Understanding Ron Paul

By Dan Beaulieu

Twitter

 "I am an imperfect messenger, but the message is perfect"  –  Ron Paul

One thing is certain of Dr. Ron Paul, he is not a sound-bite candidate. That is, he often speaks over the heads of voters which causes a lack of understanding. It is in my personal opinion that Ron Paul cannot be understood in the 30 seconds allocated to him in debates. His ideas must be studied; however, once one does understand Dr. Paul, they often stick around.

For this reason I present to you my series:

Understanding Ron Paul

Understanding Ron Paul How Ron Paul Would Defend Us Elimination of 5 Departments Iran, Nuclear Threats & Propaganda The Patriot Act The Federal Reserve Foreign Aid 9/11 & Blowback Government Spending Social Security, Medicare Business Cycle & Bubbles Corporate Tax   Earmarks Foreign Policy & Israel Immigration "Is Ron Paul Too Extreme?" "Is Ron Paul Racist?" Why The Media HATES Ron Paul Only Man Who Can Beat Obama

Understanding His Opponents Romney: Serial Flip-Flopper Romney: His Love for the Fed Gingrich: The Real Newt Gingrich

Follow @transfer_point

Check back periodically for my planned additions to this resource.

Understanding Ron Paul: Foreign Aid

By Dan Beaulieu

Twitter

 "I am an imperfect messenger, but the message is perfect"  –  Ron Paul

One thing is certain of Dr. Ron Paul, he is not a sound-bite candidate. That is, he often speaks over the heads of voters which causes a lack of understanding. It is in my personal opinion that Ron Paul cannot be understood in the 30 seconds allocated to him in debates. His ideas must be studied; however, once one does understand Dr. Paul, they often stick around.

For this reason I present to you my series:  

Understanding Ron Paul


 
Foreign Aid

$25 billion per year in foreign aid seems like a drop in the bucket to our annual $2.7 trillion dollars national revenue, however, one should put into perspective that our budget is over $3 trillion per year and our national debt is over $15 trillion. A rational person understands that this is simply unsustainable, in its most basic math. However, this is the obvious argument and I don't find it necessary to dwell upon the obvious. I will, however, stay on the argument of economics for the time being as I feel we are missing something that should resonate with American’s and is consistently ignored. That argument is a rudimentary economics lesson written by William Graham Sumner, called the forgotten man.

The Forgotten Man Applied

As we all understand, the $25 billion dollars has to, at some point, come from the productive sector of society; the taxpayers, whom we will call group A. This money is then provided as financial aid to foreign bureaucrats to their benefit alone, we’ll call this party, group B. We, as a species, have a predilection for considering only what we can immediately see in front of us. We can see the charity of group A (albeit a forced charity) and we can see the benefits reaped by group B. However, no one stops to consider that what we cannot see, which is group C; the forgotten man.

Group C is the car manufacturer, the clothing maker, electronics manufacturer, the bread maker, the paper miller, the restaurant owner, the bookseller, the small businessman; the list goes on ad infinitum. Since our government took the money from group A and gave it to group B, group C was never realized.  Essentially we are giving charity to the foreign group B at the loss of what group C would have had to offer. Let me stress the magnitude of productive loss and potential unemployment we suffer due to this forced “charity”.

Putting this into a perspective that we all can relate to, let us say that a $1 million a year company employs 75 people, some have more some have less. These 75 people have to care for 75 families, let’s assume families of 3 for this example. So this single $1 million dollar company directly affects 225 people’s lives. Now let’s extrapolate this figure to $25 billion. That’s roughly 1,875,000 workers who take care of a total 5,625,000 family members. Not all of these workers encounter job loss per say, but productivity loss eventually becomes job loss.

Since 1970 we have spent well over a trillion dollars on foreign aid (link). Irrefutably, this money never went to the forgotten man, denying hundreds of thousands of jobs; perhaps entire industries from ever coming into existance.

Immorality of Foreign Aid

Since this document is regarding Ron Paul's views, perhaps its said best in his own words. Please listen to this 8 minute chapter from Ron Paul's audiobook "Liberty Defined" for his personal view on foreign aid.








