Maverick Libertarian Ron Paul carried Floyd County, along with four other adjoining counties in the Republican Presidential Primary Tuesday, edging former Massachusetts Govenor Mitt Romney 260 – 208.

For a county dominated by Republicans in local offices, Floyd’s GOP faithful — for the most part — stayed home on primary day.  A turnout of 468 voters is considered pitiful by any yardstick.

Besides Floyd County, Paul carried Montgomery, Patrick, Pulaski and Craig counties in Southwestern Virginia.  In the rest of the state, Paul won Buckingham, Charles City, Surry and Warren Counties along with the cities of Chesapeake, Lynchburg and Portsmouth.  Romney won everything else with a statewide total of 158,051 votes (59.5 percent) to 107,470 (40.5 percent) for Paul.

Paul’s always enthusiastic supporters, who can always find a way to spin their candidate’s many defeats into some sort of election triumph, trumpeted their candidate’s 40 percent as a perceived victory of widespread support but Paul and Romney were the only two candidates on the ballot since former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich failed to meet the qualifications to get on the ballot.  Turnout was also abysmally low — 265,500 votes in a state of eight million residents and more than five million registered voters.