Delegates, baby. Delegates.
Since the Tea Party and the Christian Coalition can’t get their act together, and have proven they aren’t a force to be reckoned with, we move onto the only candidate that can throw a monkey wrench in Romney’s inevitable nomination.
Delegates, baby. Delegates.
Charles Pierce spells it out:
Which leaves us with the fascinating question of Dr. Ron Paul. He finished a decent second last night, crushing the campaign of Jon Huntsman. He is in an odd place. He is not a contender for the nomination in any real sense. However, he can continue to move through the cycle, not seeking conventional success, but piling up delegates pledged only to him. (If the rumors around Manchester on Tuesday night are true, and Paul’s campaign has managed to raise $10 million over the past few days, then he can go on forever. That amount of money to his campaign is $100 million to a more conventional one.) This will give him a center of personal power with which Willard, and the rest of the party, will have to find some way to cope. Paul has stubbornly — and shrewdly — refused to state categorically that he will not bolt the party in the general election. He can string the whole business along, talking in his giddy survivalist code about “fiat money,” and nobody will be in any position to take him on. He is going to stay on his own hook; in 2008, across the river in Minneapolis, Paul set up his own convention in opposition to the Republican National Convention. He can do whatever mischief he wants from now until the end of the summer, and nobody’s in any position to make him stop.
There’s talk of Paul falling in line for Rand’s political benefit, but that school of thought relies on painting Ron Paul as a selfless father willing to step aside for the sake of his son. I’m not so sure about this school of thought. History is filled with plenty of fathers (and mothers) who don’t put their children first, and while I don’t think Papa Paul wants to hurt Baby Paul’s political future he may end up doing just that in the name of his movement.
Enough of my pop psychology. We’re talking about Paul’s delegates and what he’ll do with them. Any theories?