> Yes, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the Nevada caucuses in
> February, capturing 50 percent of the vote.

> Why then did last weekend’s headlines read that Texas Rep. Ron Paul won
> almost all of Nevada’s national delegates?

> For that, we have the country’s cumbersome and arcane system for
> nominating presidential candidates to blame. You see, a simple vote
> doesn’t determine the winner when you’re talking presidential politics.

> Here is a six-part primer to help you make sense of the strange results
> and what it all means once Republicans arrive in Tampa, Fla., for their
> national convention.

> How could Romney win the caucuses but Paul win the conventions?

> The caucuses — which Romney won handily — are simply the first step in
> selecting delegates to the national convention, which in modern times has
> become a highly choreographed coronation of the party’s presidential
> nominee.

> At the caucuses, delegates to the county convention are elected. At the
> county convention, state delegates are elected. And at the state
> convention, national delegates are elected.

> Generally, it doesn’t matter who actually goes as a delegate because the
> nominee is already decided.

> In this case, Paul’s supporters have decided to see the process through,
> flooding the conventions at the county and state levels with enough
> supporters to elect Paul loyalists to the national convention.

> But aren’t they subverting the will of the voters?

> Romney’s campaign might argue that. Indeed, he won 16,486 votes in the
> caucus to Paul’s 6,175.

> But Paul’s supporters reject the notion that they’re subverting anything,
> noting they are simply seeing the entire process through. The caucuses and
> primaries are almost never the last word on who becomes the nominee.

> Generally, when one candidate opens up an insurmountable lead, the other
> candidates will drop out and all of the delegates will back the nominee
> apparent. Paul is intent on testing the question of: Well, what happens if
> you don’t drop out?

> His effort isn’t entirely unprecedented.

> In 2008, the Democratic primary dragged on until summer, with neither
> Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton locking up enough delegate wins to
> determine a clear front-runner.

> In that case, both campaigns’ supporters turned out in force to the county
> and state conventions in Nevada to ensure their opponent didn’t gain an
> upper hand in the delegate count.

> Why does it matter if Paul loyalists go to Tampa?

> Paul will send 22 loyalists to Tampa. Romney will send six.

> But to win its coveted early caucus state status, Nevada had to promise to
> make the results of the caucus binding. Under those rules, 20 of the
> national delegates must vote for Romney on the first round of balloting
> and eight must vote for Paul.

> But if for some reason Romney doesn’t get 1,144 delegate votes at the
> national convention — or 50 percent — another round of balloting is held
> and all of the delegates are free to vote for whoever they please.

> If Paul delegates succeed in capturing a majority of delegates from just
> five states — which they are well on their way to accomplishing — they can
> nominate Paul from the convention floor.

> Of course, they’d still need 1,144 votes to crown him the nominee.

> What about Rule 38?

> And here enters the endless arguments over how to interpret the Republican
> Party’s arcane nominating rules.

> Rule 38 is a favorite of Paul supporters because it seems to imply that
> the state is not allowed to bind delegates at all.

> Referred to as the Unit Rule, the measure says “no delegate or alternate
> delegate shall be bound” by any state’s attempt to impose the “unit rule.”

> According to Josh Putnam, a scholar on the presidential nominating process
> at Davidson College in North Carolina, the rule is a throwback from the
> days when party bosses would strong-arm a state delegation into backing a
> single candidate.

> Most party officials and observers say it doesn’t apply to states that
> have binding caucuses.

> The problem for the Republican National Committee, as Putnam notes, is
> that the rule is still on the books and opens up an interpretation
> argument for Paul’s backers.

> RNC rules clearly say a delegate can abstain from the vote. Wouldn’t that
> set Paul loyalists free from voting for Romney?

> Well, probably not.

> In practice, when a majority of delegates decide they are going to abstain
> from the nominating vote, that state’s delegation is skipped over in the
> roll call.

> Putnam said the rules aren’t clear what happens after all of the states
> vote and the skipped states get a second shot at it. If they abstain
> again, it could create an endless “feedback loop where the convention gets
> stuck.”

> But Nevada Republican Secretary Jim DeGraffenreid notes that the roll-call
> vote doesn’t allow individual delegates to shout out their vote.

> Instead, the delegation chair submits the state’s total. In Nevada’s case,
> the chair would shout out 20 votes for Romney and eight for Paul.

> Any delegate looking to circumvent that bind would likely be replaced by
> an alternate delegate, DeGraffenreid said. And all of the alternates
> elected at the state convention are Romney supporters.

> So, if Paul’s supporters can’t nominate him, what’s the point of all this
> work?

> First, it’s not totally impossible — highly unlikely, but not out of the
> realm of possibility — for Paul to put together a patchwork collection of
> 1,144 national delegates. They could potentially win over delegates from
> the failed presidential bids of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum or
> continue on their caucus-state strategy of controlling state conventions.

> But in the end, not all of them are convinced that the only victory is the
> nomination. They want to infuse the Republican Party with Paul’s brand of
> libertarian, isolationist and small-government politics. With enough
> supporters at the national convention, they’ll receive national news
> coverage, could influence the platform and even make life difficult enough
> for Romney that he’s forced to reach some kind of deal with Paul.

> “Romney would have to give something,” said Carl Bunce, Paul’s Nevada
> chairman. “Who knows what that could be? It depends on how many delegates
> we get and how much leverage we have.”

> Putnam said the RNC and Romney will be highly motivated to avoid any
> disruption to their choreographed convention.

> “This potentially could be very messy for them,” Putnam said. “It would
> behoove them to come up with whatever they can to avoid that.”

> --
> Obama's black racist USAG appointee.

> Eric Holder, racist black United States Attorney General drops voter
> intimidation charges against the Black Panthers,  "You are about to be
> ruled by the black man, cracker!"

> Eric Holder, prejudiced black United States Attorney General settles the
> hate crime debate, "Whites Not Protected by Hate Crime Laws."

> Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
> former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New
> York's million dollar tax evasion.

> Barack Obama and Eric Holder,  committed treason by knowingly and
> deliberately arming enemies of the United States of America through
> Operation Fast and Furious.  Complicit in the murder of Federal employees
> during the execution of their duties.

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