The mainstream media is claiming Mitt Romney has secured the Republican Party nomination. Romney even made an acceptance speech. One big problem- Romney has not secured anything.
There was this headline on HuffingtonPost.com:
Romney eyes showdown with Obama- courtesy of DonkeyHotey
In that story, Stephen Ohlemacher wrote, “According to the Associated Press count, Romney surpassed the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination by winning at least 88 delegates in the Texas primary.”
The Wall Street Journal stated, “On May 29, Mitt Romney officially had enough delegates to win the nomination.” WSJ also used AP as its source.
As Ron Paul supporters have long pointed out, AP has not had an accurate delegate count, which it has been adjusting quite frequently of late. According to www.TheReal2012 DelegateCount.com, Romney’s total of delegates actually secured is far lower than what AP and most of the mainstream media is reporting.
Cincinnati television anchor/reporter Ben Swann, whose “Reality Check” segments have made him somewhat of an authority on the political process, explains what is really going on with the delegate battle:
Despite the mainstream media’s claim that Romney has secured the nomination and is focusing on Obama, many Republicans are screaming for Ron Paul to drop out of the race. Eli Lehrer wrote on HuffingtonPost.com, “…a critical mass of Paul delegates could make things messy simply by challenging Romney, trying unsuccessfully to get their pet issues added to the platform and, maybe, even finagling a way to drag out the first ballot beyond the allotted time. It’s all for naught. Romney will be the nominee even after all of this and only the most petty Paul-follower concerns will make it into the platform. And they shouldn’t. Romney is, in any case, the only Republican who has the resources, support, network and name recognition to mount a national campaign that could beat Obama.”
His supporters do not consider Ron Paul's constitutional concerns "petty."- Photo by Larry Blucher
By “petty concerns,” is Eli referring to Paul’s platform of protecting civil liberties, ending unconstitutional wars and our foreign policy of nation building, reducing the size of government and its out-of-control spending, auditing and ending the Federal Reserve, lowering taxes, ending the war on marijuana, or repealing the Patriot Act? Those “petty concerns?”
But, maybe what really concerns the GOP neo-cons is that the Ron Paul campaign is simply playing by the Republican Party rules. There is the inconvenient truth of Rule 38 of the Republican Party’s own rulebook which states, “No delegate shall be bound by any attempt of any state or congressional district to impose the unit rule.” Ron Paul supporters are sharing that information on the Internet.
Given the RNC’s underhanded efforts to block Paul delegates and mainstream media’s obvious efforts to make this an Obama vs. Romney presidential showdown, it’s nothing short of amazing Ron Paul is still in the hunt. As Yogi Berra put it, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.”