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So it does indeed appear that RP won Colorado! The Santorum supporters are switching over to Ron Paul's camp. Great to finally have a win out of the caucus process!
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Ron Paul has had an amazing week, scoring wins in Colorado, despite what appears to be establishment tricks, sweeping ALL three districts in Minnesota today, sweeping Oklahoma's 3rd District, and now sweeping King County, Washington. Great job to all those involved and helping to make these wins possible. By next Saturday, all Minnesota District Conventions, Missouri District Conventions, and Washington County/District Conventions will be complete.
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Colorado further evidence Ron Paul will challenge Romney in Tampa
TAMPA, April 15, 2012 — The Ron Paul campaign has consistently maintained that it has won far more delegates than is generally reported by the media. The Associated Press projects Romney’s delegate count to be well over 600, more than ten times their projections for Ron Paul. However, Colorado has provided some evidence that the Paul campaign’s demise has been greatly exaggerated.
Colorado completed its state convention yesterday. Under the headline, “Romney lost Colo. caucuses, gets most delegates,” Real Clear Politics reported the results this way.
“GOP has chosen 13 Romney delegates and six Santorum delegates. The remaining 17 delegates are unpledged, meaning they are free to choose any Republican candidate for president.”
That’s technically accurate, but it begs a question from anyone even minimally curious: Who do those 17 unpledged delegates support? Are they undecided, or do they intend to vote for a specific candidate at the Republican National Convention (RNC)?
According to the Real Clear article, “Many would-be delegates criticized Romney, and some dejected Santorum fans teamed with Ron Paul supporters to push what they called a 'Conservative Unity Slate' to look for a non-Romney presidential candidate.”
That is also technically accurate, but misleading. Not only did Paul and Santorum supporters “push” the Conservative Unity Slate, they got its delegates elected to go to the RNC.
Todd King of Lewis, Colorado is one of the elected delegates from that slate. King is a Ron Paul supporter and will vote for Paul for president on the first ballot in Tampa. I asked him how the 17 unpledged delegates break down. This is his statement.
“13 unpledged delegates, including me, will vote for Ron Paul on the first ballot. One unpledged delegate will vote for Santorum. The remaining three unpledged delegates, also known as the 'delegates at large,' are the state GOP Chairman, the state GOP National Committeman and the National Committeewoman. Those three will likely vote for Romney. They usually vote for the frontrunner so as not to make waves.”
King said that the Paul delegates ran unpledged in order to win the votes of Santorum supporters who understand that the delegates will vote for Paul at the RNC, but would not be legally bound to do so. If anything changes with the Paul or Santorum campaigns between now and August, both camps would have an opportunity to persuade unpledged delegates to change their minds.
This paints a much different picture of the real delegate count for Colorado. The final breakdown looks like this:
Romney – 13
Paul - 13
Santorum – 7
At large – 3 (count these for Romney if he is still the frontrunner in August)
Remember, this is a state where Santorum won with 40% of the caucus popular vote. Romney came in 2nd with 35% and Ron Paul finished last with 12%. Yet Paul is in a virtual tie for the lead in terms of the actual votes he will get on the first ballot at the RNC.
There were also 36 alternate delegates elected at Colorado’s convention. These delegates are seated in place of any delegates that cannot make it to the RNC or decide not to go. I spoke with two of them, Bobby Eskenberry and Lloyd Garcia, both from Congressional District 7. They are both pledged to Paul and hope to eventually be seated in Tampa.
Neither could provide hard numbers, but Garcia believes that almost all of the alternate delegates are Paul supporters. He also believes that if nothing changes regarding Santorum’s campaign, many of his delegates may forego the time and expense of attending the convention, leaving the door open for Paul to win the state when alternates pledged to Paul are seated.
How many more states are going to turn out like Colorado?
Santorum won the caucus vote in Missouri by a much wider margin with 55% of the vote. Romney finished second with 25% and Paul was a distant third with 12%. However, early indications are that Paul will win far more delegates at Missouri’s state convention June 1-2. According to Fox News, Missouri’s GOP leadership admits that Paul may get all of the delegates from Missouri.
The Iowa GOP leadership has previously acknowledged that Paul may win Iowa as well. Iowa holds its state convention on June 16.
These are all states where Ron Paul lost the popular vote by a wide margin. In states like Maine, Alaska, Minnesota and others, where Paul finished a close 2nd or at least did much better, he could win the final delegate counts by wide margins.
