Out here in Orange County, CA -- I'm specifying the state today out of deference to Orange County, NC, which voted against Amendment 1 -- I'm surrounded by Ron Paul supporters, both within and outside of the Occupy movement. It's part of what will make primary day interesting here -- a fight, in local terms, between the wealthy Newport Beach of Romney and its neighbor the libertarian Huntington Beach of Paul. (OK the political geography isn't really that crisp; just go with it for now.)
One thing I've been hearing on the boards here is how Ron Paul is still going to wrench the Republican Presidential nomination from Mitt Romney because he is picking up the lion's share of the actual delegates who will be heading to Tampa -- even if they are nominally pledged to Romney.
I keep telling people "I've heard something about that, and I don't know all the details, but I'm pretty sure that that won't happen.
Well, if like me you haven't known the details, follow me below the jump. It's pretty wild. It won't work -- except to disrupt the convention and make it seem bullfrog loony, which is great.
I sometimes tell people who confidently predict a delegate revolt "Oh yeah, I'd like to see Ron Paul try that!" I say this because I really do want to see Ron Paul try that! Let's take a look at how it's unfolding.
If you want to understand how Paul's plan works, I suggest taking one of the rare actually useful visits to Politico, made palatable by their working on the story -- found at this link -- with the excellent as usual Las Vegas Sun. Here are some excerpts to whet your appetite:
Rule 38 is a favorite of Paul supporters because it seems to imply that the state is not allowed to bind delegates at all.
Referred to as the Unit Rule, the measure says “no delegate or alternate delegate shall be bound” by any state’s attempt to impose the “unit rule.”
According to Josh Putnam, a scholar on the presidential nominating process at Davidson College in North Carolina, the rule is a throwback from the days when party bosses would strong-arm a state delegation into backing a single candidate.
Most party officials and observers say it doesn’t apply to states that have binding caucuses.
The problem for the Republican National Committee, as Putnam notes, is that the rule is still on the books and opens up an interpretation argument for Paul’s backers.
RNC rules clearly say a delegate can abstain from the vote. Wouldn’t that set Paul loyalists free from voting for Romney?
That's just one small piece of the Paulistas' argument. As one who remembers the Obama-Clinton posturing four years ago over delegate rules, all I can say is this: it is
much nicer to be watching it than to be in the middle of it.
2:23 PM PT: And the revelations of about "youthful prankster" Mitt Romney raise the possibility that he could possibly flame out before the convention -- in which event the delegates are no longer pledged -- in which event ... um, how many delegates does Paul have again?