WSJ reports:
Mr. Paul has gathered 47 delegates, far fewer than the three other major GOP candidates, according to an Associated Press tally. By contrast, Mitt Romney leads the field with 415.
Still, Mr. Paul is neither dropping out of the race nor giving up, Mr. Benton said. Short of claiming the nomination, the campaign said it wants to gather enough delegates at the convention for Mr. Paul's ideas on the Federal Reserve and other matters to be included in the party platform.Let's hope though that more than party platform influence is what Dr. Paul gains from his run. In addition to delegates in a brokered convention, he has a strong following of roughly 10% of voters. This will be very valuable in the general election, if Dr Paul holds his nose and strongly endorses , say, Mitt Romney. That's worth real influence in a Republican administration, not platform platitudes that are noticed by few and eventually forgotten by all.
Not sure how a brokered convention will help, except to rabble rouse during the convention and attract attention (which is important)
ReplyDeleteOther than that, Romney will cut a deal with Santorum or Gingrich if he doesn't have enough delegates.
OTOH, he might cut a deal with Paul if he has enough delegates to put Romney over the top and is asking for less than VP, which would be out of the question anyway.
My hope, however is that Paul does not endorse or support Romney or any other candidate. Rand Paul may have to, but not Ron.
My fear in a brokered convention is that one of the other Republican goons like Sarah Palin will sweep in and triumph in a storm of irrational exuberance.
Deletei think its naive to think ron paul even has a 5% chance of getting elected president. We all need to face reality. Ever person i ever meet thinks we should have an income tax.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching a ludwig von misses seminar when the host quoted Ayn Rand:
"its earlier than you think"
That about sums it up. The best bet would be if ron paul was VP or Secretary of treasury to Mitt Romney.
+1 It is earlier than we think, very true. We are maybe at about the 1764-65 period, I would say.
DeleteSee American Revolution Timeline:
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1203.html
Politicians ignore the Constitution, which is supposed to be "the law of the land."
ReplyDeleteParty Platforms aren't even law...so to ignore them is almost a given.
One need only read The Democratic Party's Platform when FDR was elected to see how worthless it really is.
Man-made platforms (& laws) do not hold politicians in check. The only things that do are natural laws & public pressure.
Right on!
DeleteNice try. Not voting for anyone but Paul. A brokered convention isn't what we're looking for. An open convention is the key to this, and that is what it will be. Rampant election fraud and tampering is what is going on here, and I refuse to stand down because of it. Anything the Paul campaign has to do to secure the nomination is what I am onboard for. And nothing less.
ReplyDeleteAmen! The "Theater Company" keeps throwing the same unprincipled morons on stage, every four years.If you want to confuse the audience, flood the stage with actors.
DeleteHe hasn't ruled out being Romney's VP.
ReplyDeleteHe hasn't ruled out nuking the rest of the world either.
DeleteRon Paul knows better than to endorse a bankster operative like Mittens and thereby destroy the Ron Paul Revolution in exchange for mere hope that Mittens might keep his promises.
ReplyDeleteThis is what people fail to realize.
Deletei simply can't see ron endorsing any of these neocon hacks, and if he did, it would severely tarnish everything he's worked for
ReplyDeleteIf Ron Paul can get three things into the platform, and have Mitt Romney publicly assent to it, Ron Paul should endorse.
ReplyDelete1. Constitutional declaration of war from congress before President commits to war.
2. Balanced budget in 1st term (the Ron Paul budget plan)
3. Genuine FED audit
Good points.
DeleteOn #3, the FED audit, rather than a one-time audit, I would prefer annual audits by a non-government auditing firm.
Also, the annual audits would have to have a stated purpose, which should be: Full transparency of financial statements in comprehensible language, and verification of gold holdings.
Or how about apointing Paul as Fed Chairman?
DeleteGetting those things on the party platform in no way guarantees that a President elected under that platform will follow it. The whole brokered convention thing seems like a deal with the devil. I'd rather see Ron run on a third party ticket than sell his soul to the establishment that he's been fighting for 20-plus years.
DeleteNo the Fed Charter is up 12/23/2013 anyway. I guess he could fire himself from the position and demolish the Fed before then but it'd be a hard sell as he'd take all of the banks with it.
DeleteNo promise from any of these empty suits is going to get Dr. Paul's endorsement and we're heading to Florida come hell or high water. If the establishment would just listen, they could save their heads and some of their jobs but they're too dumb to see the benefit of getting behind Ron Paul to re-legitimize their corrupt system.
NO ONE BUT PAUL. If he doesn't get it, I'm ignoring them and they can send a drone for me, I just don't care.
