Ron Paul Has Dropped Out of the Presidential Race … Or Has He?

Washington’s BlogTuesday, May 15, 2012

The corporate media is abuzz with headlines saying that Ron Paul has finally seen the light, thrown in the towel, and ended his campaign.

However, Ron Paul supporters believe that – while he won’t be campaigning in the primary states – Paul is still in the race, and will be focusing on winning delegates in caucus states.

For example, Policy Mic argues:

Ron Paul announced today in a letter to supporters that he will not campaign for the popular vote in states that have yet to held their primaries.

In his under-reported IDD strategy (“It’s the Delegates, Dummy”), Paul has focused on the fact that presidential nominees are chosen by delegates, not by popular vote. Paul’s campaign has focused to date especially on states that allow committed Republican Party members to have a greater voice in the process. States like Iowa, Nevada, Maine, Louisiana, Washington, and Colorado have been states where Paul supporters have made tremendous inroads in winning party leadership positions and being influential in the national delegate selection process. While many states have yet to finish the delegate selection process, it increasingly looks like Paul could dominate the nationwide delegate process called long ago in Romney’s favor.

Paul’s announcement today fits that same vein, but will no doubt surprise many of his supporters. Not only is Paul saying “It’s the Delegates Dummy” to Mitt Romney and the national media, he is taking it a step further and saying that spending his supporters’ money on winning the popular vote is of such little importance to the campaign that they aren’t going to waste time or money on that any longer.

Does that mean Paul has dropped out? Quit the race? Suspended his campaign? Packed his bags? Returned home to lil ole Lake Jackson, Texas? No, it means quite the opposite. It means that Paul will have more ability to focus on delegate selection instead of the many upcoming winner take all states.

As has been the case from January 3 – the night of the Iowa Caucus – this is a two man race. It’s Mitt Romney v. Ron Paul. Paul, the seasoned campaigner, will be on Romney’s heels through to the RNC in August. If Romney makes 1,144 delegates on the first ballot, Romney becomes the Republican nominee. If Romney slips, the man on his heels will gladly take his place. That’s been the story since Iowa and remains the story today. The decision remains in the hands of 2,286 Republican delegates, many of whom have yet to be chosen. Will it be more of the same or will it be the man who’s spent some 40 years standing on his principle against the GOP establishment both inside DC and out?

The following videos show that passionate Paul supporters believe that Paul is still in the race:

Is this wishful thinking by Paul supporters … or for real?

Certainly, the timing will strike Paul supporters as odd, given that Paul has picked up a huge number of delegates in recent weeks, and the fact is starting to be known that delegates pledged to Romney canswitch their vote at will.

But mixed messages are coming out of the Paul camp … even as they claim that Paul is still in the race.

As senior Paul adviser Doug Wead writes today:

“We are absolutely not dropping out of this race! We are focusing our efforts squarely on winning delegates and party leadership positions at state conventions.”

- Jesse Benton, Campaign Chairman

Ron Paul announced today he would not be competing in the upcoming primary states, saying that he would focus, instead, on his delegate strategy. A strategy that is working, by the way, and transforming the Republican Party. It is something he has said many times since the February 11, 2012 caucus in Maine.

Only this time, the main stream media gave the announcement full attention and treated it like the end of his campaign. Drudge ran it as a front page headline “Ron Paul is out.”

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For the last two years the national media has been saying that Ron Paul is out. So how could that possibly be news? One might ask, “When has the mainstream media ever thought that Ron Paul was in?”

Bracing for a Ron Paul win in Iowa, major new outlets last January announced that if he won, the Iowa Caucus, itself, would be discredited. According to the New York Times and the Associated Press, Ron Paul is still listed as the recipient of one, count em, one delegate from Iowa, a state that he now dominates.

Likewise, the fact that Ron Paul supporters took a big chunk of the delegation of Mitt Romney’s home state of Massachusetts was not big news.

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By ending the primary battles, Ron Paul is signalling to the field that this is the end of hostilities. In primaries you end up tearing each other down. It is millions of dollars spent on negative advertising. In caucuses, as brutal as they may be, you change the Republican Party, you empower the new and challenge the established.

The delegate strategy is working. That is the way we will impact the platform in Tampa. That is the way we will begin the process of change. It is through the caucuses that we are attracting youth, like the twenty-one year old woman recently elected to the national committee from Maine or the Ron Paul Hispanics or the Independents who have never been involved in party politics.

***Our people have been punched, yelled at, lied to and worked until they can hardly stand. But on they come, fighting for their children, fighting for their future, angry at the corruption of the banks, of Wall Street, of the lobbyists, of the congress, of the White House. The battle for liberty is not over. It has just taken on a new phase. It cannot be stopped by the national media. If that were the case it would never have been born in the first place.

And some will say that it is a lost cause, which I will not concede but it does remind me of Clarence Darrow’s famous line, “Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.”