Back to Understanding Ron Paul Index

Understanding Ron Paul: The Patriot Act

 By Dan Beaulieu
Twitter

"I am an imperfect messenger, but the message is perfect"    

–  Ron Paul

One thing is certain of Dr. Ron Paul, he is not a sound-bite candidate. That is, he often speaks over the heads of voters which causes a lack of understanding. It is in my personal opinion that Ron Paul cannot be understood in the 30 seconds allocated to him in debates. His ideas must be studied; however, once one does understand Dr. Paul, they often stick around.

For this reason I present to you my series: 

Understanding Ron Paul

The Patriot Act

Though most Americans arbitrarily support the Patriot Act in respect to how “9/11 changed our way of life”, few are aware that the Patriot Act was authored long before that date. This negates that notion altogether and confirms that 9/11 was craftily used as a convenient device to instate the legislation.

Upon reading the 1,472* page bill, one can see why the authors made sure it was not available to the eyes of our congressmen before it was voted on. The ill-titled “Patriot” Act represents anything but patriotism, and in fact impedes on virtually all of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. Due to the fact that most Americans are oblivious to the contents of the Patriot Act, I will briefly go over a few bullet points; however I will spare you lengthy detail to abstain the scope of this document.

·         Freedom from unreasonable searches: The government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation. Violates Amendment IV

·         Right to a speedy and public trial: The government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial. Violates Amendment VI

·         Freedom of association: To assist terror investigation, the government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity. Violates Amendment I

·         Right to legal representation: The government may monitor conversations between attorneys and clients in federal prisons and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes. Violates Amendment VI

  -        Freedom of speech: The government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation. Violates Amendment I

·         Right to liberty: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them. US citizens (labeled "unlawful combatants") have been held incommunicado and refused attorneys. Violates Amendment VI

·         The enemy redefined: The patriot act also broadens the definition of "terrorist" to anyone who opposes a federal government program or policy. This gives them probable cause for 70% of Americans conservatively.

By supporting the Patriot Act, the other candidates endorse the idea of exchanging security for our basic freedoms, a model Benjamin Franklin strongly advised against. Americans rational idealizes that if you are guilty of no crimes than you’ve got nothing to hide, so it’s worth it. This just isn’t the case, as the great Thomas Paine once said, “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

These wise words resonate today in the case of a 10^th grader wrongfully arrested and held for 2 months without council, due process or visitation from his mother. (video) He was innocent (see comments) but the Patriot Act refused him the right of due process. These trespasses on our civil liberties will only get worse and happen more frequently as time goes by, as is the predictable evolutionary process.

People often try to dismiss these criticisms as libertarian alarmist propaganda, though I combat that ideology with simple logic. Once our Constitutional rights have been taken away from even just one single American, no matter how bad they are, then we have undoubtedly lost our way.  As I outlined in an article I wrote entitled “The American Way Abandoned” (link) I expressed the importance of adhering to our founding fathers principles, which concludes that if we do not, we do so at our own peril.

The absence of legislation like the Patriot Act is what makes America free. When we submit our freedoms in fear - then the terrorist truly have won.

Back to Understanding Ron Paul Index

Follow @transfer_point

*Depending on the source the amount of pages in the patriot act is between 342 and 2,500. Dr. Twight mentioned in an interview that she had read all 1,472 pages. Personally I don't claim to be the expert on every page, however I have read enough to ascertain its completely unconstitutional.

Understanding Ron Paul: Business Cycle & Bubbles

 By Dan Beaulieu
Twitter

"I am an imperfect messenger, but the message is perfect"    

–  Ron Paul

One thing is certain of Dr. Ron Paul, he is not a sound-bite candidate. That is, he often speaks over the heads of voters which causes a lack of understanding. It is in my personal opinion that Ron Paul cannot be understood in the 30 seconds allocated to him in debates. His ideas must be studied; however, once one does understand Dr. Paul, they often stick around.

For this reason I present to you my series: 

Understanding Ron Paul


The Business Cycle & Bubbles

(Image from: http://www.harpercollege.edu/)

The business cycle, first realized by Ludwig Von Mises in the 1920’s and later developed by Freidrich A. Hayek, is a phenomenon that happens through Keynesian intervention of the markets. In a business cycle you have a boom or period of economic euphoria and a bust, period of economic agony. The business cycle is propelled by the central bank’s (Federal Reserve) manipulating or “propping” the market through low interest rates which forms bubbles. It should be noted that in a true free market economy the business cycle would simply not exist, that is, there would be no cyclical boom or bust (depression).

