He’s Still Out There

by Stuart Shapiro

While the winner of the GOP nomination is decided, Rep. Paul and his die-hard supporters have not simply faded away.  Ed Kilgore writes about how Paul is still accumulating delegates:

In some cases, Paulites are winning delegate slots whose votes are already pledged to other candidates thanks to earlier primaries. That’s most embarrassingly the case in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney’s allies got trounced in many district delegate selection conventions, posing the strong possibility that the Revolution will gain a majority of the state’s 41 delegates.

But in other states with complex multi-stage procedures for selecting delegates, Paul’s minions, with their signature ability to pack small rooms, are overturning much-publicized “beauty contest” results that didn’t actually bind delegates.

And what is he going to do with these delegates?

There’s some talk of a platform fight (though there hasn’t been one of those in a GOP convention since the 1976 event when equally powerful Ford and Reagan delegate blocs meant nobody completely controlled the convention) or an effort to embarrass Mitt by placing Paul’s name in nomination (he’s within easy striking distance of the five-state-plurality requirement for taking that step if it wants it). Perhaps the Doctor wants something for himself or for his son, who is according to some reports preparing a 2016 presidential run of his own.

My guess is that he has platform related goals (increasing aggressive language against the Fed and decreasing it against Iran).  Never underestimate the power of a true believer.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.