I had no plans whatever to write a Delegate Wars (V). But there is too much news right now to even skip a week.

The DW story is beginning to break in larger-circulation media, in combination with a second tale: McCain's repeated inability, even as President Bush's anointed successor, to consolidate support in his party. As AOL pundit Tommy Christopher predicted last month, a narrative is beginning to build; McCain's hitherto “free ride” in the media is beginning to end.

The Boston Globe skillfully wove both narratives together in a May 9 feature that was carried verbatim by the Seattle Times the next day:

Senator John McCain is sailing toward his coronation as the Republican presidential nominee while the Democratic candidates battle fiercely. But Republicans also are engaged in some tough infighting that could disrupt the national convention and make it more difficult for him to unite the party in the fall. Across the country, at state and county GOP conventions, diehard supporters of maverick Ron Paul are staging uprisings in an effort to secure a role for Paul at the national convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. And in the four primaries since clinching the nomination in early March, McCain has yet to reach 80 percent of the vote, as Paul and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee continue to siphon away votes…. The lingering anti-McCain sentiment among some voters and the continuing Paul insurgency suggest that McCain has not fully quelled hostility from some elements in his party.

For their part, McCain supporters are trying to whip the Party members into line with hysteria about cults and conspiracies. As in this bit of scare-mongering from McCain blog Reality Bites:

It's obvious that the Ron Paul organization is a top-down well-organized machine. In the caucuses the Ron Paul supporters were told to stand up and say, “He touched my heart,” and so they all did. The ground troops do what they are told. They report back to the mothership as instructed…. Normal citizens in Germany in the thirties thought Hitler and the Nazis were buffoons. They didn't take them seriously and thought nothing would come from their antics. It would be a mistake to think of the Ron Paul supporters the same way. They are a cult. And they are frightening.

Similar tales of conspiracy come from Nolan Chart's own Dave Nalle, who gave readers of Blogcritics a thoroughly distorted account of the RPR's goals and strategy:

Although John McCain is the presumptive nominee, as the various state conventions roll forward — largely in obscurity — conflict and chaos continue to be spread by Ron Paul's enthusiastic followers who continue to try to storm the ramparts of the GOP establishment. These efforts by libertarian-leaning Republicans, far-right John Birch Society agitators, and anarcho-socialist infiltrators looking to strike a blow against the dreaded neocons have met with some successes and some failures and a considerable and I think very undesirable backlash. Their strategy, as demonstrated at district conventions around the country, is to show up in large numbers, use procedural motions to disrupt the convention, and if then if their forces are sufficient, force a vote to suspend the convention rules, remove the convention leadership, and start over again with their faction in control. If they don't have the numbers to pull that off, their goal is to disrupt the proceedings as much as possible so that little or no business can be conducted.

That theme is popping up in major media as well — like the Santa Fe Reporter, which seized on the “uprising” and “chaos” angles for its May 7 feature, adding an apocalyptic warning and even dragging in the dreaded 9/11 Truthers:

Ron Paul Uprising — Will a GOP uprising take place at the Republican National Convention?

As the mainstream media obsesses over the Democratic Party's brewing civil war, supporters of Republican presidential candidate US Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, are already staging their own quiet uprising at GOP conventions across the nation. If, by a strange twist of fate, the Republicans' presumptive nominee, US Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., fails to win the first ballot at the national convention, “all hell will break loose,” one Santa Fe County delegate tells SFR…. Already, hell is breaking loose at the county and state levels, especially in the Southwest. YouTube video of the Nevada State Convention last week shows chaos and confusion after a super-majority coalition of state delegates, organized by Paul supporters, overturned party rules to allow new national delegates to be nominated from the convention floor…. . Similar skirmishes have been reported in small-town newspapers from Maine to Texas. Furthermore, much of Paul's campaign is driven by the 9/11 Truth Movement, which has grown increasingly aggressive, staging disruptions at events ranging from HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher to public appearances by Bill Clinton.

The RPR has responded to all this by mainly lying low for the time being. RPR sites are clamping down on information (see Utah report), and would-be delegates turning to a stealth approach.. Even the Paul campaign (says the Reporter) is advising: “It is not recommended for any of the delegate candidates at this stage to 'fly the colors' as Ron Paul supporters. Delegates should simply represent themselves as interested, involved and committed Republicans.”

George Dance, “Operation Rondemption for Idaho,” Nolan Chart, May 2, 2008. //www.nolanchart.com/article3644.html

Brian C. Mooney, “Infighting rains on McCain's party,” Boston Globe, May 7, 2008. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/09/infighting_rains_on_mccains_party/?page=1

Michael Schulyer, “Ron Paul Storm Troopers on the March,” Reality Bites, Apr. 28, 2008. http://michaelschuyler.blogspot.com/2008/04/ron-paul-storm-troopers-on-march.html

Dave Maass, “Ron Paul Uprising,” Santa Fe Reporter, May 7, 2008. http://sfreporter.com/articles/publish/outtake-050708-ron-paul-uprising.php

Dave Nalle, “Chaos and Conflict Continue at the GOP State Conventions,” Blogcritics, May 06, 2008. http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/05/06/095956.php

Arizona

Reporting May 10 from the state convention in Mesa, blog Politicker.AZ announced that “only one Paul backer, Roy Miller in CD4, will join the Arizona delegation to the RNC. 'He told me he's going to sign the pledge' to support McCain, said Randy Pullen, Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party.” (AZ's delegates are bound to McCain, the primary winner, for one ballot.)

