The Texas congressman said that he’ll continue trying to rack up delegates. | REUTERS Ron Paul's message to the GOP

Ron Paul sent a message to the GOP establishment Monday that he’s not looking to cause mayhem at this summer’s Republican National Convention.

By announcing that he won’t compete in the remaining primaries, Paul tacitly assured the party that he didn’t intend to disrupt the likely Tampa coronation of Mitt Romney. And he also telegraphed to even the hardest core of his hope-trumping-evidence supporters that he might not, after all, be the 2012 nominee.


In an afternoon press release that read like a concession speech, the Texas congressman said that he’ll continue trying to rack up delegates with the goal of making a splash this August in Tampa. But those close to the 76-year-old say he’s become worried about a series of chaotic state GOP conventions in recent weeks that threaten to undermine the long-term viability of the movement he’s spent decades building.

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“We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates, and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that Liberty is the way of the future,” Paul wrote. “Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.”

In the past few days alone, several incidents cast the campaign in an unfavorable light: Mitt Romney’s son Josh was booed off the stage by Paul backers in Arizona on Saturday, and Romney surrogates Tim Pawlenty and Gov. Mary Fallin received similarly rude treatment in Oklahoma. They were the latest in a string of recent disruptions from Maine to Alaska that threatened to tarnish Paul’s legacy and marginalize the ideas he believes will one day dominate the Republican Party.

“It concerns him,” campaign chairman Jesse Benton told POLITICO. “He wants to convey to everybody and our staff want to convey that we’ll lose more than we gain if we go and we’re disrespectful. Respect and decorum are very important to Dr. Paul.”

“You need to give respect to get respect,” he added. “We are confident that there will be mutual respect at the convention. We want to make sure that we take every step we can to make sure that happens.”

Paul will retire from the House at the end of this year, and his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, is widely expected to run for president in 2016 as a Republican. Against that backdrop, the Paul high command worries about Pyrrhic victories: hostile takeovers at state conventions that win hordes of delegates but generate a backlash that could hurt the younger Paul in four years and prevent up-and-coming libertarians from obtaining positions of leadership in local parties.

“This campaign fought hard and won electoral success that the talking heads and pundits never thought possible. But, this campaign is also about more than just the 2012 election,” Paul said in his statement. “It has been part of a quest I began 40 years ago and that so many have joined. It is about the campaign for Liberty, which has taken a tremendous leap forward in this election and will continue to grow stronger in the future until we finally win.”

That long-term outlook is why Paul’s campaign manager took the unusual step last week of condemning “isolated instances of grassroots activists working toward an ostensible ‘hostile takeover’ of the GOP” in Idaho.

GOP leaders welcomed Monday’s announcement as more evidence that the base is coalescing behind Romney as the right’s best hope to prevent Barack Obama from winning four more years in power.

“The Paul folks have clearly shown a willingness to be part of the team that wins,” one national GOP source said. “They get it.”

Paul has been stumping in California ahead of the state’s June 5 primary and running television ads in Texas ahead of its May 29 primary. He’ll make no more political appearances in either state before before those contests, essentially writing off the 327 combined delegates available in the two mega-states.

The congressman will continue to work the convention circuit, though, with the campaign trying to exercise more influence over the process. He’ll fly to Minnesota this weekend for the state GOP convention and committed on Monday to speak at the early June Texas GOP convention.

Paul has repeatedly said after a series of disappointing second and third place finishes in non-binding caucuses — which his advisers often dismissed as “beauty contests” — that he could still come away with a plurality of delegates through the convention process. He was proven correct in Nevada, Maine and potentially Iowa.

But some of his passionate supporters have even wrestled away delegates at conventions where they have a less legitimate claim to them. In Romney’s home state of Massachusetts, for example, Paul supporters defeated more than half of Romney’s 27 chosen delegates — including the woman who served as Romney’s lieutenant governor.

Paul campaign leaders have been in discussions with representatives from both the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee. They earlier consented to a joint fundraising arrangement between the RNC and Romney.

Recently those conversations have focused almost entirely on potential changes to the party platform. Practically Romney must ascent to what’s in the platform, since his forces will have enough votes to control what comes up for a vote.

Benton “absolutely” denied there were any conversations between the campaigns Monday or that the Romney campaign knew in advance the statement was coming.

“The only substantive discussions we’ve had have been about the platform,” Benton said.

Paul wants platform provisions that call for prohibiting indefinite detention, protecting internet freedom and limiting the power of the Federal Reserve. There are other items on his wish list, but those are priorities.

Since party platforms are not binding, Romney might agree to changes if it means relative harmony on the convention floor. Benton said the Paul and Romney teams have not yet spoken about a speaking slot for the septuagenarian during the convention, and party leaders say such talk is premature.

“It’s important to let the supporters know what the expectations are, that we’re going to target our efforts,” New Hampshire state Sen. Jim Forsythe, who chaired Paul’s second-place primary campaign in the state, said Monday.

“It doesn’t seem like the nomination is possible,” he added, but there are other ways left “to make an impact” on the party in 2012.

Bruce Ash, the chairman of the RNC rules committee, explained that it’s still possible Paul will not technically be entered into nomination for the roll call vote. In order to officially compete, a candidate is required to control a majority of delegates in five states. A state like Massachusetts would not count toward the five because those Paul supporters hold Romney slots and are bound to cast their ballot for Romney on the first ballot, Ash said.

Contrary to many press reports, Paul did not officially “suspend” his campaign Monday — throughout the campaign it’s been clear Paul feels obligated to his supporters and plans to stick around until he loses fair and square.

Memories of slights and mistreatment from Paul’s 2008 campaign still run raw with the candidate. As Republicans nominated McCain in St. Paul, the Paul campaign organized its own counter-convention in Minneapolis that drew more than 10,000 supporters. Paul himself wound up endorsing Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin.

When it comes to Romney, Paul has been tepid in his praise and non-committal in recent weeks when asked if he could vote for the former Massachusetts governor.

Doug Wead, a senior Paul advisor who worked for Bush 41, believes that if conventions were allowed to operate democratically and fairly, Paul could probably win the majority of delegates in 10 states and come to the floor with one-third of the delegates. But he said in an interview before Monday’s announcement that they understand the Romney campaign cannot allow that.

“We understand they’re going to show a little bit of muscle,” he said. “They won. So we understand that. But from the last cycle we saw what happens if they get too cute and want to sew the whole thing up. It’ll just be a repeat of McCain.”

“We’ll do everything we can to get our people to be cooperative,” Wead added.

One major unresolved issue is where Paul backers go in November. A recent Public Policy Polling national survey found that Paul supporters dislike Obama and Romney almost equally. Obama’s approval spread with them is 26 percent favorable and 58 percent negative. Romney is viewed favorably by only 27 percent of Paul supporters and unfavorably by 58 percent.

Forty-five percent of Paul supporters said they would vote for Romney in the general election, and 39 percent said they would vote to reelect Obama. When libertarian Gary Johnson is thrown into the mix, 16 percent say they’ll vote for him with Obama dropping to 35 percent and Romney dropping to 31 percent.

Johnson appealed to Paul supporters in a statement released in response to Paul’s announcement.

“I will continue the Ron Paul Revolution,” the former New Mexico governor declared.