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All of this means the GOP can no longer ignore its libertarian fringe. On the contrary, it will have to reach out to a newgeneration of activists who don t regard religious piety orcontinual warfare as sacred tenets of conservatism, wrote Oxford University historian Timothy Stanley in a CNN opinion column last week. Let s back up a bit and recap, shall we? On Sunday in Augusta, Maine , Paul supporter Brent Tweed narrowly won the election to chair thestate s GOP convention. From there, he presided over a meetingthat ended up with Paul winning 18 of the state s 24 delegates toTampa. Romney narrowly won Maine s caucus straw poll earlier this year.But that was a nonbinding beauty contest. Sunday s vote was whatreally counted. In Sparks, Nev. , the result was even more one-sided. Paul supporters won 22 of 25delegates up for selection. But Nevada s caucuses, unlike Maine s, were binding on delegates. Somedelegates were also awarded on an at-large basis. The bottom line:In the first round of voting in Tampa, 20 Nevada delegates arebound to Romney, and eight are free to vote for Paul, no mattertheir personal preference. But that may not be the full story. Paul s forces are not bound tomake it easy for Romney to coast to victory, as delegate selectionexpert Josh Putnam, a Davidson College political scientist, writes on his Frontloading HQ blog. Paul s highly organized campaign continues to amass what Mr.Putnam labels stealth delegates delegates pledged to Romney,or one of the withdrawn GOP candidates who are personally infavor of the libertarian congressman from Texas . It s hard to determine how many such folks Paul has, or whatthey ll do in Tampa. For instance, what if Paul supporters who are bound to vote forRomney in the first round by state rules simply abstain fromcasting their ballots? That might keep Romney under the 1,144 voteshe needs to win the nomination even if he actually (sort of) hasthose votes in hand! This is a tricky maneuver, but not one that is prohibited by theRepublican Party delegate selection rules, writes Putnam in alengthy post devoted to the ways Paul could make trouble forRomney. Again, this would be unlikely to prevent Romney from actuallywinning the nomination eventually. But it would prompt anembarrassing floor fight and expose rifts in the party at the verymoment the Romney forces would most want to show a united front tothe world. Another unknown here is whether Paul wants to push things this far.Does he just want a good convention speaking slot, or influence onthe party platform? Or does he want to win? Is Paul after the nomination? I don t know. But his supporterssure are, writes Putnam. In any case, Paul s weekend victories have left Romney supportersin Maine and Nevada fuming. In Maine, Romney backer Craig Cragin called the turn of events atthe state convention bizarre, according to the Bangor Daily News. Mr. Cragin also predicted that the Paul people had violated rulesin Augusta and thus would not even make it to the nationalconvention in late summer. They have so phenomenally screwed this up that they will go toTampa and not be seated, Cragin said. I am an expert from baby-bedrails.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Portable Bed Rails Manufacturer , Baby Feeding Chair Manufacturer, Baby Bed Rails,and more.
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