“We just don't have numbers in Arizona like we had in Nevada. I mean, this is obviously John McCain's home state, so what do you expect?” Jeff Greenspan, the campaign's Southwest Regional Coordinator, told the blog. “Had we come in here with 20 more delegates, it would have been a different story.”

Evan Brown, “A disciplined convention,” PolitickerAZ.com, May 10, 2008. http://www.politickeraz.com/evanbrown/1207/disciplined-convention#comment

New Mexico

For its May 7 feature, “Ron Paul Uprising,” the Santa Fe Reporter did some local investigation:

“Last week, the local parties held their County Quadrennial Conventions to nominate delegates to the state convention, where the national delegates will be elected….. [A]ccording to Paul's New Mexico field coordinator, Jeff Wright, Paul's delegate count looks good. Wright tells SFR that 19 out of 25 of Santa Fe County's delegates, seven out of nine of Lincoln County's delegates and more than 50 of Bernalillo County's 156 delegates, are Paul supporters.

“At the state convention on June 14, 29 delegates and 29 alternates will be elected for the September national convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.” Those delegates will be bound for the first ballot, proportional to the results of NM's primary. “In New Mexico, Paul would need to collect 15 percent of the popular vote to win [bound] delegates to the national convention. That's exceedingly unlikely in New Mexico,” adds the Reporter.

Maass, op cit.

Utah

The Salt Lake City Tribune reported May 9 that “a number of Utah Ron Paul backers are trying to get elected Saturday as delegates to the Republican National Convention where, under a proposed rule change, they could be free to vote for whomever they want.” However, no figures are being reported, even on RPR sites. When one Utah Paul National Delegate's name was posted on The Daily Paul last week, the poster was advised by a reader to delete it because “they are watching.”

Utah's National Delegates are bound to Mitt Romney for one ballot. The motion to unbind them came from the McCain camp, who planned to follow up with a second resolution urging them to vote for McCain instead. Paul's state delegates opposed the move to unbind, their reasoning being that first-ballot votes for Romney are votes against McCain. The motion, which needed a 2/3 'supermajority,' did not pass but did not fail either; as reported by the Deseret News, it was “postponed indefinitely.”

Utah GOP vice-chairman Todd Weiler told the News: “'They're bound to vote for Romney. Whether they vote for Romney is another issue…. I think there will be a lot of temptation' to disregard party rules and vote for McCain (maybe a few for Paul) anyway. When asked what would happen to a delegate who refused to vote for Romney, Weiler said, 'We'll find out.'”

Minnesota (update)

The controversial motion passed at Minnesota's 6th Congressional District convention Apr. 6, binding its 3 delegates (two of them Paul supporters) and 3 alternates (all Paul backers) to vote for John McCain has been thrown out as unconstitutional. Chairman Mark Swanson advised the delegates and alternates that “After consultation with our party leadership and a review of the appropriate documents, we have come to the conclusion that the motion does not pass constitutional muster…. Delegates (and alternates) are not bound to vote for any particular candidate.”

Craig Westover, “Dispute over Ron Paul delegates may go into overtime,” Minnpost.com, Apr. 23, 2008. http://www.minnpost.com/craigwestover/2008/04/23/1601/dispute_over_ron_paul_delegates_may_go_into_overtime

Oklahoma (update)

At the state covention in Tulsa May 3, “The Liberty Coalition, made up of disgruntled supporters of Ron Paul and other unsuccessful Republican presidential candidates, attacked the state executive committee's slate of at-large national convention delegates and alternates as insufficiently conservative and tried to force a roll call vote on its own slate of delegates…. The faction did claim one victory — one of its members, former attorney general candidate James Dunn of Luther, edged out Steve Curry of Oklahoma City for national committeeman.” The national committeeman is an automatic National Delegate, or 'superdelegate.'

On May 5, state party chairman Gary Jones told the Oklahoman that Mike Huckabee has released the 6 bound National Delegates he won in the Feb. 5 primary. “Jones said Monday he has contacted Huckabee's delegates and all but one' of them said they would vote for McCain. The other delegate is going to vote for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.”

Randy Krehbiel, “Spat over delegates marks GOP meeting,” Tulsa World, May 4, 2008. http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080504_1_A22_BIELW54834

Michael McNutt, “Huckabee frees delegates, supports McCain,” NewsOK.com, The Oklahoman, May 6, 2008. http://newsok.com/huckabee-frees-delegates-supports-mccain/article/3239487/

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See also:

//www.nolanchart.com/article3438.html

//www.nolanchart.com/article3508.html

//www.nolanchart.com/article3588.html

//www.nolanchart.com/article3664.html

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