Bubbles form when the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates below the natural levels of a market, it influences expansion of investments well beyond sustainable levels. This manipulation distorts the signals that business uses to assess risk and these distortions then lead businesses to believe that consumers have the savings to back up their investments. However, artificially low (below market) interest rates don’t generate new wealth to make good on investments. So when the bubble pops these fallacies are realized in lost investments, this is called correction.

Regardless of government interference the powerful true market is always at work and like gravity, the true market pulls the cycle back towards the median in a sensation we call correction. This correction inhibits business cycle bubbles from perpetual expansion and further attempts at avoiding correction through stimulus or quantitative easing only prolongs the agony, the correction must always occur.

This is precisely how the housing market collapsed in 2008 and Ron Paul’s understanding of the business cycle, through Austrian studies, is what allowed him to foresee the disaster several years before it occurred (you can watch his predictions here: 1983, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007).

For a deeper understanding on why we must change our monetary policy please listen to this audio from one of Ron Paul's mentors, Murray Rothbard, titled "Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure".

Back to Understanding Ron Paul Index

Follow @transfer_point

Understanding Ron Paul: Government Spending Vs. Private Spending

By Dan Beaulieu

Twitter

 "I am an imperfect messenger, but the message is perfect"  –  Ron Paul

One thing is certain of Dr. Ron Paul, he is not a sound-bite candidate. That is, he often speaks over the heads of voters which causes a lack of understanding. It is in my personal opinion that Ron Paul cannot be understood in the 30 seconds allocated to him in debates. His ideas must be studied; however, once one does understand Dr. Paul, they often stick around.

For this reason I present to you my series:  

Understanding Ron Paul



Government Spending

We hear about government spending daily, we hear it from radio hosts, TV pundits, from President Obama and we hear it countless times in the GOP debates. However, the government must spend some money, so what is good spending and what is bad spending? I honestly don’t believe that any other political figure understands this better than Ron Paul.

Essentially, when our government spends money, say, to create a jobs for instance. They go about it differently than the private sector would. As the private sector creates a job purely out of demand, the government creates a job simply to create work. This is counterproductive and actually creates job-loss in the private sector. To understand this notion thoroughly I offer a short chapter from a book written by Henry Hazlitt titled “Economics in One Lesson”.

 

(more chapters on youtube)

As Mr. Hazlitt illustrates, government cannot create a job without first taking one from the private sector. This simple notion can be easily proven through elementary mathematics, the government cannot magically create jobs. If the government takes money, for any purpose whether it be for foreign aid & war or be it research & development it is always at the peril of the tax payer and private sector jobs.

To reiterate, when the government takes money from the taxpayers pocket, it results in less money that can be spent as a consumer in the private sector. If your buying power is diminished then fewer products are sold and there is less demand for production. When production falls, layoffs ensue shortly after. Unemployment rises.

Ron Paul would decrease this by doing away with 5 extremely wasteful bureaucracies. Departments that when scrutinized are obvious failures and ultimately job destroyers.

Back to Understanding Ron Paul Index

Follow @transfer_point


 

Primary Schedule and Delegates

By 1836

RonPaulForums.com 

Tweet

Rules affecting delegates:

Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada may begin their delegate selection primaries, caucuses, and conventions on Wednesday 1 February 2012. All other jurisdictions may begin their processes on the Tuesday 6 March 2012. Violating this directive results in 50% of the delegates to the national convention being stripped. Iowa's, Colorado's, Washington's, Minnesota's, and Maine's delegates are not tied to their caucus dates, so these states including Iowa will not suffer a 50% penalty despite holding caucuses before said dates.

ALL nominating states allocating delegates based on statewide vote prior to April 1, 2012 must allocate delegates PROPORTIONALLY.

DELEGATE TOTALS INCLUDES EFFECTS OF THE PENALTY
CAUCUS STATES ARE DENOTED AS SUCH
TOTAL DELEGATES AFTER PENALTIES: 2,287
PLEDGED DELEGATES: 1,784
UNPLEDGED DELEGATES: 503