Ron Paul endorsing Romney would be the biggest blow against the American freedom movement since... forever.
ReplyDeleteI'm writing Dr. Paul's name in, regardless who gets the nomination.
ReplyDeleteRomney said he'd have signed the NDAA; he's out.
Santorum is an idiot on trade; he wants to keep the embargo on Cuba even after the Castros die; he's out.
Gingrich seriously proposed to make the moon the 51st state; he's out.
I won't vote Libertarian Party, because I do not wish to tie myself to a group that is perfectly fine with antepartum infanticide.
I won't vote Constitution Party because they idiots on trade.
I'm a little surprised by your comments, Robert. Ron Paul endorsing Mitt Romney wouldn't bring the R3voLution to back Mitt Romney. All it would do is discredit Ron Paul. The supporters would still bolt. Maybe, and it's a big maybe, if Ron Paul were V.P., the supporters would hold their noses, but I doubt even that.
ReplyDeleteIronically, the peace candidate, Ron Paul, has shown the biggest balls of any major presidential candidate in my lifetime. Not electing him is an opportunity lost since it is unlikely another candidate of his caliber will ever surface again -- that includes Rand. If Ron Paul loses the nomination, the best thing would be to re-elect Obama, and hope that a liberty candidate emerges in 2016.
That, however, is unlikely. This country is just screwed.
I fear you are ultimately correct. As the days pass I believe more and more that our best case scenario is to re-elect Obama and continue on with the R3volution. All in the hope that in 4 years the country will continue to be exposed to the liberty movement's ideas and come on board.
DeleteWe'll have to see how much country is left 4 years from now. It certainly will not be the same.
Why even vote?
DeleteAmen to that. I'd rather eviscerate myself than vote for Obama (or any of the non-Paul republicrat candidates)
DeleteMany of the delegates being reported are really just guesses at this point and are based on the beauty contests known as caucuses.
ReplyDeleteThe news outlets are assigning delegates proportionally based on the caucus voting percentages however, that's not how it actually works in most states and several states that have had caucuses have actually yet to decide their delegates. Ron Paul could pull a majority of delegates in some of those states and knock Mitt Romney off his perch a bit.
I'll be the first to admit that it would be pretty difficult for Ron Paul to beat Romney in delegates but the brokered convention is likely.
Here's the thing though, many of the delegates pledged to other candidates are actually Ron Paul supporters. The moment they get released from their pledges, they will become Ron Paul supporters and he could actually end up with the nomination for this reason. This has been part of the overall Ron Paul strategy.
In short, he could still win the nomination in the 2nd round of voting when the delegates are free from obligations.
By the way, this is true even in Primary states where the winner gets all the delegates.
You seem to be the only one who actually understands the delegate selection process. Dr. Paul will arrive in Tampa with around 700 delegates. A great many people are in for a great big surprise.
DeleteBingo !
DeleteHeard it last time around guys, you are always skipping massive parts of the process. Firstly the GOP gets to assign party delegates, who can vote for whoever they want. They will all vote for Romney or Newt. Secondly, delegates go through a mufti-tier system, from caucuses or polls to regions to state, even if Ron Paul people make it through to regional and state conventions, they will be weeded out and replaced by insiders before we go to the national convention, just like in 08. 700 delegates LMAO, this is why we failed, rather than focus on wining people over we thought we'd just be smarter than anyone else. Even IF Paul gets nominated this way do you have any idea the portion of the American public would be turned off? It's a no win strategy, and it has been from the start. I wish i could replace myself with Jesse Benton, what horrible campaign strategies both times around. So frustrated.
DeletePaul will not endorse anyone just to merely "influence" a policy change. First and foremost even if Romney promised to push for an Audit do you really think that would happen once he is president? No. Ron is not going to compromise his principles for one issue.
ReplyDeleteThat's like saying Ron Paul would vote for another term for Bernanke if Benanke promised to raise rates or something. That's idiotic.
The truth is Romney will not need Pauls delegates. He can make a deal with Newt or Santorum long before he makes a concession on the Fed with Paul.
And Paul will not be a VP either. Could you imagine the debate between Paul/Biden where Paul slams Biden for Obama's warmongering and then Romney turns around and says he wants to bomb Iran/Syria?
It wouldn't work. Not in a million years and the powers that be would never allow Romney to select Paul as a VP.
The best we can hope for is that Paul wins a damn state and things start getting interesting. But he probably wont. His best shot was Maine/Alaska/NDakota and he couldn't pull it off. (please spare the voter fraud nonsense).
