So last night I watched a little bit of the start of SNL and caught a skit where Romney and Santorum are at a bar reminiscing about the race and they are slowly joined by Perry, Bachmann, Cain and finally Gingrich, who they shun because his campaign is broke and he hasn't quit yet. The whole gist of the skit was that the race was over and and Romney has won. Guess who's name was never mentioned and who didn't make an appearance? I sat there watching and wondering if this might end up being a modern twist on "Dewey Defeats Truman". This race isn't over yet. Lots of district and state conventions were held Friday and yesterday in several states to select the national delegates for the convention in Tampa and unofficial reports are that Ron Paul supporters are turning out in huge numbers: Colorado - Ron 13 delegates, Mitt 13 delegates, Santorum 7 delegates, 3 super delegates expected to go for Mitt Minnesota - Ron swept 9 out of 9 delegates and 9 out of 9 alternate delegates from the districts that convened Oklahoma - Ron swept 6 out of 6 delegates and 6 out of 6 alternate delegates from districts 3 & 5. Even more interesting are reports from people at the conventions that the Ron Paul and Rick Santorum campaigns were coordinating and pushing "unity" slates to thwart the Romney campaign. If the reports are true, this coordination came from the national campaigns and not the grassroots levels. If this continues, Romney may not get the 1,144 delegates he needs to secure the nomination outright. The media is doing their best to ignore the Ron Paul campaign (I doubt you will find any coverage of what's really happening with delegate selections) and annoint Romney as the GOP nominee. However, money talks. There is a fundraiser for the Ron Paul campaign happening today - right now. This is a critical juncture. If you support Ron Paul, or even just don't like Mitt Romney, please consider donating whatever you can spare. Even $10 helps (the Paul campaign is very frugal and smart with their money - fiscal conservatism that walks the walk): https://secure.ronpaul2012.com/ Release the hounds!
Highly improbable if not statistically impossible. You think Romney isn't going to get all of California's 170 delegates, or 100% of the delegates from any of the other more liberal coastal states? More importantly, why make the attempt? Are you thinking maybe we can run a genetically engineered chimera of Gingrich's intelligence and political skills, Paul's fiscal policy, Santorum's youth, and Cain's business experience? Newsflash: No one other person from the Republican camp has the popularity to get more than 25% of the Republican primary vote, and just forget about the popular vote of the general election. You might as well be heading up the committee to reelect Barack Obama. Ron Paul has helped and continues to help change the conversation in Washington. That is a pretty cool thing, but he won't be president.Sorry to be the one to break it to you.
Improbable? Perhaps. The evangelicals are still a powerful bloc and they aren't supporting Romney. Impossible? Only if you believe the delegate estimates reported by the media. Hint: they are waaaayyyy off. As I understand it, a good portion of California's delegates are selected at the district level and Ron Paul has some very strong support in LA, which will select as many delegates as the entire state of Florida, and other districts/counties. You are very misinformed. In the latest Rasmussen poll, Paul beats Obama by 2 points; Romney ties him: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/221163-rasmussen-obama-and-romney-tied-nationally
Ok, I'll bite. Where are you getting the so-called "real" delegate counts from? Ron Paul? Every one of these states has a clearly defined delegate selection process. For the most part, the delegates are clearly committed. Granted, there were a few states where Santorum won districts where he wasn't eligible, and those votes will probably go to Romney, but I have yet to see a situation where delegates pledged to Romney would go anywhere else. Perhaps you are referring to the free will of the delegates at the convention to vote for someone other than the person selected by the voting public. If so, I think you need to lay off the crack pipe. Again, provide your source of information. Ron Paul has extremely committed support in every state, that accounts for about 10% of Republican voters. If you think a concentration of those voters in Los Angeles is going to help Paul out here, you need to read the rules for California's Republican primary process. It is winner take all, and Romney is polling at 44% to Ron Paul's 12%. Even if a meteor were to fall from the sky and strike Romney dead, Santorum has 272 delegates, Gingrich has 140, and Ron Paul has 67. A brokered convention would never nominate him, not just because they don't like him (and they don't), but because it would defy the clear will of the people. Santorum is out, so the delegate would likely be Gingrich. Did you actually read the link from that blog with the actual polling information? Its Romney 48%, Obama 44%, and Paul is not mentioned. Sending your money to Ron Paul would be like throwing it on the BBQ. Send it to Romney, or better yet, send it to me! I'm horribly underpaid for what I do.