DATE	STATE	DELEGATES	# PLEDGED/UNPLEDGED
Jan 3	Iowa	28 delegates (caucus)	28/0
Jan 10	New Hampshire	12 delegates	12/0
Jan 21	South Carolina	25 delegates	25/0
Jan 31	Florida	50 delegates	50/0
Late Jan	Louisiana	46 delegates	18/28*
Feb 4	Nevada	28 delegates (caucus)	25/3
Feb 4-11	Maine	24 delegates (caucus)	0/24
Feb 7	Colorado	36 delegates (caucus)	36/0
Feb 7	Minnesota	40 delegates (caucus)	0/40
Feb 28	Michigan	30 delegates	30/0
Feb 28	Arizona	29 delegates	29/0
Mar 3	Washington	43 delegates (caucus)	23/20
Mar 6	Alaska	27 delegates (caucus)	24/3
Mar 6	Georgia	76 delegates	76/0
Mar 6	Idaho	32 delegates (caucus)	32/0
Mar 6	Massachusetts	41 delegates	38/3
Mar 6	North Dakota	28 delegates (caucus)	0/28
Mar 6	Oklahoma	43 delegates	40/3
Mar 6	Tennessee	58 delegates	55/3
Mar 6	Texas	155 delegates	152/3
Mar 6	Vermont	17 delegates	17/0
Mar 6	Virginia	50 delegates	50/0
Mar 6-10	Wyoming	29 delegates (caucus)	0/29
Mar 10	Kansas	40 delegates (caucus)	40/0
Mar 10	U.S. Virgin Islands	9 delegates (caucus)	6/3
Mar 13	Alabama	50 delegates	47/3
Mar 13	Hawaii	20 delegates (caucus)	17/3
Mar 13	Mississippi	39 delegates	36/3
Mar 17	Missouri	52 delegates (caucus)	49/3
Mar 20	Illinois	69 delegates	56/13
Apr 3	Maryland	37 delegates	37/0
Apr 3	Washington, D.C.	19 delegates	16/3
Apr 3	Wisconsin	42 delegates	42/0
Apr 24	Connecticut	28 delegates	25/3
Apr 24	Delaware	17 delegates	17/0
Apr 24	New York	95 delegates	81/14
Apr 24	Pennsylvania	72 delegates	0/72
Apr 24	Rhode Island	19 delegates	16/3
May 8	Indiana	46 delegates	27/19
May 8	North Carolina	55 delegates	55/0
May 8	West Virginia	31 delegates	28/3
May 15	Nebraska	35 delegates	32/3
May 15	Oregon	29 delegates	26/3
May 22	Arkansas	36 delegates	33/3
May 22	Kentucky	45 delegates	42/3
June 5	California	172 delegates	169/3
June 5	Montana	26 delegates	0/26
June 5	New Jersey	50 delegates	50/0
June 5	South Dakota	28 delegates	25/3
June 12	Ohio	66 delegates	0/66
June 26	Utah	40 delegates	40/0
TBA:
	American Samoa	9 delegates
	Guam	9 delegates
	N. Mariana Islands	9 delegates
	Puerto Rico	23 delegates

Notes:
* Louisiana has a somewhat confusing Caucus-then-Primary process to select delegates, the caucus being some as-yet-announced time in late January and the primary being on March 24. Unpledged delegates may be allocated to a candidate on the basis of the primary vote if the candidate receive more than 25% of the vote in the primary on Mar. 24, otherwise they are unpledged. (Republican Party of Louisiana, State Convention Rule 20b)

Open Primaries/Caucuses
(Where Independents and Democrats Can Vote)

Open primaries and caucuses offer us the best opportunity to take advantage of Ron Paul's popularity with independent voters. Below is the list of open primaries and caucuses, to be updated as necessary.

Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia
Hawaii (caucus)
Idaho (caucus)
Indiana
Iowa* (caucus)
Massachusetts**
Michigan
Minnesota (caucus)
Mississippi
Missouri (caucus)
New Hampshire
North Dakota (caucus)
Ohio***
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
Washington (caucus)
Wisconsin

*Iowa caucus open to anyone who wants to register Republican at the caucus location
**Massachusetts primary open to unaffiliated voters, not Democrats
***Ohio primary allows voter to change registration at the polling place by completing a statement confirming the change in his/her political party affiliation (source)

18 Key States for Ron Paul Getting Delegates
Along with some predictions of how we might realistically be able to fare. I am not excluding Nevada or Iowa because they are not important. But in terms of delegate counts, they won't hold a candle to many others. Iowa and Nevada will have already occurred, and for any of the following to be relevant, we have to do fairly well in the earliest states. That isn't what this analysis is fundamentally about. We all know that to win the nomination, we have to do well in January.

