The Secret of The 2012 Election (United States)

The Secret of The 2012 Election (United States)

Hello. I know a lot of those that are watching U.S. politics are thinking that this election is between incumbent president Barack Obama, and presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. However, to the shock of many of you, the competition for the Republican nomination is not over by any means. Here, I will compile the data, showing that surprisingly, Ron Paul has a fighting chance of snatching the Republican nomination out of the hands of Mitt Romney.

First, I should explain how the convention works. From the months of January to July, each of the fifty states, plus 6 major territories, will go through the process of electing their share of republican representatives, called delegates. The 2,286 delegates elected will meet in Tampa, Florida from August 27 to August 30 in order to decide the Republican nominee. A majority of delegates, 1,144 in all, must vote for a certain candidate in order to win the nomination. If this is not the case, the delegates will discuss who is the best candidate for the presidency, and in a few hours they will vote again. Usually, by the time of the convention, people know who has won the race, and  thus the convention acts only as a ceremony to officially crown the nominee, like John McCain or George W. Bush. Thus, the mainstream media, in collusion with Mitt Romney supporters, have pretended that Romney had already won in order to pressure delegates to vote for Romney at the convention.

First of all, the alliance of a large portion of other candidates’ delegates gets Ron Paul a considerable portion of delegates to start with. Depending on what source one has, between 200 and 250 delegates are Rick Santorum supporters, and between 125 to 175 delegates are Newt Gingrich. These delegates have had a tendency to vote for Paul over Romney, as he shares many more issues with them than Romney, and they like his consistency. This is shown by their alliance with Paul in practically every state where they hold a large portion of the delegates, such as Oklahoma, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Kansas, etc. This constitutes about 350 delegates, with an estimated 300 delegates for Paul.

Second of all, Paul won a very large portion of delegates from a very large portion of rural states. For example, according to RT, he has won the plurality of delegates from Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Afterwards, he won Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia. All combined, that is 19 states, with 671 delegates coming out of them, most of which are giving upwards of 70% of their delegates to Paul, with another 15% being Gingrich or Santorum supporters who lean very heavily toward Paul’s movement. With the information shown above, these states will likely give between 550 to 600 delegates to Paul.

Finally, I would like to point out that the delegations from Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas, and about 3/5 of the super-delegates are uncomitted, and are therefore up for grabs. That may not seem like a lot of delegates, but those states and super-delegates constitute more than 300 delegates, a share of more than 13% of the convention. Also, we don’t really know what happened in Arkansas, California, Ohio, and Oregon as the state parties are extremely vague about how these delegates are assigned, and the delegate results have not been released. These four states give 299 delegates, which represents yet another 13% of the convention.

In conclusion, the statement that Ron Paul is out of the running is an absolute fallacy. Much like in the 50’s and before, no one really knows what will happen at the convention, but it is clear that a Paul vs. Romney race is at hand in the Tampa Convention.

Thank you all for reading, and I will see you next time.