I don't have time to get all the answers for you. I can tell you the delegate counts from the wiki page you referenced are not accurate. The following article gives you the flavor of what is happening: http://communities.washingtontimes....do-further-evidence-ron-paul-will-challenge-/
Actually, I have the answers. They were in my last post. I was hoping you would review the answers for yourself. 1) I linked the wiki page not to show delegate counts but to show you California's primary was winner take all 2) The link I would trust to provide accurate delegate counts doesn't put Colorado's unpledged delegates towards Romney's total, yet Romney is still the obvious winner overall. 3) The article you provided which claims some number of Colorado's unpledged delegates are unofficially pledged to Ron Paul was written by a Ron Paul staffer. Notice how he also writes for the Daily Paul. 4) Colorado is one of a few states with non-binding primaries. It doesn't change the math that makes Romney inevitable. Forget the rest of my questions. This is the only question you should answer for yourself. Why would you, as an American, desire to somehow hijack the will of a plurality of Republican primary voters and designate any other candidate, especially one with one of the fewest popular votes as the winner? How could you possibly imagine that ANYONE would see that as legitimate?
There are very few states that are winner take all state-wide - just Arizona, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Utah. http://www.fairvote.org/delegate-allocation-rules-in-2012-gop If you don't want to trust the author of the article I mentioned previously, that's your prerogative. The ronpaulforums.com contains plenty of notes from people who were at the conventions and participating in the process who corroborate the report. This is a bit dated now, but the point remains: [video=youtube;q-O0jgRgo4I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-O0jgRgo4I[/video] ~~~ I reject your assertion that Ron Paul supporters are "hijacking" anything. If the people really will for Romney to win, they will participate in the process and elect him.
Not that it matters, but you left out California, Wisconsin, South Carolina, and Maryland, which account for 326 delegates. Now compare just the states you left out to the 13 states with non-binding primaries like Colorado, all of which add up to 307 delegates, especially considering that even the non-binding primaries have some portion of their delegates pledged to the winner by popular vote. I say it doesn't matter because all of the remaining 30+ primaries pledge their delegates proportionality, and Mr. Paul represents about 10% of those votes. This brings me back to the question you didn't answer. Why would you try and take an election away from a person who has a clear plurality of votes, and try to declare the fourth place finisher the winner? Trust the source? I asked the question "Where are you getting the so-called "real" delegate counts from? Ron Paul?" and as it turns out, that is exactly where you were getting your information. The fact that the Paul campaign is spinning such utter nonsense is truly disheartening. The entire draw for the Paul campaign is an end to politics as usual. Like most Americans, I am sick to death of the president telling me bold faced lies that defy all logic on a daily basis and expecting me to suck it up. "The Health Care plan will reduce the deficit", "I cut taxes for the middle class", "I plan to put an end to devisive politics". Even a passing glance at reality exposes those words for what they are. Watching the Paul campaign trying to tell us election results mean something other than what they clearly indicate is an outrage that should be insulting to any American who believes in democracy. He's lost more than my vote. He lost my support as he is clearly a hypocrite. Agreed, but apparently not for lack of trying. So long as some group of idiots doesn't effectively argue that election results are meaningless, that appears to be exactly what will happen. Romney 48, Obama 44 in the most recent poll, and clearly, conservative support hasn't even congealed around Romney yet.