Maine - Caucus state. At this point in the process, early February, you'd expect there to be no more than three candidates. Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and someone else. Given that, it is reasonable to expect that Ron Paul would be able to win a high percentage (perhaps as high as 50%+) in the low-turnout Maine caucus. But it gets more interesting. ALL of the 24 Maine delegates are UNPLEDGED. Therefore, if Ron Paul supporters are well organized, we might get even more than that – perhaps a solid majority of these delegates. At this early point, we could expect perhaps 12 delegates out of Maine.

Colorado - Caucus state. Although all delegates here are pledged, there are 36 of them. Even if we only get 33%, that is 12 delegates. But again, the caucus format is good for us. We can perhaps hope for as many as half, or 18.

Minnesota - Caucus state, 40 delegates and all of them UNPLEDGED. This state is critical, and that's doubtless why the Ron Paul campaign set up an office there. If good organization exists, we could reap the benefits of this poorly-attended caucus. We might get as many as 30 delegates out of here. Huge state, the most important for us before Super Tuesday

Washington - Caucus state. 43 delegates, 20 unpledged. That means that we can expect to do very well anyway, in addition to the added bonus of organization turning out some extra numbers of unpledged delegates through the party process. Let's say 25 delegates from here.

Alaska - Low turnout caucus state, on Super Tuesday. Critical win if we are getting the nomination. 27 delegates, 24 pledged, and we can feel confident to win most of them. Let's say 15 delegates here.

Georgia - Super Tuesday Primary, 76 pledged delegates. Unlikely we would win here, especially if either Newt or Cain is still in it (both from Georgia). But in a three way race, we might get 15 delegates.

Idaho - Caucus state, Super Tuesday, 32 pledged delegates. Same assumptions apply... we should be able to pull off half. 16 delegates at minimum.

North Dakota - Caucus state, Super Tuesday, 28 UNPLEDGED delegates. Another important state for us. We can hope to get a large number of delegates via strong organization, perhaps as many as 20.

Texas - Second biggest state, primary, Super Tuesday. Mitt unpopular here. Depending on who is left, Ron could do well. Regardless, this is an important state. Almost all delegates are pledged of the 155 total. We ought to be able to get 50 delegates.

Wyoming - Caucus state, all 29 unpledged, right after Super Tuesday. We could pull off 20 delegates here.

Kansas - Caucus state, 40 pledged delegates. We could get half, 20 delegates.

Missouri - Biggest caucus state, Mar 17. 52 delegates. At this point in the process, if there are still 3 candidates, we should be able to get around half of the delegates, 26.

Illinois - Primary state, Mar. 20. 56 pledged plus 13 unpledged. If we can get a majority of the unpledged, and do decently well in the primary, we could leave with at least 20 delegates.

Louisiana - Caucus-then-primary state, caucus being in late January, primary Mar 24. 46 delegates, 28 unpledged. Strong organization could yield a majority of the unpledged, in addition to whatever showing in the primary. Louisiana has complicated rules for delegate allocation which can be seen in the footnote below the delegate schedule. However, one would expect our strong organization to pull off a good showing overall. We should hope for 25 here.

New York - Primary state, Apr. 24, which is the second big primary day on the schedule. 81 pledged plus 14 unpledged. A decent showing and good organization might get us as many as 35 delegates. A realistic scenario for that would be to get 31% of the primary vote (25 delegates) and 10 of the 14 unpledged.

Pennsylvania - Primary, Apr. 24. Believe it or not, Pennsylvania could end up being a top priority as the nomination wears on. That's because although this is a primary state, ALL 72 of its delegates are UNPLEDGED. With strong organization, we might get as many as half of them, or even more. Let's say 36 delegates.

California - Primary, June 5. If we are going to win this thing, it will come down to the wire. California has 172 delegates, almost all of which are pledged. But we may show well here. Regardless, we can at least expect 50 delegates, whether it is a two or a three man race at this point.

Ohio - Primary, June 12. Second to last primary. All 66 delegates are unpledged, making this a top organizational priority if we are going to win. With strong organization, we could win at least half through the process, so let's say 33.