All of this is important information for voters in states that have not held their primaries or caucuses yet. Voters often make their decisions based at least in part upon their confidence in a candidate’s “electability.” They may choose not to vote for the candidate they like best if they think he can’t win.
The media wrote a narrative at the beginning of the primary season that Ron Paul could never win the nomination. That likely affected his performance in subsequent primaries. The new media narrative says that the nomination race is over and Romney has it locked up. That conflicts with the facts. Voters in upcoming primaries should know that this race is far closer than they’re being led to believe.
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
Those "Santorum" delegates (except 1) are known ardent Ron Paul supporters.Comment
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Ron Paul has won his second state! Now he's claimed the delegations from both Colorado and Minnesota.
Here are the results out of Minnesota:
Paul 20
Santorum 2
Romney 1
Gingrich 1
Look to see those delegate counts jump up every week or two for the next few months as the caucus process winds up. Romney lost a delegate from his projected total, Paul jumped up another 11 delegates.Comment
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There are another 16 delegates to be elected, so look for Paul's numbers to only go up out of Minnesota... but no matter the final count, he's built an insurmountable win in the state.Comment
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Will you be buying this game when it comes out, Doc?
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viva la r3v0lucionRon Paul Wins in Iowa and Minnesota, Romney in a Panic
By Doug Wead
Ron Paul supporters surged to victory in yesterday’s Minnesota and Iowa district conventions, dominating the process and picking up more delegates to the Republican National Convention. As reported last week, a number of Romney Hawks are now deeply concerned that Ron Paul has already laid the groundwork for similar success in six more caucus states. Yesterday’s results will only increase their influence inside the Romney camp.
Romney advisers are concerned that the rising total of Ron Paul delegates will lead to an unmanageable RNC. Some observers felt that the 1992 convention hurt an incumbent president George H. W. Bush and was a factor in his loss to Bill Clinton.
In most states, victories at the district conventions decide who will move onto the state conventions where most of the delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa will be selected.
The rules in Minnesota are slightly different and some of those final delegates were actually selected at scattered district conventions yesterday. Reports from our own Marianne Stebbins in Minnesota show that Ron Paul now has 20 out of the 24 delegates already chosen to represent the state at the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the campaign is poised to do just as good at the upcoming state convention, May 18-19, when the final 13 will be chosen.
In Iowa, Jennifer Jacobs, a reporter for the Des Moines Resister, broke into open what had been our little secret, namely, the takeover of the GOP in Iowa. “A rising tide of Republicans who share Ron Paul’s philosophy of limited government are flooding into GOP party roles in Iowa,” Jennifer wrote, reporting on yesterdays Iowa district conventions.
Actually, it is a phenomenon seen all across the country. It is viewed by many political observers as the biggest transformation of the Republican Party since 1988, when evangelical Christians joined the process and dominated state positions for a whole generation.
While the Iowa Ron Paul campaign is keeping its cards close to the vest, we all got a sneak peak from an the Des Moines Register story which reported that six of the new Iowa GOP state central committee members elected Saturday have publicly expressed support for Ron Paul. Joes Kurtinitis, Kris Thiessen, Dave Cushman, Jeff Shipley, John Kabitzke and Marcus Fedler. “Two more,” Jennifer Jacobs reports, “have close ties.” The new state chairman is also a Ron Paul supporter, who served as a co-chairman for the congressman’s Iowa state organization.
The Iowa state GOP convention is set for Jun 16, 2012.
Meanwhile, the sleepy New York Times has posted for five months and still posts, even today, that the total delegate count for Ron Paul in Iowa is one. They say that the total delegate count for Ron Paul in Minnesota is nine. In fact, Ron Paul supporters will now dominate both state conventions. And the same trend is ongoing in states across the country.Comment
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Ron Paul looks like he's won Iowa! That's state #3!Comment
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And he appears to be doing well in my state of Texas from what I've been able to gather 8)Comment
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you know how surmountable some of those Romney "wins" have been in some state GOP primaries/caucuses so far this year...Comment
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There's reality which you need to see it for yourself and then there is the fabricated virtual reality the media creates. In the real world Ron Paul is far more popular than what the corporate owned fantasy machine is saying. Both Mitt and Obama are corporate owned candidates. The upcoming revolution will be the people vs. the multi national corporations. We are fighting wars now so corporations can make money. It's not about spreading democracy or defending the country. It's about making money for some old men who have bought themselves enough politicians. Of course the corporate media is going to say Mitt has it in the bag and is the nominee. The reality after all the delegates are counted may be different.No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!Comment
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Yeah well, Romney is taking NY, which has the most delegates of all IIRC...Comment
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