People question why Paul turns out thousands to his speeches and doesn't get the votes-it's because a lot of the people that show up to the speech are from neighboring states or repeat attendees. If Paul has a speech in 2 cities within the same state, I'll bet the house than at least 50% of those in attendance are repeat followers. Meaning if 2,000 people show up to each speech, 1,000 of them in the next speech are probably repeat attendees.
The movement is growing but we have a long ways to go. You can't fix stupid in 8 short years.
Hang on here, Kissinger has other ideas, from thetotalcollapse.com,
ReplyDelete..."According to this report, Kissinger told Keqiang that the Republican Party election process to select their nominee to run against President Obama was“completely manipulated” to ensure that their 2012 Convention would be “deadlocked” thus allowing for Jeb Bush to be nominated as a “consensus candidate” and thus his parties leader.
The path to a deadlocked convention, this report says Kissinger told the Chinese, lies in neither current Republican frontrunners Governor Mitt Romney or Congressman Ron Paul having enough delegates to ensure their nomination on the first ballot after which their supporters will be free to nominate anyone they so choose.
In order to ensure a deadlocked convention, this report continues, Kissinger noted that Romney will obtain his delegates from what are called Primary States while Paul will receive his from those holding caucuses and “open” primaries, with neither of them receiving enough votes to secure their nominations..."
The elites decide, again.
I've said this a million times, and I'm going to say it again. One can speculate all day on the fairy tale that any of the three Fascists who might get the GOP nomination would either choose or be forced to include Ron Paul and/or his agendas in their regime. That simply ain't gonna happen. Also, what is NOT going to happen is we 'Paulians' giving up our vote to anyone but Paul, be it writing his name in, voting a third party, or simply not voting. We have continually warned the GOP it will LOSE MILLIONS of votes it is going to desperately need to beat Obama. I also think its rich to think that ANY 'Paulian' would hand over any support to any of the Neocon leaders and their smarmy constituency. I would rather vote for Obama than lend support to the GOP regime which has insulted, stonewalled, and marginalized me and my candidate. THAT ain't gonna happen, either. You GOP'ers are going to LOSE, and LOSE BIG! I guarantee it.
ReplyDeleteYOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! IN EVERY SINGLE WORD!
DeleteWSJ is feeding you BS delegate numbers.
ReplyDeleteGoogle: Reality check republican delegate numbers.
I hope Ron Paul decides to shove it up the GOP's a$$ and run as a third party candidate, taking all his supporters and many independents. Yes, it will hand Obama a big win, but the GOP needs to learn a lesson.
ReplyDeleteAnd really, what's wrong with a second Obama term? If you're going to go to hell, you might as well get there fast.
Hillary in 2016!!!
I can't see RP endorsing Mittens, it would completely discredit his issue-based movement. Without RP's 10-15% dedicated followers, the GOP is f'ed, but the GOP will try to ignore this inconvenient fact.
ReplyDeleteRP supporters will stay home or vote third party, rightly so. Unfortunately, RP has shown no desire to run third party. Hopefully there will be a liberty-minded candidate on the ballot that RP can endorse after the GOP convention is over.
It'll be Obama in a landslide by at least 10 points over Mittens. If Santorum somehow gets the nod, I can't see that moron breaking 40% in the general election.
I'm pulling for a third-party run, realizing the timing for LP won't work. If we all agree there's no difference between Obama and Romney, why should we care if Paul hands Obama another term? It would send a strong message that we're not willing to compromise our principles just to put a Republican in office. I want to vote for Paul in the general election regardless of his party affiliation or consequences. We can't budge just to avoid harming Rand's chances in 2016. There may not be a 2016 election at this rate.
ReplyDeleteBound delegates are no longer bound in a brokered convention and are free to choose.As the liberty message spreads and the economy worsens and more war keeps looming,there is a good chance they will wake up and choose Paul.
ReplyDeleteIf Ron Paul does not get the nomination then all this speculation is pointless. Rommy will not be the President - Obama will.
ReplyDeleteResponse here:
ReplyDeletehttp://mises.org/Community/forums/t/28431.aspx
Dr. Ron Paul will get the nomination on the third vote at the convention.
ReplyDeleteWe'll have to see how this plays out. However, my current feeling if "Dr Paul holds his nose and strongly endorses , say, Mitt Romney." I would be VERY disappointed. Ron endorsing Mitt would implode the liberty movement. I won't vote for Mitt/Rick/Newt/Barack. Write-In Paul is the only choice right now.