Because they are not 100% winner take all statewide states. I even gave you a handy link to fairvote.org which explains what I was trying to tell you from the beginning. California, for instance, only binds a percentage of their total delegates to the state wide results. Most of the delegates are bound by the results of individual districts. The district which includes Los Angeles will bind more delegates than the entire state of Florida. lol. You clearly don't understand how the delegates are being selected. I'd advise you to study the fairvote.org site, but I'm getting the feeling that you are more interested in winning an argument with me than learning anything. 1. I'm not the Paul campaign. I'm also not telling you election results mean something "other than what they clearly indicate". 2. I didn't make up the rules for GOP. If you feel insulted that the delegate selection process disenfranchises the apathetic voter who doesn't care enough to participate in the convention/delegate process, you should direct your ire to the Republican Party. 3. I doubt base upon your comments that Paul ever had your vote. Suggesting that Paul "lost" something he never had is true hypocrisy.
And I get the feeling you are not going to answer the question. It seems you would much rather direct the conversation to the ways in which the voting rules for the Republican primary vary from state to state. No matter how one might critique the Republican primary voting rules, the fact remains Ron Paul gets 10% of the popular vote while Romney gets more than 40%. I'll make you a deal. I will dig through fairvote.org and educate myself on all the ways in which the Republican primary process is broken if you can explain to me either a) how Paul actually has more Republican popular support than Romney, or b) why someone with dramatically less popular support should win the nomination. Deal? Gee, I must have completely misinterpreted what you have been saying over the course of this discussion. Sorry. I don't, thanks for asking. California is late to vote in the primaries, which can cause people to feel disenfranchised, so on this particular year, it will be nice to be making a difference by putting the last few nails in Ron Paul's coffin. Mind you, I think there are dramatic changes that could improve our electoral process, both for the primaries, and the general election, but that is really a discussion for another thread. Oh Paul would have most definitely had my vote had he been the nominee. I can't stand his foreign policy, but his slash and burn fiscal policy is right up my ally. I also appreciate that he has stuck to his positions over the years, regardless of how popular they were. Only a few times has he come across as pandering and politicing, but this most recent round of whining comes right out of the Democratic playbook and, in my opinion, is a direct attack on the democratic process which is unforgivable. Amazing how you can change your reputation in a brief period of time. You can build a million ships, but you text a few pictures of your cock and you are no longer known as a shipwright(Modified flavor of that joke ala Anthony Weiner).
I missed the best part of this convo already, darn. But anyways, Mitt Romney has his pros and cons. He has good points but he keeps shootin his self in the butt with some of his claims. If Ron Paul would finally win, I think he could surely help correct some of the political issues we are having here in the US. At this point in the race, its between Obama, Romney, and Paul. Obama is rep. the democrats, Romney for the Republicans, and if Paul doesn't get the nomination which it appears that way, he is just going to run as an Independent anyways. I believe he is simply in the race right now to mess up the delegate counts.
Could happen, but I'd bet against it. Ron Paul has a legacy to think about, and more importantly, a son in the Senate. If Ron Paul helped put Obama in the white house for another four years, his name would be as memorable as Hanoi Jane, and Rand Paul would have to live with it.
That is very true. I guess all we can do at this point is sit back and see what happens. Regardless, this is going to be my first election I can vote in as I turn 18 in June, but I have followed politics closely for years now.
Maybe the best thing for Rand is for Paul to take it all the way to the convention, come in a close second so that the people see that his message is actually viable and his name is more out there for people to grasp, and that way his name wouldn't be mired in the muck that is the media. Then, whichever of the two final candidates in the general election that will screw things up worse won't be on Paul. . . . What do people do then? Look to an alternate, non status quo candidate and that candidate could very well be Rand in 2016. Especially if people are tired of Obama and the Democratic party the way people were after Bush and the Republicans. Rand would be looking pretty good at that point.
