Message to Ron Paul: prove fraud or drop out
Yes, you read the headline right. With the Santorum sweep on Tuesday night we have the following results from the states which have voted in primaries or caucuses:
Rick Santorum has won Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado.
Mitt Romney has taken New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada.
Newt Gingrich won in South Carolina.
Ron Paul has finished second twice (New Hampshire, Minnesota), third three times (Iowa, Nevada, Missouri) and fourth three times (South Carolina, Florida, Colorado). The third place in Missouri could have been a fourth if Newt Gingrich qualified for the ballot.
But Ron Paul supporters continue to believe the notion that there's fraud in the two caucus states where delegates to the national convention were at stake (Iowa and Nevada.) In particular, this Examiner post by Mark Wachtler lays out what happened in one Clark County, Nevada precinct, and Wes Messamore at The Humble Libertarian piles on. Their logic is relatively simple: since Paul did well in that particular, somewhat large precinct, he must have done just as well across the rest of Clark County and since that area makes up most of the state's electorate Ron Paul was swindled.
It even goes back to the Iowa caucus - and beyond. The fact that Iowa's GOP state chair Matt Strawn resigned in the wake of the caucus imbroglio is considered proof positive that Ron Paul was hosed there somehow, too - after all, Paul was dissed at last summer's Iowa Straw Poll by Strawn. That's how Paul supporters sometimes operate.
More beyond the jump.
As the Silver State count came out, Paul won outright in only two of Nevada's counties: Nye and Esmeralda. They combined for just over 1,ooo caucus votes - only 58 were cast in sparsely-populated Esmeralda County, which lies along the California border. In comparison, Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, saw around 17,000 caucus votes, with Mitt Romney winning 58 percent.
Now let's go back to the Examiner post. According to Wachtler, there were about 200 votes cast in the precinct in question. That would be about 1/5 of the overall vote from the two counties Paul won, but a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of Clark County. To use an analogous situation from 2008, this assertion by the Paul camp that there's massive fraud and Paul's results were underreported would be like presuming John McCain won the presidency in 2008 based on the fact he carried Wyoming with 65 percent of the vote.
Yet there is a flip side to the story, based on Tuesday's results from the non-binding "beauty contests" in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota - all states which were carried by Rick Santorum. The Paul campaign is claiming they'll walk away with the delegates:
As an example of our campaign’s delegate strength, take a look at what has occurred in Colorado:
In one precinct in Larimer County, the straw poll vote was 23 for Santorum, 13 for Paul, 5 for Romney, 2 for Gingrich. There were 13 delegate slots, and Ron Paul got ALL 13.
In a precinct in Delta County the vote was 22 for Santorum, 12 for Romney, 8 for Paul, 7 for Gingrich. There were 5 delegate slots, and ALL 5 went to Ron Paul.
In a Pueblo County precinct, the vote was 16 for Santorum, 11 for Romney, 3 for Gingrich and 2 for Paul. There were 2 delegate slots filled, and both were filled by Ron Paul supporters.
We are also seeing the same trends in Minnesota, Nevada, and Iowa, and in Missouri as well.
I will allow the fact that I don't know just how this arcane system works in Colorado, but it seems to me quite fishy that, where it's documented that Paul finished second, third, and last respectively in these sample precincts, he walks away with all the delegates and Rick Santorum (who won all three instances) gets shut out. Perhaps it's the same passionate support that leads Ron Paul to win in a significant number of straw polls and online surveys.
Yet no one from the Paul camp questions these caucus results because they favor their guy, at the expense of a candidate who was proven to get more votes. And boy, are people going to be pissed if they find out that the process worked in such a way that a guy who only got 12 percent of the overall state vote gets the lion's share of convention delegates. If nothing else, it will likely insure the end of the caucus system once and for all.
Ron Paul's supporters can't have it both ways. If you're going to run around claiming fraud every time your guy loses, well, you better start giving me more proof than the weak anecdotal evidence you have so far. Whenever we've had a true primary your guy is trending downward (23% in New Hampshire, 13% in South Carolina, 7% in Florida), and the poll your candidate cites as proof of national acceptance has the other two candidates within the margin of error of Paul's second place finish. The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken before the February 7 Santorum sweep, had Mitt Romney at 29% nationwide, followed by Ron Paul at 21%, Newt Gingrich at 19%, and Rick Santorum at 18%. A similar poll taken today could have Santorum in second based on the buzz created by his three wins.
But in questioning the process every time a negative result comes out, the Paul camp also gives ammunition to those who see voter fraud as a problem perpetrated by Republicans as much as Democrats, allowing the media to gloss over the fact that seemingly every close general election somehow turns in favor of the Democratic candidate. Two examples: the 2004 race for governor in Washington state and the Al Franken debacle in Minnesota.
So I challenge Ron Paul's campaign: if you have evidence of fraud in these caucus states that you're pinning your hopes on - just like Barack Obama did in 2008 - I better begin seeing it, because we all want a fair and clean process to select our nominee. But if you're blowing smoke because your campaign isn't ever going to get over the 20 percent hump, then in the absence of proof I believe you should withdraw.
It would be a sour note to end a long political career if allegations made turn out to be unfounded, and it would only solidify the position of the naysayers who believe Ron Paul is a crackpot only worthy of the tinfoil hat crowd. To me that's sad because Paul has brought some valid discussion of the role of government to this campaign.
That conversation is entirely appropriate on the heels of the huge shift in the other direction we took beginning in 2008, but condoning the whining from supporters when things don't go your way and the serious allegations they're making isn't becoming of a Presidential contender.
Update: More anecdotal "evidence" on tap if Ron Paul doesn't win the Maine caucus.