In an effort to keep the power to choose the Republican presidential nominee in the hands of Party insiders, the establishment Republican Party has adopted a vast array of complex, onerous and expensive rules candidates must follow in order to claim delegates to the Republican National Convention.



So what happens when those rules don’t produce the result the Party Godfathers planned?



They ignore the rules or change them after the fact.



In Michigan, the state GOP acted after the close primary between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum to award Romney an extra delegate to the Convention. And Congressman Ron Paul’s supporters have been finding out in state after state that it is easier to show-up to the caucuses than it is to actually claim the fruits of having the most votes.



In the latest example of a disturbing pattern at Republican local and state conventions and caucuses, Ron Paul supporters turned out in force at the Louisiana state convention only to be denied the voice they thought they had earned based on Paul’s performance in the April local caucuses.



Louisiana’s delegate selection process is typical of the complex system Republican insiders have crafted in state after state.



Louisiana has a three-part process in which Rick Santorum won the Louisiana Republican primary election, where Congressman Paul placed fourth -- but delegates would also be allotted based on caucuses held in April, where Paul performed strongly.



The final delegate selection was to take place at the Louisiana Republican State Convention hosted in Shreveport this past weekend.



Did you follow all that?



When the Paul supporters showed-up to claim the voice at the Republican National Convention they thought they had earned, they discovered Louisiana Republican officials planned to use what Paul national campaign manager John Tate termed, “illegally adopted rules to deny Ron Paul supporters an opportunity to attend the Republican National Convention…”



We don’t know the merits of the Paul campaign’s claims in Louisiana. However, their treatment by the establishment Republican bosses fits a pattern. In Iowa, first Romney won, then Santorum really won, then there were the disputed Maine caucuses, then the state parties of Florida and Arizona gave Romney all their delegates, when the Party rules appeared to call for proportional allocation... in every dispute, the calls have always gone against the conservative candidates.



Whatever happened in Louisiana, this year’s Republican primary process has certainly left many conservative and Tea Party activists with the clear understanding that the Republican Party’s rules are stacked against them, and that the establishment GOP leadership is a lot more interested in preserving its power than it is in building a grassroots majority.