Selecting National Convention Delegates

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello bacchus,

 

 

Paul, Santorum and Gingrich supporters are getting together because politics makes strange bedfellows!

 

Delegates to the state convention had to be elected by a majority vote, but none of the candidates had a majority elected as precinct delegates.

 

The Republican regulars who have run the Republican legislative district put together a slate of mostly THEMSELVES, which included mostly Romney people plus some Santorun and Gingrich supporters.

 

Of course, people could run on their own as individuals, but were not likely to attract a majority vote by that method.

 

Santorum and Paul suppoters had about the same number of delegates. Each could have put forward a slate of just their delegates, but these slates would have been defeated for lack of receiving a majority vote.

 

In the absence of a better strategy, the "Unity Slate" of Republican regulars would have won all the delegate and alternate seats to the convention.

 

To avoid rewarding Romney, the Paul, Gingrich and Santorum Delegates decided to form a joint slate of delegates, sharing delegate slots among all three of those candidates.

 

By doing that, we could and did shut out the Romney folks from sending ANY delegates to the state convention, while sharing all the delegate slots among ourselves on an equitable basis.

 

At a meeting held before the caucus, a former District Chair attended, trying to get Santorum and Gingrich supporters to support their slate, and describing Paul as being, "The Devil," ---literally. No love lost there!

 

By co-operating, the Gingrich, Paul and Santorum delegates formed a majority that controlled the selection of all the delegates and alternates.

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

I was asked this morning to help set up this kind of coalition slate at another legislative district caucus that will be meeting this next Saturday.

 

Unfortunately, they had their meeting to plan strategy last night, too late for me to attend. And I have a Bobcat Den hike and hot dog roast on Saturday, so I wont be able to help with that one.

 

Perhaps another though. Promotion to leadership positions or being a political adviser can be rapid in political campaigns!

[NJCubScouter]

bacchus,

 

SP did not say that Santorum is joining forces with Gingrich and Paul. He said that Santorum wants to maximize his delegates at the convention. It sounds like the Washington State supporters of Santorum are trying to do this by teaming up with the other candidates' supporters and each getting some delegates to the state convention, while denying Romney any delegates. That way, at the state convention, they can try to have some Santorum delegates elected and minimize the delegates for Romney. It doesn't sound like it has much to do with ideology to me, it's just strategy for the national convention.

 

And what would be the goal of that strategy? Maybe Santorum is angling for the VP nomination. (Unlikely he would want it, even more unlikely he would get it, but stranger things have happened and it would be understandable strategy on Romney's part, see Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, 1980.) Maybe Santorum wants to influence the choice of VP, if he doesn't get it himself. Maybe he would want a cabinet post to position himself for a future run for President. (Santorum has time. He turns 54 next month; if Romney won two terms and Santorum ran again in 2020, he would still be 10 years younger than John McCain was in 2008.) Maybe he (and the other non-winning candidates) want to influence the party platform at the national convention. Maybe he wants louder applause when he speaks at the convention. Or maybe it is some combination of the above, or something else I haven't thought of.

 

Every delegate that Santorum has, and Romney doesn't have, potentially increases Santorum's chances of advancing his strategy, whatever it may be.

[NJCubScouter]

Seattle Pioneer for Governor!

 

As long its several thousand miles away from my state; you're way too conservative for me.

[scoutingagain]

I suspect Rick Santorum has little to do with this and it is more the political upstarts tweaking the establishment. Good for them.

 

SA

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bacchus]

Seattle,

My concerns are still the same, but good answers.

 

So what do you think of the #WarOnDogs and #ObamaDogRecipes ?

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

Heh, heh! There's certainly some of that!

 

Santorum's public message is that despite his suspension of campaigning, he wants to maximize the number of delegates he has at the national convention. I'm sure Gingrich and Paul want to do the same.

 

The nominal goal is to prevent Romney from acquiring the majority of delegates he needs to be nominated, however unlikely that is at this point.

 

To do that, a main goal needs to be to minimize the number of delegates Romney gets.

 

So a joint slate with Gingrich and Paul makes good political sense.

 

In addition to that, going to the state convention is a hoot and a fun and educational activity. Why give Romney people that plum when we can divide the plum among our three campaigns?

 

So we are willingly doing what many people want to see happen in politics: cooperating and sharing to promote a common political strategy.

