Republicans and Democrats are the two mainstream political parties but many Americans are getting tired of just those choices. Too many Americans believe the left and the right are one in the same, so is it the perfect time for a third political party to emerge? Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, went from GOP hopeful to the presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party. He joins us for more on why he switched parties leading up to Election Day.

Supporters take full control of GOP in North Star State.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul swept the board at the Minnesota State convention this past weekend, winning 12 of the 13 delegates to the Republican National Convention and effectively taking complete control of the party in the state.

Congressman Paul would have won all of the open delegate slots, for the fact that the 13th went to former presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, only after a Paul supporter withdrew his name from the ballot.

Earlier in the year, a well organized cadre of Paul supporters won 20 of 24 delegates at district conventions, meaning that in total the Paul campaign has secured 32 of the state’s 40 national delegates.

The achievement once again affirms Paul’s delegate-attainment strategy, and substantially increases the prospect for the Congressman to be able to greatly influence the party platform at the National Convention in Tampa this August.

In addition to the delegate victory for Paul, Minnesota state Rep. Kurt Bills (R), an ardent Paul supporter, soundly defeated the establishment Republican candidate in the race for the Senate.

“This is one of the greatest states that I have witnessed, where I have seen the transition, where the enthusiasm’s there,” Paul said during his speech at the Saturday convention.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet.

My Two Cents: Is this a pick the biggest neocon douchenugget competition? End Two Cents.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Yesterday was a pretty emotional day for Paul supporters everywhere. The Paul campaign announced that they would no longer compete in the states that have not yet voted as it would cost too much money moving forward. In fact, here is what Ron Paul said himself:

Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.

This is completely understandable and really just goes to show how fiscally responsible Dr. Paul truly is, especially when comparing him to his conservative counterparts who spent themselves into oblivion and racked up some serious campaign debt. With that being said, this is only more reason to vote for the man as he knows where to draw the line and also knows what all of Paul supporters know, which is that we will all continue to vote for the man regardless of the campaign’s inability to compete with the Wall Street funded Mitt Romney. When those Occupy kids are looking for a leader it should probably be the guy whose campaign is funded by the downtrodden 99 percent as opposed to the 1 percent big bank bank funded candidates like Romney and Obama.

This doesn’t mean that Paul is completely out of this race. As was just mentioned, his supporters are loyal and will vote for him despite this seemingly tragic pitfall. The hunt for delegates will continue and ultimately, Ron Paul will continue to surprise the doubters and make a serious impact on this race. This isn’t blind faith or overly-loyal Paulbot idiocy, this is facts. I doubted the campaign’s strategy but have since learned that in the realm of acquiring delegates, they are doing a hell of a job. The media doesn’t accurately report on what’s going on in the delegate hunt and honestly, you can go to various mainstream media sites and look at their delegate counts and the numbers don’t match – corporate media is clueless. Romney may have been announced the winner in Maine but Paul walked away with the most delegates. Santorum and Gingrich have lost theirs and with 11 states left to vote, Paul could continue to be a thorn in the side of the establishment beast. As I’ve said many times, this isn’t about winning, this is about the message and gaining enough support to stamp it on the leviathan’s forehead before it is once again let loose on the masses. In other words, Paul might not win the fight but he is going to break a motherfucker’s nose.

Even though the mainstream media has been quick to gleefully write Paul off as a quitter, his forces are moving forward – just more covertly in a way that is unique and foreign to these political experts spewing regurgitated pre-written bullshit through our television and radio speakers. In order to dispel the mainstream hogwash, Paul’s chief strategist Jesse Benton sent out an official statement. Here is some of what that memo states:

Let me be very clear. Dr. Paul is NOT ending his campaign. As Dr. Paul has previously stated, he is in this race all the way to the Republican National Convention in Tampa this August. Looking ahead, our campaign must honor that trust by maximizing our resources to ensure the greatest possible impact at the National Convention. So while our campaign is no longer investing in the remaining primary states, we will continue to run strong programs at District and State Conventions to win more delegates and alternate delegates to the National Convention.

To this end, our campaign has several positive and realistic goals: 1) Having recently WON Maine, we believe we can win several more states. 2) We will win party leadership positions at both the state and national level. 3) We will continue to grow our already substantial total of delegates.

We will head to Tampa with a solid group of delegates. Several hundred will be bound to Dr. Paul, and several hundred more, although bound to Governor Romney or other candidates, will be Ron Paul supporters.

