When asked in front of a national audience this week to defend his ability to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Ron Paul responded by emphasizing the real contest: the race for delegates.
“The delegates [are] what counts,” Paul said at the NBC presidential debate in Tampa, Fla., after noting that the Iowa caucuses (in which Paul placed third) did not award a single delegate to a candidate. The caucuses are just the starting point for a long delegate awarding process in that state.
Paul didn’t win any of the first three nominating contests, and he plans to largely ignore Florida’s winner-take-all primary on Tuesday in favor of focusing on states that hold caucuses, like Nevada, Maine and Minnesota. By picking up delegates in nearly every state, Paul and his supporters could potentially wreak havoc at the Republican nominating convention this August.
“We’re going to be in until it’s mathematically impossible for us to win,” Gary Howard, a spokesman for Paul, told Yahoo News in the spin room after a debate last week in Charleston, S.C. “It’s going to be a long time.”
While others woo Florida, Ron Paul’s strategy is to rack up delegates in February [continued]
