For Republicans — and L.I. — a not-so-super week

The good news is that Mitt Romney won six of 10 states in Super Tuesday primaries.

The bad news is that he only won six.

Newt Gingrich had a resounding win in his home state of Georgia, and Rick Santorum remained in second place in the delegate chase with wins in Tennessee and South Dakota.

Super Tuesday also ensured that the race for the Republican nomination to take on President Obama will stretch through the summer to the convention in Tampa, Fla., in August.

That’s certainly not what Romney was hoping for. He’ll have to keep fighting to try to prove to the more conservative Republican primary voters that he’s the most conservative candidate. And then what will happen in the general election, when he has to win over independents?

The primaries will continue to divide the Republican Party. Still, one thing remains: Voters aren’t really in love with any of the candidates. They aren’t passionate, and that means come Election Day, they’re more likely to stay home.

Suffolk County residents also received some not-so-super news last week. Newly elected County Executive Steve Bellone held a press conference to announce that the county’s finances are in much worse shape than he expected, and he downgraded the county’s fiscal status to a financial emergency.

Bellone estimated that the budget gap for 2012 is $148 million, an astonishing 70 percent higher than expected. In 2013, that number is expected to surge to $349 million, on the way to a possible multi-year total of $530 million.

Bellone confirmed that this was the largest fiscal crisis in the county’s history and ordered his departments to cut at least 10 percent of their budgets. It appears that Suffolk County has fallen into the same traps as its neighbor, Nassau County. Like Nassau, Suffolk will be forced to surrender control of its finances to a state oversight board. Taxpayers in both counties fear the worst — tax hikes and cuts in services.