Sen. John McCain may have beaten out his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, but he hasn't driven a stake through the heart of Ron Paul's campaign, as this L.A. Times Blog article reminds us. We have seen how fanatical Dr. Paul's supporters have been, so we cannot dismiss them out of hand.
"But in the meantime, quietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in Minnesota at the beginning of September....
"...But what's been largely overlooked is Paul's candidacy as a reflection of a powerful lingering dissatisfaction with the Arizona senator among the party's most conservative conservatives. As anticipated in late March in The Ticket, that situation could be exacerbated by today's expected announcement from former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia for the Libertarian Party's presidential nod, a slot held by Paul in 1988....
"According to a recent Boston Globe tally, Paul has a grand total of 19 Republican delegates to Romney's 260, Huckabee's 286 and McCain's 1,413.
"In the last three months, Paul's forces, who donated $34.5 million to his White House effort and upward of a million total votes, have, as The Ticket has noted, been fighting a series of guerrilla battles with party establishment officials at county and state conventions from Washington and Missouri to Maine and Mississippi. Their goal: to take control of local committees, boost their delegate totals and influence platform debates.
"Paul, for instance, favors a drastically reduced federal government, abolishing the Federal Reserve, ending the Iraq war immediately and withdrawing U.S. troops from abroad.
"They hope to demonstrate their disagreements with McCain vocally at the convention through platform fights and an attempt to get Paul a prominent speaking slot. Paul, who's running unopposed in his home Texas district for an 11th House term, still has some $5 million in war funds and has instructed his followers that their struggle is not about a single election, but a long-term revolution for control of the Republican Party.
"So eager are they to follow their leader's words, that Paul's supporters have driven his new book, "The Revolution: A Manifesto," to the top of several bestseller lists."
Here's an article about former Rep. Bob Barr's announcement that he will be the Libertarian Party's candidate for President.
A Newsmax article says that Gov. Mike Huckabee is on the top of McCain's list of potential running mates. Despite the objections that have been raised to such a pairing, the fact remains that Huckabee did very well in the South, a region that Sen. McCain absolutely needs to hold on to, so he could have a chance of winning the November election.
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