12-05-09 You must be present to win: The Republican Primary continues its absurdity

Earlier I described how the primary/caucus process was broken in that it provided vastly different levels of influence to different populations.  Following on that theme:

As of May, the Republican primary process has basically been over for more than a month.  Despite this, the process is technically continuing, including the district-level caucuses that are the second stage of determining state delegates in many states.  This of course includes states whose initial votes have already come and gone months ago.  The problem is that nobody cares about the process at this point.  If an insufficient number of Romney supporters show up to formally nominate the actual delegates for the convention, they still need to nominate delegates somehow, and Ron Paul’s fervent supporters have been quite willing to shoulder that responsibility.

Consider the following states have had two-stage caucus processes, and the difference in the timing would not be meaningful except that Ron Paul is still determined to collect as many delegates as possible.  Here are his results so far in several states:

State	Ron Paul’s Statewide Result (%)	Delegates	Delegate Proportion (%)
Maine	18	21 of 24	88
Massachusetts*	10	16 of 27 (11 remain to be allocated)	59
Colorado	12	17 of 33	51
Nevada**	19	22 of 28	79
Minnesota	27	20 of 24 (16 remain to be allocated)	83
Louisiana	6	17 of 33 (13 remain to be allocated)	51
*In Massachusetts, the delegates are obligated by law to vote on the first ballot according to results of the primary, but may participate as delegates of the candidate of their choice for all other purposes, including nomination of a VP candidate.  Paul has 0 votes on the first ballot. ** In Nevada, the delegates are obligated by law to vote on the first ballot according to results of the primary, but may participate as delegates of the candidate of their choice for all other purposes, including nomination of a VP candidate.  Paul has 8 votes on the first ballot.

Several other states are operating under the same rules and will likely have similar results to varying degrees, including Iowa, Alaska, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

While this system is not going to keep Romney from being nominated, it may give Paul some leverage at the convention.  It may also lead to a situation where Romney looks out on a sea of people waving Paul banners as he accepts his nomination, which could only be seen as embarrassing.