Posts tagged delegates
What’s the story with Maine’s delegates?
5The RNC is going to be very interesting—too bad the old boys club wouldn’t bring Ron Paul into their speaking slots.
Nicely done Maddow…
0Romney’s surprising, bullying, over-bearing tactics and lack of support in Massachusetts show just how thin, frazzled and fractured the modern GOP now is. Maddow nails some fascinating aspects and interviews newly dis-enchanted 18 year old Republican delegate Evan Kenney about his abuse at the hands of the Romney campaign.
Did Romney REALLY win the nomination?
0Post-Texas, the media is ready to crown Mr. Mittens. However, in Massachusetts—where Romney also won a majority—Dr. Paul went on to win the majority of the delegates. They’re also trying to intimidate voters to voting for Rombomb. If they’re so sure about it, why the extra effort–and why did he lose the important part, the delegates?
Good ol’ Ben Swann takes us through the details below…
Can it be done?
18“How Ron Paul’s Minions Plan to Hijack the GOP Convention”
from TheDailyBeast.com
Ron Paul is orchestrating a highly unusual, yet precisely organized, grassroots effort to bring as many loyal delegates as possible to the Republican National Convention. Romney’s campaign has some mass appeal but invites little passion. Paul’s might have even fewer supporters than Romney but their energetic zeal could culminate in having an outsize influence at the RNC without having won a single primary.
Each state selects its delegates to the Republican National Convention differently, and as has often been reported, the process of a candidate “winning a state” is not as simple as a plurality on primary day. An obscure process of country, district, and state conventions exists to appoint these delegates to the national convention. A candidate who can successfully manipulate these lesser known “behind-the-scenes” processes can put himself in an advantageous position should the Convention begin in August with some doubt about the identity of the nominee.
Focusing on one Super Tuesday state, Georgia, this process began with “mass precinct meetings” on February 18th to select delegates to the county conventions. After the March 6 primary, Georgia’s 159 county conventions take place March 10. These will elect delegates to the district conventions scheduled for April 14. While some at-large delegates emerge from the state convention, most are selected at Georgia’s thirteen district conventions. Ideally, the Paul campaign would like for its supporters to compose 51% of the attendees at each district convention so that its supporters can make motions, control the proceedings, and make sure its supporters get nominated as delegates to the national convention.
The Paul campaign has rigorously organized its volunteers to attend the mass precinct meetings that took place all over Georgia. It has been instructing supporters on parliamentary procedure and state Republican rules. It is also giving advice on convention etiquette. In an e-mail to supporters, Charles Gregory, Georgia State Coordinator for Ron Paul 2012, wrote:
“It is my personal recommendation that you dress professionally and not overtly identify yourself as a Ron Paul supporter. Your position should simply be: “I’m here to send Obama home, that’s all I care about.” If asked who you support—just say you ‘haven’t made up your mind yet but they’re all better than what we’ve got now,’ etc.”
I myself attended a similar precinct meeting in 2008. Most of the speeches were about uniting the Party around the eventual nominee and there was relatively little conflict, and I easily got my name on the slate of delegates to the county, district, and state conventions.
The most recent meetings held in Georgia have not been like this at all.
What matters? The delegates
0Check the vid for why Dr. Paul is actually in second place right now, and might still pull off a win in Maine.
The real delegate score
4
Every media outlet seems to have a different delegate count. But almost invariably we’re told Ron Paul is in last place and far behind the leader Mitt Romney.
But none of these delegate counters properly estimate how the caucuses will allocate their delegates. According to the Paul campaign, Ron is well positioned to win 50% of the delegates in Iowa, 75% in Minnesota, 50% in Colorado, and 75% in Maine. So what is likely to be the true delegate count once the caucus states select their national delegates?
Add together the bound delegates from New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada, and extrapolate the caucus states’ delegates using the Paul campaign’s estimates and you get:
Total Delegates (IA, NH, SC, FL, NV, MN, CO, ME)
Romney: 93 (6, 7, 2, 50, 14, 2, 7, 5)
Paul: 82 (13, 3, 0, 0, 5, 28, 17, 16)
Gingrich: 29 (0, 0, 23, 0, 6, 0, 0, 0)
Santorum: 25 (6, 0, 0, 0, 3, 7, 9, 0)
Unpledged: 14 (3, 2, 0, 0, 0, 3, 3, 3)
*Unpledged includes Huntsman’s delegates in NH as well as unbound party leader delegates in certain states.
The caucus/convention process for selecting delegates has plenty of quirks along the way – the eventual delegates could be more evenly dispersed or could skew even more heavily to Paul as the majority candidate. But this is a far more accurate portrayal of the true state of play than allocating delegates proportionately to the straw poll or entirely to the straw poll leader.
And it shows that, for now, this is a two-man race in delegates between Paul and Romney.
Ron Paul’s flank attack
0The race for delegates instead of just votes is a monster issue that nearly all media outlets have been ignoring—a fact I’m actually quite happy about because other campaigns have not capitalized on it.
There is apparently a very good chance that Ron Paul is in first place right now, if you count what matters: the delegates.
Check the vid for a great interview with Doug Wead of the campaign and Rachel Maddow.
The key point that most people miss is this: delegates have only been awarded in the primary states, but not in the caucus states (see video for deeper definition), and the committed, relentless, passionate Paulites are deploying a potentially legendary sucker punch.
