What Is Mitt Romney's Real First Name? (POLL)
Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucus last night. But do you know his real first name?
Romney eked out a win by the narrowest of margins:
The former Massachusetts governor emerged victorious over former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) by a razor-thin margin of just eight votes. The final results, announced early Wednesday by the Iowa GOP, showed Romney had 30,015 votes to 30,007 for Santorum.Despite the victory, Romney was unable to garner 25% percent of the vote. With 99.5% of precincts reporting, Romney won 24.6% to Santorum's 24.5%. In all, more than 122,000 straw ballots were cast, a record for Iowa Republicans.
Although the results are non-binding when it comes to picking Iowa's 25 delegates to the GOP convention next summer in Tampa, Romney will take a projected 13 delegates to Santorum's 12, The Associated Press reported.
Vanity Fair polled respondents, asking if they knew Romney's true first name. Just six percent guessed the correct answer, Willard; 20 percent said Mitt, 18 percent said Mitchell and two percent said Gromit and Mittens. Forty-four percent did not know the answer.
Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi wrote on the origins of his name:
His first name is "Willard," after the hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott, his father's best friend.His middle name comes from his father’s cousin, who played quarterback for the Chicago Bears from 1925 to 1929. That cousin's name was "Milton" and his nickname was "Mitt" -- a totally understandable preference for a football player or a presidential candidate.
She could not, however, obtain a birth certificate confirming it.
Also on HuffPost:
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Posted: 01/04/2012 4:42 pm