Deal. a) Romney has soft support from the masses and strong support from the big money (ie. Wall Street) and party apparatus. He does not have the support of the evangelicals (which have vacilated amongst various "anti-Romney" front runners all race long), strict conservatives and, of course Ron Paul factions. Now that Santorum has withdrawn, I suspect we will see a consolidation from the evangelicals and strict conservatives shoring up Paul's numbers. b) I note that Romney's popular support is very soft. I suspect most Romney supporters recognize that he is the epitome of a politician - standing for nothing and saying whatever the audience du jour wants to hear. Paul's popular support is growing and very, very strong. The caucus system employed in many states was designed to empower citizens who puportedly are better informed and motivated, to effect change when the apathetic masses are sleepingwalking through the process. I think it's a better system than allowing for mob rule in an Idiocracy (movie). Apparently the GOP has similar concerns or they wouldn't push back against Democratic Inc.'s attempts to swell their ranks with poor folks dependent upon their promises and giveaways. Also, your challenge for (b) speaks directly to my point #2 in my last post. The fairvote.org page is a short, easy read. It's disappointing that you wouldn't take 15-30 seconds to read it before responding to post #7. I suspect you didn't bother to watch the video I posted either. I'd encourage you to do so. He did a good job of explaining things.
My questions and your answers. a) How does Paul have more Republican popular support than Romney You suspect? Shoring up? Let me paraphrase with what you wouldn't admit. He doesn't. Why not just say that? He doesn't. Let me go a step further and tell you what I suspect, and we can find out who was right in August. Support will NOT consolidate around Paul. The reasons are many, so take your pick. 1) The game is half over. 2) Its statistically impossible for Ron Paul to get the necessary popular votes or delegates from this point. 3) People want to see Obama out of office much more than they fear Romney's moderate takes on certain issues. 4) Romney's support among Evangelicals was 35% in the most southern states, and much higher in places that represent the states to come like New Hampshire. 5) Strict conservatives, which I assume means social conservatives, are the evangelicals. Same people. 6) Ron Paul people make up 10% of Republican primary voters, and many of them are Tea Partiers(small government fiscal conservatives),who are already coming over the the Romney camp en masse. Rubio's endorsement said it all on that front. b) why should someone with dramatically less popular support receive the nomination? So the 60% of the evangelicals (from your previous answer), who make up 50% of the Republican primary voters are better informed and motivated and, therefore should have their votes count for more? Everyone else is just the "poor" uninformed mob who are sleepwalking through the process? Did you really just say that? It sounds a lot like the case the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt might make. They too make up a minority of the population and as we know from murders,intimidation, and a looted Israeli embassy, they are very motivated. A representative democracy doesn't give some groups get more representation than others. A representative democracy puts representatives of each group (hopefully the most educated, honest, and best that group has to offer) in charge of making the day to day decisions. Another thing, when you disparage the poor who are sleepwalking their way through this process, you must be specifically talking about the evangelicals, because the poorer Southern states are where they mostly dwell. Given my religious beliefs, I try and go out of my way not to step on the evangelicals for their beliefs, Mormons for their magic underpants, or any other group. The country was based on religious tolerance and it needs to stay that way. When someone who claims to speak for any religious group starts telling me their voice needs to count for more than mine, it gives me cause for alarm. I'm a man of my word. I'll look through both. In consideration of a) and b) above, I'll be very surprised to find any relevance to the current topic. One last thing on disenfranchising primary processes. I mentioned earlier that, as a Californian, I normally get almost no say in the primary process. By June, the nominee has invariably already been selected by a bunch of rednecks (no offense to rednecks). Initially speaking, Gingrich was my pick because I saw him as a guy, despite being the ultimate Washington insider and career politician, who talked reform and was talented enough to get reforms through congress. As the process moved along, it became clear that Gingrich is the type of guy who will say just about anything, and sometimes completely contradictory things. Political expediency is very unattractive, perhaps the most unattractive things about our sitting president. Without the disenfranchising drawn out primary process and the burning light of public scrutiny, Gingrich would probably still be my first choice, so I'm feeling a little better about the process. You want reform, like every Ron Paul supporter. The people who elected Barack Obama wanted reform(Hope and Change). Romney is about the level of change our electoral process was setup to provide at the presidential level. You want real change, go get involved with the Tea Party. Help vote congressional representatives out in their primaries. Changing things at the local level. Community organizing for conservatives. In the meantime, hopefully Romney will be enough change to pull federal spending out of the death spiral Obama has put us on.
lol. Rubio is an empty suit and every bit the party puppet that Romney aspires to be. "tea party" is as meaningless a term as "vegetarian". There are varying definitions (and groups). That's not what I said. The people swarming delegate conventions right now for Ron Paul are not the evangelicals. The rest of your diatribe is based upon a false premise (or misunderstanding of what I said). Good for you.
