True it is all about delegates and Ron Paul currently is second to last with only 8 compared to Romney's 94. That said I find this line of argument odd for a Paul supporter to make as the delegate procedure is one of those undemocratic and not transparent things that Paul supporters frequently rail about. The fact that you have districts where Paul came in third awarding the majority of their delegates to Paul shows that. Also as far as MN is concerned, I can't say about other states, you are right that the delegates are not awarded until state conventions are held. At the caucus' delegates are elected. That said though it is the understanding that the delegates elected are pledged to certain candidates so while Ron Paul has a very good MN organization since Santorum won MN most of the delegates should be pledged to Santorum.
You get a big meh from me. Santorum didn't have organization and chose to pound Colorado and Missouri with ads to get his numbers up, despite the fact that the election was meaningless. I can only surmise that he thought the momentum it would give him outweighed the fact that the results were meaningless. The other candidates chose not to. Santorum won those straw polls (that's what they are) soundly, but the candidates that prefer Paul won the delegate elections. The democratic process is centered around delegate election, not the straw poll results.
Yeah - it's such a tightly ran, incorruptible ship. How dare I question such integrity... http://www.npr.org/2012/02/07/146541254/caucus-counting-troubles-plague-primaries February 7, 2012 Republican caucus vote counters seem to be having trouble this primary season. In Iowa, they said Romney won by eight votes, then revised that figure and said Santorum won. In Nevada, they couldn't count 2,000 votes for a day and a half, and then got into a fight about who could vote after sundown at a special caucus for Orthodox Jews. Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: As Don just mentioned, in addition to Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado held caucuses today. The year's first two caucuses were marked by intense campaigning and media coverage but also revealed a process fraught with flaws, including a wrong call in Iowa and delayed results in Nevada. As NPR's Brian Naylor reports, those flaws have many now wondering whether caucuses are really the best way to choose a presidential nominee. BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: We have a romantic image of the presidential caucuses, one of earnest citizens engaging in the political process in their communities braving the chill of an Iowa winter to participate in our great democracy. Like here in Van Meter County, where Tom Harveson brought things to order last month. TOM HARVESON: If everybody would rise, we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. NAYLOR: The vast majority of the caucus attendees and officials are volunteers; caucuses are the essence of grassroots politics. And that's good, but it points to a problem with the caucus system, says Dennis Goldford. He's a political science professor at Drake University in Des Moines. DENNIS GOLDFORD: The charm of the caucuses is their amateur and volunteer character. But the vulnerability or the weakness of the caucus is precisely the same thing: their amateur and voluntary (unintelligible) volunteer character. NAYLOR: Unlike general elections, where there are formal voting procedures using machines and computers overseen by the secretary of state, caucuses are administered by party officials, many with little training and facing an unfamiliar jumble of rules and procedures. In Iowa, that helped lead to the embarrassing-for-the-party result of first Mitt Romney, and then some weeks later Rick Santorum being declared the winner, with the admission there were so many irregularities that it's not clear exactly who won the first in the nation contest. Rick Hasen writes an election law blog and teaches law at the University of California, Irvine. RICK HASEN: The way that the Republican Iowa caucus was run has probably caused a lot of people to think twice about whether we should give so much importance to a process that is far from perfect. NAYLOR: Few would argue that the process in Nevada's caucuses last Saturday was much better. It took officials there until the next morning to finish counting votes. One complicating factor was a special night caucus held in Las Vegas only for those whose religious convictions kept them from voting during daylight hours. It led to heated arguments over who exactly qualified. Leslie Swain, a Seventh Day Adventist, didn't think much of the process, even though he was one of its beneficiaries. LESLIE SWAIN: I think this caucus is a joke. It should be a primary. There's going to be a lot of people who would normally go who might not going to get a chance to vote. I don't understand the reasoning behind it, but you take what you can get. NAYLOR: Unlike Iowa's caucus, the vote in Nevada will lead to the awarding of delegates. It's not clear whether the bumpy caucus process this year will lead to changes. Political scientist David Damore of UNLV says the caucuses themselves were a result of previous reform efforts. DAVID DAMORE: The whole purpose of having the caucuses and the primaries in each of the states was to remove the power from the party bosses, so to speak, and to avoid the backroom deals at the national party conventions that had sort of been the norm in American politics and allow the rank-and-file voters to ultimately make the decision here. So, you know, as it always seems to happen in politics when you sort of reform the process, you end up with all these unintended consequences. NAYLOR: One idea to improve the process, at least in Iowa, is to use old fashioned carbon paper forms to record votes rather than single pieces of paper. Another is to use voting machines. But that might be too much like a primary to suit New Hampshire, which jealously guards its first in the nation primary status. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
If you think Santorum can crumble, I don't think you've been keeping up with this issue in a detailed way. Maybe only after a very long time will Santorum crumble, or if it gets very, very cold out. Like Antarctic cold.
Hightop, we disagree a lot, but please promise the board you won't do anything stupid to yourself when Ron Paul does not get the nomination.
I hear Ron Paul is really picking up delegates. All thse delegate #'s you see on TV are just projections. Actual delegate counts won't be determined for a while but I hear there is one precinct in Colorado where the votes were: Santorum 25 Paul 13 Romney 5 Gingrich 5 13 delegates all voted for Paul. http://www.fox19.com/story/16774836...aos-and-why-delegates-are-what-really-matters
RP disruption is in full force! GOP establishment is in turmoil. (that parts true) He definitely a shoe in..... Spoiler
don't you need 1144 delegates to win the nomination? those 13 put him at just over 1% of the way there, watch out Romney!
yeah 1144 is the magic number. Funny thing is, say all 4 of these guys go all the way, Romney has like 1000, Gingrich 450, Santorum 624, Paul 540 or whatever the numbers need to be to calculate to all the delegates.... someone is going to have to budge on their stance to get the other delegates. I think the rule is, delegates are bound once they've voted for their guy in the primary/caucuses but if their candidate drops out, they unbind to vote for whomever is left... they don't HAVE to go to whoever their candidate endorses. Will be interesting to see what happens. And is Paul not as popular as I would expect he would be in Texas? Gingrich is favored to win in TX because of Perry's endorsement.
I'm not saying he will be DOA in two weeks, but Santorum has about a 1% chance to win the nomination. He won't "crumble" if he doesn't climb up high enough to be taken as a serious contender. However, if the press and Romney both start taking him seriously, things will change. When constant national scrutiny and the white hot spotlight start shining on the guy 24/7, he will melt like the others.
Okay, I think I follow you. But there's almost some interesting physics to consider. Climbing Santorum (super-fluidity?) and super-heated Santorum, or at least seeing his absorption characteristics with full spectrum incident light. And I don't want to nitpick over "crumble." Maybe the white hot light can bake him into a crumbling cookie-like object. I just think he's more likely to slowly ooze away -- it will be less dramatic.
