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Ron Paul continues campaigning, but not spending

Simon Gibbs

“Our campaign will continue to work in the state convention process.  We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates, and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that Liberty is the way of the future.

“Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted.  Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.  I encourage all supporters of Liberty to make sure you get to the polls and make your voices heard, particularly in the local, state, and Congressional elections, where so many defenders of Freedom are fighting and need your support.

Ron Paul

According to Sky News that means it’s all over. The momentum is clearly not with Ron Paul, but I’ve been hearing a great deal about internal rules and procedures that seem to put Ron Paul in a disproportionately strong position. A straightforward win is out of the question, but we’ll have to wait and see what the marginal effect that hard work has on the national debate over there, and over here.

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3 responses to “Ron Paul continues campaigning, but not spending”

  1. pavel Avatar
    pavel

    I wouldn’t say his campaigning without success in elections will be useless: after all it’ll spread libertarian ideas in other US-states and potentially in other countries.
    Or have people stopped spending money for his campaign?

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  2. Lucian Avatar
    Lucian

    One other benefit of the convention/delegate strategy is that it is allowing the Ron Paul movement to take control of local and state-level parties and return them to principles of liberty.

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  3. Paul Marks Avatar
    Paul Marks

    Ron Paul’s people have indeed been picking up a lot of delegates – by the method of ignoring (where State party rules allow them to ignore) who actually won the various State primary and caucus contests.

    Romney wins X State, his people then go on to the next – but Paul’s people do not (they look for ways in State Republican party rules to award more delegates to Ron Paul, in some meeting at 0100 in the morning in some isolated house in the woods – which is “open to anyone”).

    This would be an outrage if it gave Ron Paul the nomination (it would be like trade union or Labour party politics in Britain in the early 80s – X has got more votes than Y, but at our meeting it was democratically decided that Y has won), but that is NOT the intention.

    The intention is to influence the PLATFORM – the POLICIES the Republican party will fight on in the November elections.

    Actually I think the Ron Paul team tactics on this are O.K. – after all primary and caucus events are not about deciding policies.

    So it is O.K. for the Ron Paul people to try and get delegates to the Convention by – well by just about any means.

    After all the “Platform” is not compulsory.

    It is just the ADVICE the Convention gives to Republican candidates.

    Why not give advice to get rid of the Patriot Act (and so on)?

    A lot of libertarians will get to go to the Republican Convention in Florida – a GOOD thing.

    Not enough to give Ron Paul the nomination.

    But enough to be a real influence in “Platform” writing.

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