 

Too bad Santorum, Gingrich and Paul couldn't find a way to have a common, cooperative strategy against Romney on the campaign trail. That might have shut him out of the race rather than holding all the marbles.

 

Plus it was great fun leaving the party regulars in the dust last Saturday! They are used to winning and very likely thought they had a winning strategy.

 

I bear the Romney folks and the regulars no ill will. They ran a fair and honest caucus and allowed themselves to be beaten in a fair and honest way. I will be glad to support Romney when he is the Republican Party nominee.

[scoutingagain]

Looks like the other states where delegates are selected by caucus followed Washington's lead.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/ron-paul-wins-big-maine-nevada-212300254.html

 

SA

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

I've been told that in order to be eligible to be nominated at the Republican National Convention, a candidate must have won a minimum of five states. Paul has won none.

 

So while Paul, Santorum, Gingrich and other candidates can send delegates. only Santorum meets that standard and is actually eligible to be entered as a nominee if he wishes to do so.

 

Santorum hasn't dropped out of the race, he has "suspended" his campaign.

[BS-87]

I've been told that in order to be eligible to be nominated at the Republican National Convention, a candidate must have won a minimum of five states. Paul has won none.

 

You've been given a half-truth.

 

In order to be eligible to be nominated at the Republican National Convention, a candidate must be nominated by a plurality of delegates to the National Convention from at least 5 State Delegations.

 

Delegates bound to vote for a candidate may act as they wish at any point in the process other than the first X ballots when voting for a Presidential Candidate, with X being the number of ballots they're bound to voting for a particular nominee. This means that if the plurality of delegates from at least five states want to nominate Ron Paul, they can even if they're bound to vote for Romney.

 

You can expect MN, MA, ME, IA, and NV to nominate Paul from the results coming in so far.

 

Other likely Paul nominators will include LA, WA, ND, AK, and CO. There may even be more.

 

While this by no means ensures victory for Paul, it will definitely be embarrassing for Romney.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello BS-87,

 

 

Thanks for providing the additional detail.

 

As you can see from my earlier posts, the Santorum, Gingrich and Paul delegates cooperated to send our own slate of delegates to the Washington State Republican convention, defeating the Romney Regulars.

 

I haven't heard of what efforts will be made to organize a similar slate at the State convention.

 

Our Congressional District caucus will elect three delegates and three alternates to the National convention. I doubt that Paul will have the delegates to elect just Paul delegates.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens. The smart move by Paul delegates is to probably forge a joint slate with Gingrich and Santorum delegates, but that might well mean one delegate from each of those three camps.

 

On the bright side, it would mean NO Romney delegates.

 

 

Personally, I have no hostility towards Romney and expect to support him once he is nominated.

[bacchus]

"it will definitely be embarrassing for Romney."

 

It still looks like this is the primary motivating factor.

[Beavah]

Yah, this is hysterical, eh?

 

The Ron Paul group have always had a better ground game than the party bigwig "regulars". Last time around they were playin' by the book but learnin' the ropes, and their candidate and ideas got ignored. This time, they're runnin' a real, genuine, grass roots insurgency. Takin' down the party establishment precinct by precinct, district by district, state by state.

 

Given da behavior of most of the Republican bigwigs of late, it's hard not to cheer for a true insurgency that's tryin' to upset the apple cart, even if it is a bit quixotic.

 

What's amusin' is that the media is just wakin' up to this with the Ron Paul win in Maine. He's been layin' out this strategy for months now.

 

B

 

[scoutingagain]

"You can expect MN, MA, ME, IA, and NV to nominate Paul from the results coming in so far."

 

Really? Massachusetts Republicans won't even nominate Romney? Wow. This really is entertaining. Love to see how the Romney folks spin that one.

 

SA

 

 

 

 

 

[BS-87]

Even Massachusetts.

 

http://www.therightperspective.org/2012/04/30/ron-paul-scores-massachusetts-delegates/

 

Beavah's right, the insurgency is fun to watch.

 

Watching Romney's camp flounder with nothing to do but watch projected Romney delegates slide over to confirmed Paul delegates with their internal counts starting to shrink far short of what the press is projecting for him.

 

Paul's showing what it means to not need a majority, just a 10% that's very ticked off, to have a revolution.

 

If 2012 isn't critical mass, the next real GOP Primary may very well be, whether that's 2016 or 2020.