Well since you say so. LoL. And yet vegetarians exist. I'll grant you the evangelicals wanted to redefine the term, and I'm glad to see they have been largely unsuccessful. My tea party is the party of Rick Santelli, and has absolutely nothing to do with god. Opinions vary, but I suspect that definition polls quite high. Sure it is. In one breath you told us how the evangelicals would provide the "popular" support for Paul, and in the next breath you told us how the masses are asses. I simply connected the dots. No, they are Paulistas (10%), though I'm glad to see you now disavowing the idea that the Evangelicals(50%) would somehow congeal around Paul. They haven't. They won't. I personally find the Paulistas fascinating. Though an extreme minority, they are possibly the most politically active people in the country. They flooded the caucus process, giving congressman Paul a completely non-representative showing. They spam pretty much every television and web poll. Its as educational as it is entertaining. Don't be at all surprised to see Paulista and Alinsky tactics being put to use by various other political groups this election cycle. Town Hall meeting chaos was a first step down that path in 2010, and I suspect there is a lot more to come.
In 1964 Barry Goldwater ran as a stark Extreme on the Right on behalf of the GOP and got trounced in the general election. It was one of the most dramatic trouncing in a presidential election ever. The true believers on the Far Right never stopped extolling his virtues and never stopped coming up with reasons that he was correct and he could win. Eight years later, George McGovern ran for President as the most liberal representative of the Democratic Party before and since and got trounced...even worse than Goldwater. The leftests of the left never stopped promoting his campaign and beliefs. In both cases there were many extraordinary true believers for the candidates that day and night would swear by everything they said and did and how they should run again representing the extremes. Now, in just the GOP primaries Paul has gained a scarce 11% of the popular vote to date. That is miniscule. Its a tiny percentage of a relatively thin number of people voting. Yet the true blue Paulists are extolling his virtues day in and day out...claiming fouls, claiming ballot irregularities, and even claiming he is going to capture the GOP party nomination. Basically 40 and 50 years ago there were people on the extremes of the GOP and the Dems that said the same things then that the Paulists are saying now. Its absurd.
Let me just add this in, People support Romney as he is a typical politician. People want to keep things safe. Paul however, if he can successfully get people to start realizing that just because he has different points of view, doesn't mean he isn't "safe". This election is going to come down to Obama vs Romney vs Paul. Its going to be a 3 way race this election instead of just republicans vs democrats as it is traditionally. Paul has some very good standings on many issues. Bernard, I agree Romney has soft support from the masses and very very strong support for big spenders. The only reason why Paul doesn't have all of these Wall Street junkies forking over huge amounts of money to him is because he is Pro People. When I say that, I mean he actually gives 2 shits about the common US citizen unlike how most of our previous presidents have been. Look at Bush, could care less about the US citizen common issues. The only thing he actually worried about is how much money is in his bank account. Thats the same way Romney is going be. I'm from Michigan, born and raised, and we are supposed to be a "Romney State" since he was born here. The only thing is, no one likes his corrupt ass. The only reason why he is doing so well is because has some experience and is going to jump through hoops to keep big businesses happy. So a recap, Romney is going for the republicans, Obama for the Democrats, and Paul is going to run as an independent almost guaranteed if he doesn't get the nomination. Romney is most likely going to win only because of how corrupt our government is and simply, money talks. If Ron Paul was elected, there is a very good chance he would be assassinated. Look at previous presidents who actually cared about the people. Lincoln, assassinated. Kennedy, assassinated. What did they all have in common? They both fought for the People. Honestly, the only reason why Clinton wasn't killed is because he got some head and was chased off. Another thing I don't get it is how can money talk so loud these days when its cheaper to wipe you ass with dollar bills then buy toilet paper. I don't care what anyone says, our economy is crap and will always be crap until we have some Major changes.