ReplyDeleteA brokered convention in which Ron endorses one of these bloody minded twits in exchange for one or two considerations in the Republican party platform, which will be ignored, is the absolute WORST thing that could happen. It would be a major betrayal of all of the people who have worked hard and given scarce funds to help advance the cause of liberty. Romney will most likely get the nomination when Newt drops out in exchange for whatever considerations he can wrangle from the Republicans, which will force Scamtorum to either "take one for the team" and endorse Romney (in exchange for some promise of patronage no doubt).
ReplyDeleteThe Ron Paul delegates would send a stronger message by just walking out of the convention if that occurs. Perhaps they could form the core of a new Liberty party. I don't know. All I know is that endorsing the enemies of liberty, including the choice nominee of the Republican party oligarchs, will undo a lot of the progress that Dr. Paul's last two runs at the nomination have achieved.
Excellent post! Beautifully stated! Walking out of the convention--I like it! You are right--it's Dr. Paul or nobody. Unless he is the nominee--and there is a good chance that he will be (most people are totally confused about the delegate count and selection process)--the GOP is toast. All Paulistas must agree to write him in if he is not the nominee. He will not betray us, nor we him. He will not endorse the fascists.
DeleteI will vote for Paul, and it's possible I would vote for him if he is on the ticket as a VP, but it would be hard to imagine doing so otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI really don't think he should make any deals with Romney or anyone else. I think he should keep the delegates he gets, stand tall at the convention, do his best, and then take the campaign money and re-invest it like he did last time into more liberty minded candidates and causes.
I love the man, but at this point, you can guarantee there is going to be a whole lot of Ron Paul's born out of all of this and the message is forever solid.
By 2016 the dollar will be screwed and we will be in ww3.
ReplyDeleteToo poor to move
There is exactly 0% chance that Paul will share a ticket (in either spot) with one of those three Big Government politicians. Zero chance. Either Ron Paul becomes the GOP nominee (and then President) or the GOP will crash and burn against Obama as at least 10% of the voters write in "RON PAUL" or vote for Gary Johnson if Paul asks us to do that instead. Then we start campaigning for a true Liberty candidate for 2016. Either way, we win. Time to get on board! RON PAUL 2012!!
ReplyDeleteAn endorsement of Romney effectively kills the campaign for liberty. If Dr. Paul is the last best chance for a political solution to prevent a total financial and societal meltdown.
ReplyDeleteI can envision him, should he fail to win it all, heading back to Texas and taking the lead in their efforts to secede from the union. Texas will be followed closely behind by several other states from the interior of the country.
Anything but a Paul presidency will result in the US splitting up into a few nation-states independent of Federal jurisdiction; emerging on the other side of the collapse free from leviathan.
Think USSR, circa 1989 has a model.
Ron Paul is the one I want for President! The Media is lying! Ron Paul is doing much better than the media will admit!
ReplyDeleteAfter alienating a large portion of the independent,libertarian base the republicans are going to lose no matter who gives Romney the thumbs up,the reason for the low turn out in the primaries is the fact that so many distrust the system, all the talk about, if Ron Paul wins in Iowa take it out, if he wins in New Hampshire just ignore it, then all the running off with the votes and not counting them until a week later in Main and Nevada. The republicans can forget the White House unless they steal it from Obama to. Im not voting for a big government republican the can forget me and I know a lot of people are feeling the same way. Ron Paul or no one.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks that Dr. Paul would endorse Romney or that we'd vote for Romney if he did is an idiot.
ReplyDeleteI think he should run third party. Just look at the Virginia and New Hampshire results, he does pretty damn good when Democrats and Independents are allowed to vote. He does better against Obama nationally and in Iowa than his other rivals and some polls show him at 20% nationally as a third party candidate.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, he just can't win over these damn GOP voters and tea partiers, ironically the people who dislike him the most according to polls. The conservative base contains what are called the "Not-Romney" voters, but let's now call them the “Neither-Romney-nor Paul” voters.
Unfortunately, the GOP establishment is successfully co-opting the Paul supporters, not the other way around. Why do Paul and his supporters insist on running as a Republican? Is it Stockholm Syndrome? Just remember that it was the GOP that took you off the gold standard, gave you the Patriot Act, war in Iraq, budget deficits, and there is no indication that they plan to truly change their ways. Why associate with them at all? Doesn't that just dilute your message?
If Romney gets the nod then Obama is back for another four. Could RP win in a brokered convention? Sure he can. While every one else has been on the blogs slinging snot and telling people how much they know and that RP can not win, some of us have been getting our selves elected as delegates. That's correct we are doing something, we are trying to save this country from it's self. Let us get into a brokered convention where the delegates become free agents and then you will see what we have been doing wile the rest sit and run their mouth. If you people had got active like the rest of us we would already have this thing won. Talk is cheap and gets you noting. You have to get involved.
ReplyDelete