Unfortunately, barring something very unforeseen, our delegate total will not be strong enough to win the nomination. Governor Romney is now within 200 delegates of securing the party’s nod. However, our delegates can still make a major impact at the National Convention and beyond. All delegates will be able to vote on party rules and allow us to shape the process for future liberty candidates.

We are in an excellent position to make sure the Republican Party adds solid liberty issues to the GOP Platform, which our delegates will be directly positioned to approve. Our campaign is presently working to get several items up for consideration, including monetary policy reform, prohibitions on indefinite detention, and Internet freedom.

Finally, by sending a large, respectful, and professional delegation to Tampa, we will show the Party and the country that not only is our movement growing and here to stay, but that the future belongs to us…

Considering that two of the biggest states, California and Paul’s home state Texas, haven’t yet voted, there are a shitload of delegates that could easily go Paul’s way, especially since he has performed well in both of those states. The race is still as interesting as it has been all along, even though the media is ignoring Paul and pretending he isn’t even a part of this race anymore. Their “out of sight, out of mind” strategy hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work this time. Paul supporters aren’t going anywhere and their numbers will continue to expand.

In retrospect, was this even about winning the presidency or was this about turning the Republican Party on its head and making a real difference? Is this really about shattering one half of the two-party mold in an effort to fix the system from within? If so, will it work? Either way, this game has been well-played by the Paul camp and ultimately it’s up to us everyday people to see that the message is sent and clearly understood. From here on out, this game is going to get pretty fucking filthy. Put on your gloves because we aren’t done swingin’!

Ron Paul Ends His Campaign In New Primary States … What Does It Mean?

The corporate media is abuzz with headlines saying that Ron Paul has finally seen the light, thrown in the towel, and ended his campaign.

However, Ron Paul supporters believe that – while he won’t be campaigning in the primary states – Paul is still in the race, and will be focusing on winning delegates in caucus states.

For example, Policy Mic argues:

Ron Paul announced today in a letter to supporters that he will not campaign for the popular vote in states that have yet to held their primaries.

In his under-reported IDD strategy (“It’s the Delegates, Dummy”), Paul has focused on the fact that presidential nominees are chosen by delegates, not by popular vote. Paul’s campaign has focused to date especially on states that allow committed Republican Party members to have a greater voice in the process. States like Iowa, Nevada, Maine, Louisiana, Washington, and Colorado have been states where Paul supporters have made tremendous inroads in winning party leadership positions and being influential in the national delegate selection process. While many states have yet to finish the delegate selection process, it increasingly looks like Paul could dominate the nationwide delegate process called long ago in Romney’s favor.

Paul’s announcement today fits that same vein, but will no doubt surprise many of his supporters. Not only is Paul saying “It’s the Delegates Dummy” to Mitt Romney and the national media, he is taking it a step further and saying that spending his supporters’ money on winning the popular vote is of such little importance to the campaign that they aren’t going to waste time or money on that any longer.

Does that mean Paul has dropped out? Quit the race? Suspended his campaign? Packed his bags? Returned home to lil ole Lake Jackson, Texas? No, it means quite the opposite. It means that Paul will have more ability to focus on delegate selection instead of the many upcoming winner take all states.

As has been the case from January 3 – the night of the Iowa Caucus – this is a two man race. It’s Mitt Romney v. Ron Paul. Paul, the seasoned campaigner, will be on Romney’s heels through to the RNC in August. If Romney makes 1,144 delegates on the first ballot, Romney becomes the Republican nominee. If Romney slips, the man on his heels will gladly take his place. That’s been the story since Iowa and remains the story today. The decision remains in the hands of 2,286 Republican delegates, many of whom have yet to be chosen. Will it be more of the same or will it be the man who’s spent some 40 years standing on his principle against the GOP establishment both inside DC and out?

The following videos show that passionate Paul supporters believe that Paul is still in the race:

CONTINUED at Washington’s Blog.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said Monday he will not compete in primaries in any of the states that have not yet voted — essentially confirming Mitt Romney will win the Republican presidential nomination.

Mr. Paul said he will continue to work to win delegates in states that have already voted and where the process of delegate-selection is playing out. He said that’s a way to make his voice heard at the Republican nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., in August.

“Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted,” Mr. Paulsaid. “Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.”

He did encourage his supporters to still turn out and vote.

