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Sunday, April 20, 2008
Ask Ron Paul why he remains in the Republican race for President, and he will speak about giving true conservatives someone to vote for. Ask him what he hopes to accomplish, and he will mention adopting a conservative platform, winning the battle of ideas, rallying a new generation to the cause, and the like.
All noble and worthy objectives. However, there are hints that something else may be afoot.
One big hint comes from an unlikely source: Hillary Clinton. Last month, Clinton told Newsweek magazine:
I have a very close race with Senator Obama. There are elected delegates, caucus delegates and superdelegates, all for different reasons, and they're all equal in their ability to cast their vote for whomever they choose. Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to. This is a very carefully constructed process that goes back years, and we're going to follow the process. [stress added]
Clinton is right. There is a difference between "pledged" delegates and "bound" delegates. Some pledged delegates are bound: that is, they must vote as per the primary or caucus results for their state. Others, though, are unbound: they are free to vote for the candidate of their choice. The Clinton campaign has been taking advantage of that, encouraging delegates pledged to Obama to defect. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign does the same thing: For instance, though Clinton won the Texas primary, Obama now claims the majority of Texas delegates.
On the Republican side, the Ron Paul Republicans (RPR) -- the part of Paul's grassroots rEVOLution that has stayed with him in the Republican Party -- pursues the same tactic. There the odds are much steeper: Officially McCain has a majority of pledged delegates, while Paul has won just 21. However, the RPR -- as Paul calls them, the "true believers" -- are not simply giving up. Their goal now is to deny McCain a first-ballot win, forcing a brokered convention.
One such true believer is Dr. Steve Parent. A former 6-year Democratic functionary, Dr. Parent now serves as unofficial commander of the Delegate Wars. Since February he has been explaining the strategy on RPR venues like The Daily Paul and Ron Paul Forums.
Parent points out that, of the 2,380 GOP National Delegates, 651 are unbound. If that percentage holds true for McCain's share, then, of his over 1,300 pledged delegates, less than 1,000 are bound. If just 225 of McCain's unbound delegates defect (to anyone) on the first ballot, he will not get a majority and there will be a second ballot (for which he will have only 650 bound delegates). At that point, it will be any nominated candidate's convention to win.
Parent also notes that those odds can be improved. Not only can state conventions elect a majority of Ron Paul supporters as National Delegates: they can also legally unbind those delegates, further cutting into McCain's fragile lead. Hence Parent devotes his time to showing Meetups and other RPR groups, in detail, how to win both state conventions and the county conventions where state delegates are elected.
Another true believer is Hans Lysglimt of farmann.com, the English-language website of Norwegian free-market magazine Farmann, who has prepared a series of videos -- some purely motivational, others highly detailed -- on how "Ron Paul can Win the Nomination."
Indeed, there are many such videos on You Tube. In the face of all media and public scorn, a surprising amount of true believers are convinced that Ron Paul can still win, and have dedicated themselves to making that possibility a reality.
Paul himself says nothing to encourage such talk. But he enthusiastically continues his own campaign for the remaining delegates in the 10 states yet to hold primaries. He has spent most of April in Pennsylvania, which votes Apr. 22 (the first primary since the GOP contest became a two-man race). Meanwhile his campaign continues to open new offices and launch new ads, most recently in Idaho (which holds its primary May 27).
Thus the true believers continue the rEVOLution by fighting the Delegate Wars -- scoring some big wins along the way, as this week's featured states show.
* "Hillary Clinton: Pledged Delegates Can Switch Candidates," Huffington Post, Mar. 10, 2008. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/10/hillary-clinton-pledged-_n_90697.html
* W. Gardner Selby, "Obama campaign says he won Texas," Austin American-Statesman, Mar. 30, 2008. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/30/0330conventions.html
* Steve Parent, "WE CAN WIN : Keep this up extremely important: How we are winning with the delegate process explained in depth," The Daily Paul, Mar. 16, 2008. http://www.dailypaul.com/node/42901
* Hans Lysglimt, "Ron Paul, Argumentation To Delegates Part 1", farmanntv, You Tube, Mar. 22, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ5NCRuVitc
Original URL for this story: http://www.nolanchart.com/article3508.html
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