The Liberty Papers

The Ron Paul campaign is increasingly looking like it’s a done deal. With Romney dropping out, it’s likely that we won’t see a brokered convention, the one potential route to his campaign having any more legs. Intrade has McCain now trading at a 95 share price for the nomination, with Huckabee and Paul both trading below a 2 share price.

But, in true form, the Paulestinians haven’t given up hope! After all, what if McCain’s delegates don’t vote for McCain at the Convention? What if, as commenter Kevin Houston points out, they’re really Ron Paul supporters who infiltrated the delegate pool in order to vote for their own man?

I appologize for being such a poor communicator myself. I did not mean to imply that the people filling McCain’s delegate slots were true-blue McCainiacs who could somehow be convinced to give their precious votes to Ron Paul.

I meant to imply that the people filling McCain’s delegate slots were true-blue Paulunteers who simply *said* they would be happy to support McCain (or Thompson, or Romney, or whoever) Especially in LA, where McCain had trouble filling delegate slots at the end.

Kind of like what happened in WV, where even though Huckabee ostensibly won all 18 delegates, 3 of those Huckabee delegates will actually be voting Ron Paul at national convention.

I promise you it will happen in my state too. The primary vote doesn’t mean crap. Only 3 delegates are awarded by the primary vote. The other 24 are elected at county conventions. Some of these counties (like mine) don’t have *any* functional GOP organization. It is wide open to the first yahoo that says he wants to do the work (like me.)

It doesn’t matter if Ron Paul comes in 2nd, or 3rd, or even gains enough of a % to be entitled to a single delegate. My state will have at least one vote for Ron Paul (legally if it looks like he can hang on through the first ballot)

So let’s explore this one for a moment. Let’s say that somehow McCain doesn’t win the nomination outright and it goes to the convention. Let’s then say that all hell breaks loose and there’s enough Ron Paul supporters who infiltrated the delegate pools that Ron Paul wins the nomination. What happens then?

If you think the American people in general, and the Republican Party in particular, will take kindly to seeing their nomination process “stolen” by Ron Paul supporters, you’re nuts! Especially if it’s by self-proclaimed libertarians, those who favor the “rule of law”, behaving in an absolutely underhanded manner.

If Ron Paul supporters were to “steal” the nomination for their candidate, it would fly in the face of most American’s sense of fairness and decency. And if the Democrat’s response to the 2000 election is any indication, Republican voters would be so angry over the situation that they would allow Hillary or Obama to reach the Oval Office simply to spite Ron Paul, or McCain would then run as an independent and they’d follow him.

Seriously, guys. It’s over. He’s not going to win. He’s got a lot of supporters, and it’s time to take that support and turn it into a wider movement. Perhaps the Paul Congress movement might be a good place to focus? 30-40 or more people in the House of Representatives with views similar to Ron Paul could go a long way to making real change. It’s time to start working on doing good in other places, because Ron Paul will not be elected President in 2008.