Ron Paul Supporter Sues NV GOP

RGJ.com: Inside Nevada Politics

Wayne Terhune filed a 20 page lawsuit seeking to prevent the Nevada Republican Party from "phoning in" their appointed delegates to the National Convention during a planned conference call. Terhune is joined by 27 other plaintiffs, according to Anjeanette Damon of the Reno-Gazette Journal.

The complaint accuses the party of mismanaging the April 26 state convention and seeking to usurp the delegates' right to elect a slate to the national convention in Minneapolis. It also criticizes state Sen. Bob Beers, the original convention chair, calling him "clearly not neutral" and "clearly unqualified."

Terhune accuses the party of acting "intentionally to bring this about once they realized the results of the voting...would not go as (they) planned."

"At very least, defendants acted with reckless disregard for established law and rules," the lawsuit states.

Ah, the Republicans, too, have to deal with these sudden outbreaks of democracy. And while Ron Paul has withdrawn from the race, apparently The Revolution Continues.

Illustration : Ron Paul Revolution! by dailypaul
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Ron Paul, Change and Obama

As some or all of you know, I no longer endorse Ron Paul for President. That was a very reluctant choice, for at heart I am a Conservative. Indeed, I am a some senses a Paleo-conservative, even as is Alex Jones.

I have come to the decision that for the moment, at this particular time, what is needed is another FDR. As a reflexive conservative, I of course despise all that Franlin D. Roosevelt stood for - and yet as an American - and indeed, as a Canadian, I stand upon his legacy.

As a Canadian-American, I have come to the realization that at some points in time, one must allow Radicalism to reign, in order to rationalize, regulate and restate it in terms of the status quo ante.

For some time past - and I include the Clinton years in this - we have haplessly drifted rightward, to the land of "I don't give a fuck about you."

Taken in isolation, Bill Clinton was one of the best Republican Presidents of the last Century - and all the things he is given credit for, the balanced budget, "Welfare Reform" and the surplus are things that are honestly things that are triumphs of a deliberately Conservative leadership. One can also point to the economic prosperity under Clinton - and the corresponding growth in enterprises such as privatized prisons - as being indicative as the objectives and fruits of a genuinely Conservative president.

Clearly, when Bill Clinton is held up by the Right as the Great Demon of the Left, it is time for the People to demand a correction toward the Center.

That is what happened with FDR, and that is what is going to happen with Obama. Yes, he is more "radical" than what we are accustomed to - but in point of fact, "radicalism" and "conservatism" have never been strange bedfellows.

Scratch a genuine conservative and you will find an idealist, one who genuinely believes that the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Deceleration of Independence are all fundamental to that which is quintessentially American.

American Conservatism is built upon extremely radical ideas - the sovereignty of the individual, as advised by the wisdom of crowds and the power of open and honest debate among equals - regardless of social advantages.

Ron Paul has overstepped his place if he genuinely desires to be President. Or rather, he would be wasted in that capacity, would find it an infuriating and demeaning exercise in compromise and would, alas, find himself unable to implement or even effectively express his best ideas.

Further, I'm afraid that in order to become more universally appealing, he would have to revise his views regarding abortion and the rights of women.

And yet, and as much as I disagree with him on these points, I find his refusal to cede a matter of principle in order to gain a scintilla of political momentum to be genuinely endearing. Indeed, the less I find Ron Paul to be eligible as my choice of president, the more I find him to be one of the few people I really wish to know.

I endorse and support Obama. That does not mean that I particularly care if I like him as an individual.

I LIKE Ron Paul. And the more I like him, the less willing I am for him to be thrown under the bus of History.

Let us face it. FDR, whatever else you may say about him, was a martyr to the cause of these United States. He chose to sacrifice what remained of his life for his country, and I think it a good thing that we have enacted term limits so that no others may answer the call to that degree.

Did he made the choices I would have? No. Not. At. All.

Ever.

And yet, grudgingly, I must admit something - his choices worked out about as well as my vision would have in theory. But in fact, his vision worked out in practice. So, as radical as FDR was at the time, HIS vision brought us a stable status quo that held far, far longer than his tenure; indeed, it lasted until the Neocons who desire to dismantle every vestige of it.

And as Dr. Phil is wont to say: "How's that workin' out for you?"

Ron Paul represents a very old tradition within American politics, one that predates Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and even the majority of Whigs. He represents the best of both Jefferson and Hamilton who, if they agreed on anything, agreed upon a common standard upon which disagreement could be based.

Both Hamilton and Jefferson were men of substantial property. Indeed, in terms of effective wealth and influence, both would be billionaires today. Each gained their wealth by different means, and each viewed that wealth in different ways, but neither could conceivably be considered to be unbiased by it. And as far as I know, both knew the importance of real, hard, inarguable cash money as a foundation to the economy.

Further, and obviously, I think both would concede that the Federal Reserve is largely a scam.

I cannot go farther than that. For myself, I think it a scam that has achieved real positives - but I think also that it's time has come and gone.

Further than that, I giggle shamelessly in the face of an economy based on gold or silver, though I think currency minted of these metals would go a long way toward reestablishing faith in it's "basement value."

That is to say, I would approve of a dollar that is worth no less than once ounce fine silver, as constitutionally defined - but I would not at all object to it being worth so much more that we regularly use paper Yen as small change.

Or so I believe in my ignorance, and in this regard, I commend Ron Paul to Barack Obama, who probably knows no more about the function of currency in the economy than do I.