CONTINUED at the Washington Times.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Mitt Fucking Romney. The name is synonymous with dissatisfaction. Well, one would think anyway. The consensus from most conservative people is that they didn’t want this guy to be their candidate. They tried so hard to prop up all the other GOP weaklings but Mr. Romney was just slightly stronger it seems and because of that, is the last man standing for the establishment righties to vote for. I mean, they aren’t going to vote for Ron Paul, that much has been established and since they’re going to vote for “Anyone but Obama” (which doesn’t include Paul), I guess it should be no surprise that Captain Haircut swept three more states on the road to the nomination.

Romney racked up victories in West Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina. North Carolina wasn’t a surprise as the people there also voted to ban gay marriage. Surprisingly though, their intolerant right-wing idiocy didn’t push Santorum to the front of the pack, even though he is completely out of the race. I know that sounds crazy but look at West Virginia. Santorum actually came in second place in that state ahead of Ron Paul! Santorum who isn’t even in the race and who has endorsed Romney beat Ron Paul who is still in this thing! It’s not a showing of how weak Paul may seem to be, it is a showing of how insane the inbred people of West Virginia are. I mean, didn’t those ‘Wrong Turn’ movies take place there? You know what I’m talking about, those cheap ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ knockoffs that saw incest-loving mutant hillbillies hunting and eating tourists who accidentally turned off of the main road and into their neck of the woods. Sounds like Santorum cultists for sure.

With Ron Paul in second albeit last place, Santorum’s performance was pointless and the backwoods beasts who voted for him are retarded for even bothering to show up to their precincts. Maybe all the precincts were barbecue joints and the customers got confused and thought they were filling out comment cards. It really is hard to say when we are dealing with people who have the brains of ravenous rabies-afflicted canines. The people who casted votes for Gingrich might be even slightly more insane. Whatever, I’m tired of bashing these people and frankly, I don’t want them to eat me alive. Luckily, Florida is a long way away and these West Virginia mutants can’t operate a GPS system and would probably just use maps to make clothes.

At least Dr. Paul is racking up a shitload of delegates and even though he won’t be staring down Obama in an upcoming debate, he has still proven to be a force of fucking nature in this race regardless of media blackouts, blatant bias and establishment shenanigans. These fuckers can try and fix an election but they can’t fix the brains of the vigilant self-educated masses who are growing in numbers year after year. As I stated previously, it looks like the Paul campaign’s questionable delegate hunting tactics have worked to some degree, especially now that former Senator Ass Juice and former Speaker of the House Newt Giggles have dropped like flies drunk on Off! Bug Spray.

The clock is counting down and the Republican National Convention is just around the corner. When Tampa comes, shit could get really interesting in this race. Hopefully by then, the Santorum mutants have gone back to eating lost teenagers and the Gingrich supporters have gone back to living in holes. I guess it just bothers me that people are stupid enough to put a check next to a name on a ballot when that candidate is a quitter. Well, losers typically flock to other losers and when your grey matter is made up of the sort of stuff a typical right-wing establishment neo-conservative has between their ears, you are going to make really stupid decisions while contributing to the downfall of this country.

Truth be told, I know this is coming off as somewhat irate and that I am resorting to name-calling but fuck you people. I’m not going to hide behind some political correct bullshit in an effort to save face and have a sane and rational discussion with you people when everything about you is insane and irrational. Stop being such parasites and stop living your fucking fear turtle life in a goddamned shell afraid of every boogeyman your worthless heroes throw at you. It’s time to stop looking at everyone that doesn’t jive with your bullshit philosophy as an enemy. That goes for other nations, the other side of the political coin and other Americans who aren’t privy to your psychotic idiocy. Now you may be thinking that I am being hypocritical in my words and that I am coming at you like you are my enemy or better yet that you are the enemy of anyone who is a libertarian, a constitutionalist or a free-thinker. I’m not, I’m just sick of the games and being labeled crazy when you are the assholes who are stuck in your ways – ways that have been proven to fail again and again. None of you want to try anything new or examine history, you just want to keep your side of the assembly line moving in an effort to beat out the other side. Whether that’s for bragging rights or just because you want to win just for the sake of winning, doesn’t fucking matter to me! Both sides of the assembly line are in a rush and are in turn making really shitty products while pointing fingers back and forth. It’s time to shut this inefficient factory down and move the business elsewhere. Rant over.

And congratulations Mr. Romney. You really took it to those weak contenders.

“This is no longer just a set of weird ideas that individuals scattered across the country believe in,” explains Reason’s Brian Doherty, “this is a movement now.”