Remember the delegate totals:
TOTAL DELEGATES AFTER PENALTIES: 2,287
PLEDGED DELEGATES: 1,784
UNPLEDGED DELEGATES: 503

NEEDED TO WIN THE NOMINATION: 1,144

The 18 States that add up
If Ron Paul were to do as well as I posit in these 18 key states, a realistic scenario if the campaign goes fairly well, then he picks up 466 delegates, or 40.7% of the total he needs to win the nomination. That may seem like a ridiculous figure, but it actually isn't: given our strong organizational and hard support base advantages, it is realistic if the nomination is going fairly well. It doesn't by any means assume that we are dominating. Actually, this scenario only gives Ron Paul 42.3% of the delegates from these 18 states. Given the strengths of the organization and support, I think that's wholly realistic.

Given these 18 states: Ron Paul has 466 delegates

In order to win the nomination, Ron Paul then needs 678 more delegates. Where do they come from?

The Other Primaries

There are 1,185 delegates left in the pool of delegates. 678 is a staggering 61.5% of that figure. It is extremely unlikely that Ron Paul will do that well in the remaining states, almost all of which are primaries. How well might he do?

If we give Ron Paul an average 30% of the vote, which is very realistic for these primary states in a three way race and certainly modest in a two-way race, then he picks up 355 additional delegates. A wild card is how delegates are allocated, which isn't by any means decided. But for the purposes of analysis here, it is reasonable to assume they are allocated proportionally (and a number of them are). Even if it is winner-take-all, the assumption is not unrealistic, because you would figure that with around 30% of the primary votes Ron Paul would be winning some of those states, even if not many.

Given 30% of the vote in the other contests: Ron Paul then has 821 delegates

That total still leaves us 323 delegates short. Where will those delegates come from?

One could certainly say, "well, we just do better than what you are saying we will do." Okay, that's one scenario. It is certainly possible that in the caucus states, we could do better. But what if we don't? Remember, I'm assuming that Ron is only able to compete in most of these states, but by no means to win. I'm assuming that caucus states are our best bet and that even there, we aren't completely dominating. This is not intended to be an "unrealistic" scenario by any means.

The Remaining Delegates

The remaining delegates will come from other candidates that drop out of the race. This is because when a candidate has won pledged delegates, those candidates become unpledged and free to vote for whomever they choose at the convention after their candidate drops out and releases them. That candidate may not officially release his or her delegates until the convention, or it may be the moment they drop out. But most likely, unless the candidate held a very large number of delegates that could prevail in a brokered convention (more on that in a moment), they will release their delegates.

My assumptions to this point have been that this will be a three-way-race after South Carolina headed to Super Tuesday, and that after that, possibly only a two-way race between Ron Paul and some frontrunner X. It may in fact be that the three-way race goes all the way through the nomination battle to the convention, or that it goes through the April 24 primaries. Let's take a look at three possible scenarios.

NOTE: Each of these scenarios assumes that there are at least 4 candidates through to the Florida primary. I think that is very realistic. NONE of these scenarios do not work if you replace "third candidate x" with "third and fourth candidates" because a 3rd and fourth candidate could easily take the same number of delegates and then release them as I assume a third to.

Scenario 1: Three Way Race Through Super Tuesday
If a three way race persists through Super Tuesday, then by its very nature you would expect a third candidate to take around a third of the votes. Perhaps less, perhaps more. I think it is entirely reasonable that this would be the case, however, given that through Florida, you will have more than three candidates and in the case of Super Tuesday, a likely third candidate would have a serious shot of winning Georgia over Romney and Paul (Cain or Gingrich).

The primaries/caucuses from Jan 3 to Mar 6 have a total of 842 delegates. When looking at the 18 states, we gave Ron Paul only 201 of the 846 delegates in these states, because we didn't include all of the states and the ones we did, we assumed as realistically as possible.

If a third candidate/other candidates who drop out before Super Tuesday can be assigned 30% of the total delegates from these states, which is realistic, then we can say those other candidates have 253 delegates. That is not enough for Ron Paul to win the nomination, even if most of the unpledged delegates who had worked through the process were Ron Paul supporters. Giving Ron Paul a realistic half of these newly unpledged delegates only gets him to 127. Adding that to the aforementioned total of 821, and we are at 948, still 196 short of the 1,144 we need.

HOWEVER. If, at that point, the third candidate were to drop out, as this scenario implies, then we would likely fare better than 30% in the remaining states. The "key 18" of the remaining states only gave Ron Paul 265 delegates out of their total of 641, but that is out of the rest of the entirety of the states remaining, which is out of a total of 1445.

Therefore, 1445-641 = 804 delegates up for grabs in those remaining contests not spelled out in the "key 18" analysis.