What I do know - and this is for sure - is that neither man has the entirety of understanding required to repair our economy and our personal self-confidence. Even including John Edwards' perspective, I come to this conclusion so I must say that if Obama cannot include Ron Paul in his official Cabinet - he should include him in his Kitchen Cabinet. The man has earned that place, if only by making a Fed chairman cry in front of Congress.

Voter to donor metric says Paul can win Iowa

Supporters of Paul point out that a potentially unbiased metric of a candidate’s support is the number of donors to the campaign in relation to the number of votes a candidate will get. On a post on the LewRockwell.com Blog the issue of the voter donor ratio in Iowa is examined pointing to the possibility of a Ron Paul upset victory.

read more | digg story
(Please digg this story at the above link.)

Here's what they say at Lou's place:

There has been some speculation out there that counting the number of donors to a campaign can determine and multiplying it by a given voter-to-donor ratio, the number of votes can be determined. According to Jim Babka, Paul would need a voter:donor ratio of 22:1 to 28:1 in order to capture 1/3rd of the caucus vote and win (22:1 at 80,000 GOP caucus-goers, and 28:1 with 100,000 GOP caucus-goers). Although voter:donor ratios are hard to come by, I looked at the number of donors prior to the 2004 Democratic Iowa caucus and the number of votes that candidate received (via OpenSecrets.org).

In the '04 Iowa Democratic Caucus, the candidate with the worst (lowest) voter:donor ratio was Dennis Kucinich, with 49 Iowa donors prior to the vote -- which yielded him 1588 votes and a voter:donor ratio of 32:1. If Ron Paul even achieved this low ratio (with his ~1,200 Iowa donors), he would win hands down.

No wonder Faux News is excluding him from the debates. And frankly, I think the smartest thing that could be done at this point would be for the DEMOCRATS to invite him to theirs.

Not sure it would be smart of Paul to accept - but damn, what a publicity coup THAT would be. As I pointed out in an earlier post today, this is not a voting bloc that is going to go home after the primaries. Either the Dems as a whole fight for it's attention - by paying homage to what it's demanding of Paul and expecting him to do - or they may as well kiss a brand new, largely unexplored voting bloc goodbye.

That - or if Paul doesn't get the Republican nomination, it either mounts the largest write-in campaign in US history, or falls in step with whoever is smart enough to say "Ron Paul is right - or at least, largely correct." Right now, that's Kucinich.

This presages another, even more important thing. Political apathy, which both political parties have relied upon for the best part of fifty years, is a thing of the past for a large chunk of the public, left, right, center and variable.

As a Centrist Libertarian, I'm not at all happy with a number of Ron Paul's ideas, because I believe that what little government that exists, should exist for the people as a whole, maximizing liberty across the board. That requires some things - such as universal, single-payer, transportable health care and a robust and unified unemployment/welfare system that is transportable from state to state, so that labor can actually keep up with shifts in demographics.

I also tend to think that a work force that is backed that way will tend to be more productive and far less stressed than our current one, while US companies will be far more competitive than they are now. In other words, it will reduce the necessity to offshore jobs.

But of course Paul and I differ on those points - as well as the far more important matter of the separation of Church and State.

So, while I can no longer personally support Ron Paul - it's absolutely impossible to ignore the most interesting political phenomenon in my memory - what amounts to a peaceful, political revolution, lead by a man as bemused by it as his opponents are. Ron Paul has gone viral - and whatever happens to Ron, it's a hardy virus that isn't likely to respond well to repressive remedies.

Ron Paul - the strength of ten, for his support is pure.

Donklephant » Blog Archive » Ron Paul: Will Online Turn Into Offline?: "

“I think that’s what’s the most fascinating … how Ron Paul will do,” says Julie Germany, deputy director of George Washington University’s Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. “His supporters have overwhelmingly been on the internet,” where blog rankings, YouTube videos and enthusiastic forum participation make his support appear “two or three times what it really is.”

Again, I think this could either be a turning point for Paul or a sign that he may need to think about running on a 3rd party ticket. Somehow I think it’s going to be the latter, given how much Romney is spending…"

The comments show something I've been noticing for some time now; even the reasonable political junkies simply do not understand that whatever you think of Ron Paul, his support comes from what may as well be an unseen paralell universe. While his polling may be low, there are two factors that make those numbers questionable at best - first, many RP supporters don't have landlines. Second, a huge percentage are not and never were "Likely voters."

For myself, I tend to analyze things like this from a different perspective; I figure for everyone motivated enough to go out and stand in the cold waving a sign, there are probably ten that will be motivated enough to vote for Ron Paul in a nice warm voting booth- if only as a seeming "none of the above" vote.

Hell, it's about the only choice for Republicans that want to be able to sleep at night - and he's attractive to Conservative Democrats as well. The accusations of racism haven't hurt him at ALL in that quarter. Sadly, it's quite possibly a very significant quarter.

Read the comments at the link above; this is a voting bloc that is not going away. It won't fade out, and it will continue to strongly impact the political process, whatever the "politics as usual" folks think about it. If Ron Paul drops out, the movement will pick someone else - and it could easily be Dennis Kucinich, seeing as Paul has all but personally endorsed him. This is a movement that concentrates on principles, not "opportunity politics."

And overwhelmingly, it demands wholesale, PRINCIPLED reform of the political and governmental process.

From my perspective, Ron is far from my ideal candidate, and I'm on record stating why, but the Ron Paul Revolution itself is largely independent of candidate, campaign, and established parties, which is it's power and it's saving grace.

Given that the overall results of the election will likely put a solid majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress, possibly even a Progressive plurality, Ron Paul is likely to be even more attractive to Independents as being a solid Constitutional Conservative and a natural check on the "tax and spend" governance that many fear, reasonably or not.