TAMPA, Fla. — Former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, a tough Romney surrogate and one of the top nemeses of disaffected Ron Paul delegates, said on Wednesday that he expects the Paulites to all vote for Mitt Romney in November. The party, he says, is unified.
"I think the bulk of the Ron Paul supporters are good Americans who want to replace President Obama," Sununu told BuzzFeed outside a breakfast with New Hampshire and Pennsylvania delegates. "I think they're going to vote the right way in November."
Yesterday, the Maine delegation walked out after failing to get its unseated Paul delegates to the floor. They caused a few minutes of mayhem outside the convention hall, shouting "Shame on Mitt Romney!" and vowing never to vote for the candidate.
None of this fazed Sununu, who in his capacity as Rules Committee chairman has been the bane of the Paul delegates' experience at the convention. Maine national committeewoman Ashley Ryan, a Paul supporter, told BuzzFeed this past weekend that Sununu was "very sarcastic" and "demeaning."
"Politics is the art of putting people together," Sununu said. "You try to get everybody involved, sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't."
"I feel that in the long run, there's enough dissatisfaction with President Obama that you'll find that the party truly is unified," Sununu said. "That it's going to leave Tampa as a strong party, and although you may always find one or two people who disagree, I think everyone's going to come together to defeat President Obama in November."
As for the convention overall, "it's going great," Sununu said. "They're all different, it's really different than it was last time, but I think it's going well."