the Republicans and move the 2012 primaries from early March to the oblivion of late April.This leaves Connecticut in its usual position as the state presidential candidates love to visit — for the money. The Hartford Courant’s Chris Keating reports Romney has already taken a million dollars out of five visits to lower Fairfield County.But the state’s relatively few Republicans need not despair over their inability to participate in the selection of the party’s 2012 nominee.There wasn’t much to choose from.Connecticut Republicans will miss a real primary in part because Romney seems to be getting too much credit for his dubious achievements this early in the campaign. His win in Iowa was mostly the result of the quality and quantity of his extremist opponents. Don’t forget that the moderate-when-the-occasion-demands-it Romney received 25 percent of the Iowa caucus vote to 75 percent for the six far righties who rose to the top and fell as they were exposed to media attention and public scrutiny in the debates. As a result, the last extremist left standing, Rick Santorum, nearly tied Romney because he received the least media vetting and enjoyed the fewest minutes of debate time. That has begun to change and Santorum will fade, leaving Republicans, who had a good chance to win in 2012, probably stuck with Romney.As for New Hampshire, a good showing there is guaranteed to any candidate from neighboring Massachusetts. Don’t forget Paul Tsongas defeated the “comeback kid” Bill Clinton in 1992 in the first in the nation primary, and Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge knocked off both Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller there in 1964 with a write-in campaign.One unfortunate side effect of the too-late Connecticut primary is we won’t have Rick Santorum to kick around. It’s a shame he won’t be campaigning here and have to tell us why he still favors the Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives that was declared unconstitutional in 1965. Wouldn’t it be enlightening to hear him expand on his view that allowing married couples to use contraceptives is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” There have been reports that sound more like wishful thinking about the Republican establishment holding secret meetings to come up with an alternative to Romney, Santorum and Gingrich but for that to be true, you need a Republican establishment. The Republican establishment, boys and girls, was a group of easterners who found Wendell Willkie in 1940 and Eisenhower in 1952 and hasn’t been heard from since. Simsbury resident Dick Ahles is a retired journalist. Email him at dahles@hotmail.com.