We previously gave Ron Paul 30% of that total, which equates to 241 delegates out of the 804.

What happens if Ron Paul is able to garner 40% of the total? In that case, he wins an additional 80 delegates, putting him at a total delegate count of 1028. But that's still short of 1,144.

What if he garners half? Then he gains another 160 delegates, a total of 402 out of the 804, and is at 1,108. STILL short of 1,144. In order for Ron Paul to win under this scenario, given our 18-state predictions and the reality of the race, he would need to get another 196 delegates, or a total of 54.4% of the delegates remaining.

I do not see that as likely against Romney. Therefore, we have to bet that under this scenario of a three-way-race through Super Tuesday, Ron Paul would need to do fairly well in the remaining primaries (around 40% of the primaries, at least) and have a larger number of the unpledged released delegates.


Scenario 2: Three Way Race Through Apr. 24

The next big primary date after Super Tuesday is April 24. it includes New York and Pennsylvania, among others. What happens if there is a three-way race through then? There are only 709 delegates left after April 24, so this is about two-thirds of the way through.

If the third candidate (plus others) are again assumed to get 30% of the states through April 24, then that is out of 1578 delegates = 473 delegates. Hey, now we're talking serious numbers.

For the primaries through April 24, we assumed Ron Paul would get in the 18 key states covered up until then (that is, every key state but California and Ohio, both of which vote later) 383 delegates out of 864 total delegates in those states.

We also assumed 30% of the vote in the other states, which are composed of 714 delegates (1578-864key=714), so through April 24 we assume Ron Paul has 214 from those states.


If the third candidate drops out after Apr. 24, given organizational effort to achieve half their unpledged delegates, that is 237 delegates. Adding that to our previous figure derived from all the primaries of 821, we get 1058. Much closer than before.

If Ron Paul outperforms in the remaining states, and gets a few more unpledged delegates, or performs better in the previous contests, it becomes more reasonable to say he gets to 1144 without a hitch. Because at that point, we are only 86 short.


Scenario 3: Brokered Convention

This one is tough. That is because it is hard to say whose delegates would go where.

A brokered convention means that we would have at least two candidates go into the convention with sizable pluralities but neither a majority, or perhaps three candidates do very well and have large numbers.

We could assume that if it were three candidates, it might be Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and either Gingrich or Cain or Perry. If Ron Paul does as well as we assumed him to do, he has 821 delegates through the process itself, with 30% of the vote in non-key-delegate states and 466 delegates from the others.

If Ron Paul goes into the convention with 821, or 35.9% of the delegates,

and Mitt Romney goes in with 880, or 38.4% of the delegates,

and Third Candidate (Perry/Cain/Romney) plus the others go in with 586, or 25.6% of the delegates,

then it really starts to get interesting. Remember, you need 1,144 to win.

At that point, someone has to give. Sometime or another. Several interesting things could occur, none of which could be easily predicted, and not all of which are positive. However, such is the nature of a brokered convention: it's dirty.

1. Third Candidate drops out, Ron Paul picks up a 323 of the released delegates, and wins.

2. Third Candidate drops out, Romney picks up 264 of the released delegates, and wins.

3. Romney drops out, Third candidate picks up vast majority of Romney's delegates plus other candidates'.

4. Romney drops out, Ron Paul picks up some of Romney's delegates (323 only, remember) plus others' and wins.

5. Balloting goes on and on until state party rules either release delegates or delegates change their minds and their votes. In this case, all hell breaks loose, but this is where organization really benefits Ron Paul. Because in reality, a number of "Romney delegates" can be Paul supporters who got through the process. Once their state rules release them at the national convention, they could vote for Ron Paul. However, if they are bound to vote for Romney, their votes go to him regardless.


Conclusion

Of course, none of this is set in stone. These numbers could end up being way off, and I hope Ron Paul does much better than these predictions.

However, I hope you'll take a few things away from this.

1. It is possible for Ron Paul to win given delegate numbers alone.
2. It is going to be hard for Ron Paul to win.
3. We have to do everything in our power to get this man elected, because he is the most liberty-minded candidate with a real chance of getting elected who has ever stood for election to the office of president in modern times. It is, indeed, possible. But only if we work for it.

Hopefully these numbers give you an idea of the daunting task we face, but a bit of optimism that with the right organization and amount of work, that it could be done.

Phew.