Paul victory in LAGOP caucus could stop Jindal vp train

14th May 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Christopher Tidmore
would i get approved for a personal loan Contributing Writer

Ron Paul’s first victory in a Presidential Caucus two weeks ago led a Young Republican Group to go so far as to call for the resignation of the entire leadership of the Republican Party of Louisiana. They fear that the embarrassment could mean, amongst other results, that Bobby Jindal will not be on Mitt Romney’s short list for Vice President.

“We congratulate Ron Paul supporters for apparently capturing their first state delegation in this Presidential election cycle through an excellent get out the vote effort,” stated GNOR Chairman Sarah Roy. “However, the result of this ill-conceived and confusing caucus clearly does not represent the will of the vast majority of Louisiana Republican voters as Ron Paul recently received only six percent of the vote in the Louisiana Presidential Primary.”

“This odd and undemocratic result unfortunately will embarrass and distract Governor Jindal, as he labors to pass his Legislative agenda, as well as presumed Presi­dential nominee Mitt Romney, as he clinches the nomination and turns his attention to defeating President Barack Obama.”

The Romney campaign attempted a large turnout effort, but sparse and obscure voting locations, morning voting hours, scheduling during the Zurich Classic, Jazz Fest and Legislative Session, combined with setting the caucus so late in the Primary season that all major challengers to Mitt Romney had dropped out, made it all but impossible to offer voters a rationale to caucus. The irony is that most GOP voters believed that they had chosen their candidate’s delegates in last month’s Presidential Preference Primary. However, the GOP caucuses were almost as influential in sending delegates to this summer’s national convention.

As political expert Mike Bayham explained to The Louisiana Weekly, “Just as Santorum ran up the score in the March primary, Paul did the same in top Minnesota cash advance the caucuses, taking four of six congressional districts. You could say the Death Stars aligned for the partisans of the Texas libertarian.”

Sarah Roy argued that Paul’s surge could have been predicted. “[A]fter Rick Santorum, who garnered the most votes in the Louisiana Primary, left the race, members of GNOR proposed a unity ticket, comprised of supporters of Santorum, Gingrich and Romney, allowing those who would support the eventual nominee to run as one. However, state party leaders, unwilling to share delegates with the Romney campaign, vetoed the approach.”

Party leaders noted that under caucus rules they did not have the power to do as GNOR suggested. Moreover, the State Party had promoted the caucuses for several months. That the other candidates had little presence was not the fault of the LAGOP, but the Presidential contenders themselves. To accuse the State Party leadership of failing because Ron Paul simply worked hard to get his voters to the caucus borders on the absurd, said one GOP insider confidentially to The Weekly. (The LAGOP has made no official response to the GNOR demand.)

Bayham argues that the Paul win will have political consequences.” The Washington Post recently ranked Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal 8th on its list of probable veep contenders for Romney and I suspect the caucus result will do to those odds what Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain’s surprise victory in the 2000 Michigan primary did to then-Governor John Engler’s hopes of being George W. Bush’s running mate.”

“Governor Jindal has stated he has the job he wants and has no interest in being vice-president. Like the Paul Florida deal from January, we should take him at his word.

“Secondly, the Louisiana GOP has likely held its last delegate caucus or at least anything resembling this setup. bad credit loans charlottesville va The state GOP has had a tumultuous record with caucuses since 1996 and this one was likely the kill-shot. I’m not stating policy here, just making a prediction.”

Will the Paulistas settle for the five uncommitted delegates unclaimed from the primary plus the 18 from winning 4 of the 6 congressional district caucuses or will they get greedy and hijack the 15 Santorum/Romney delegates from the primary?

That, Bayham outlined, is the irony of the LAGOP caucuses two weeks ago. By elected delegates to a state convention, the Caucuses not only could give a strong showing for Paul, but effectively invalidate Santorum’s and Romney’s results in March. This was done, according to some party insiders, as a means to be able to award all of the delegates to the likely GOP nominee, in this case Mitt Romney.

That probably won’t come close to happening, Bayham noted. Should the Paul forces overreach, and attempt to claim all of the delegates, “They could run into a seating problem at the Republican National Convention via a challenge before a Romney-controlled credentials committee, where the ‘ballots controversy’ from the caucuses could be factored into the committee’s final decision as to whether the results of the caucuses were tainted through an organized effort by a camp to create systematic confusion to manipulate the outcome.”

“It remains to be seen if the will of 91,321 Louisiana Republican voters who cast a ballot for Rick Santorum and the 49,758 Louisiana Republican voters who cast a ballot for Mitt Romney in a tax-payer funded election could be erased by 150 people chosen in a caucus that drew less than 10,000 participants.”

This article was originally published in the May 14, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper