What is Ron Paul doing?
Rick Santorum has already dropped out of the Republican
presidential race. Newt Gingrich is expected to do so this week,
Wednesday at the latest. Mitt Romney is virtually guaranteed the
nomination.
But Ron Paul supporters continue to fight on at Republican
caucuses and conventions. Last weekend, they won at the Louisiana
caucuses even though Paul managed just 6 percent of the vote in the
state’s primary earlier this year. The Paulites carried the 1st,
2nd, 5th, and 6th congressional districts. According to one count,
74 percent of the delegates elected to the state convention
Saturday were Paul supporters.
“As a result,”
reports the Times Picayune of New Orleans,
“under party rules, Paul is guaranteed at least 17 of the 46
delegates to the convention at which Romney will almost certainly
be nominated for president.” By contrast, the primary awarded
Santorum ten pledged delegates and Romney five.
That same day, Ron Paul supporters were elected chairman and
vice chairman of the Alaska Republican Party. Paul finished third
in the popular vote in Alaska’s caucuses, but his supporters joined
with former Tea Party Senate candidate Joe Miller to
dominate the state convention. According to
Politico, “It’s more evidence of the political
maturation of the Paul forces, who are beginning to seize the
levers of powers from within state parties.”
In Minnesota, Paul came in second in the popular vote in the
caucuses, ahead of Romney but behind Santorum. Yet this month he
swept 20 of the 24 delegates available at the Minnesota
congressional district conventions.
Then in Iowa, at least six of the new state Republican central
committee members are public Paul supporters. The Des Moines
Register describes two others as having “close ties,”
reporting, “A rising tide of Republicans who share Ron Paul’s
philosophy of limited government are flooding into GOP party roles
in Iowa.” A.J. Spiker, the state party chairman, was a former vice
chairman of Paul’s Iowa campaign.
The Ron Paul Republicans’ mission is twofold. First, they want
to secure enough delegates to the Republican National Convention to
place Paul’s name in nomination. The International Business
Times
reports, “Washington is now the third state, after Iowa and
Minnesota, in which Ron Paul has locked up at least half of the
state’s nominating delegates.” North Dakota and Maine could join
them.
Some hope this will give them a longshot chance of winning,
citing Warren G. Harding’s nomination in 1920. More likely, it
gives Paul some leverage at the convention to negotiate for certain
platform planks, a promiment speaking slot, or perhaps even have
some say over the vice presidential pick.
The second objective is to integrate themselves into party
leadership positions like the Christian right did before them.
While Paul’s supporters are so far a smaller voting bloc than the
social conservatives who backed Pat Robertson’s presidential
campaign in 1988, Paul’s crowds on the stump are still huge: over
3,000 turned out to see Paul in Houston, 6,000 in Austin, more than
4,000 in the rain in Philadelphia.
Could Santorum or Gingrich regularly draw such big, young crowds
after their chances to win the nomination dwindled? Could Romney do
so now?
Paul will also be the last man standing against Romney in some
large remaining primaries. He will hope to replicate — or perhaps
even improve upon — the 40 percent of the vote he got in Virginia
when he and Romney were the only Republican presidential candidates
on the ballot. Gingrich had similar hopes but failed to consolidate
the anti-Romney vote. Paul, however, has superior money and
organization.
Certainly, the Paul campaign has had its share of setbacks.
After a strong beginning in Iowa and New Hampshire, it fizzled
somewhat in South Carolina and sank into the single digits in
Florida. It had hoped to do better in Nevada’s caucus and to beat
Romney outright in Maine’s.
But even when they were disappointed by their popular vote
totals, Paul supporters stayed behind and tried to win delegates at
the low-turnout state and congressional district conventions. This
cost-effective insurgent strategy seemed stalled, but now appears
to be finally paying
some dividends.
Many other Republicans are demoralized. The near-certain nominee
doesn’t excite them. There are fewer high-profile Tea Party
primaries than two years ago. The other conservative presidential
candidates have been beaten.
Ron Paul’s supporters remain. They are still trying to win
delegates and reshape the Republican Party.