Doherty‘s new book, Ron Paul’s rEVOLution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired, charts the rise of the 76-year-old Texas congressman and GOP presidential hopeful to national prominence. Why does the unassuming politician and obstetrician command such a huge following among young voters? “After a lifetime of feeling lied to by every politician they see,” says Doherty, “here’s a guy that they know who is speaking the truth as he sees it.”

A week ago, Doherty spoke with Reason about Ron Paul’s central but largely unacknowledged role in creating the Tea Part movement. Watch that here.

Source: Reason.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I had a long weekend but it is now over. My time in Gainesville with my cousin and friends was a blast, as I haven’t actually been partying too hard over the last month. This trip was a good way for me to drown in bourbon, Irish whiskey, tequila, Long Islands, Guinness, ginger beer and Pabst. I’ve been trying to be healthier in an attempt to lose weight and potentially live a somewhat longer life but even with my more health conscious attitude, my inner party monster still needs to be entertained and unleashed every now and again. What better time than with other party monsters that I genuinely cherish in a wild college town during graduation weekend? There was no point in taking any prisoners, as we ran roughshod over downtown Gainesville leaving no bottle unturned. A few days later, my stomach still hurts and my head is still swimming in a sea of 86 proof delirium – a special shout out goes to 1.75 liters of Old Crow Reserve.

To those who might find my more health conscious behavior a bit unsettling, there is no need to worry. It’s not called selling out when you do it because your liver hurts and you’ve been pissing blood. The blood part was not related to the booze but it was still a wake up call to straighten my shit out some what. Have no fear though, I will not go soft and become a shell of my former self like so many writers and artists who went clean only for their work to suffer and lose its appeal. Trent Reznor immediately comes to mind, although his Academy Award for a very boring and minimalist film score probably proves me wrong but only if you take the Academy seriously and turn a blind eye to their petty politics.

Anyway, my first night in Gainesville on this latest trip was intense. It started almost immediately with two Guinness Draughts and four Long Island iced teas while I watched my friends play pool. I didn’t participate in the contest because I was enjoying my own game of drown the writer in the dark and dingy corner of smoke and neon light. It is a one-player game but the odds are always steep and the challenge is never dull. Needless to say, I won the bout and went on to fight in other bouts in other venues for the remainder of the 48 hour tournament.

The weekend wasn’t all about completely succumbing to vices however. I mean, I never came across any other substances to entertain myself with and that’s fine, the booze was enough. I did get to spend a lot of the time talking politics and economics with the college kids, some of them a part of the Occupy Gainesville movement. Now while we didn’t see eye-to-eye on solutions, we did agree on the vast majority of the problems. My job, from my standpoint, was to try and get them to understand that you can’t just blame the banks for the madness. The government is just as responsible as is the Federal Reserve. Truth is, they were really receptive to a lot of the things I was saying. Now I had half a dozen conversations with a dozen or more people but for the most part, other than two or three close-minded joiners, they got what I was saying and left the conversations with the intent to look into their new perspective on these matters themselves. One of them even promised to pick up some of the books I wrote down for him on a napkin (titles by Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman and more modern authors Jeffrey Tucker and Stefan Molyneux – who has a ton of free e-books).

One interesting thing I discovered among talking to multiple college kids, is that their only real beef with Ron Paul is his pro-life stance. I told them that it is an issue I also disagree with Dr. Paul on. However, I told them that if you look at the rest of his platform and like it, writing him off over one issue is a bit careless. Especially since Dr. Paul thinks that it should be an issue left up to states and not the federal government regardless of his personal opinion on it. Most of these kids understood that but had a hard time envisioning a country were states’ rights were protected, at least on this issue. I explained that you cannot pick and choose issues and that the rule had to apply with everything. If you make one exception, you will make plenty more. They got and respected it but still had a bug in their ass about it and I get that. I then spoke to them about Gary Johnson who is basically a clone of Ron Paul policy-wise but is pro-choice instead of pro-life. Most of the people I talked to had not heard of Johnson and were actually pretty excited upon finding out his stance on the abortion issue. They also liked that Gary Johnson was not a Democrat or a Republican. I didn’t bring up all the issues they said they had with Obama however, as there were a lot more than what they had with Paul. Regardless of this, they will probably vote for Obama again even though they claim they are opposed to war, Gitmo and a plethora of other issues he has failed them on.

Now don’t get me wrong, not everyone was cordial. There were those few dumb bastards in the mix and fucking with them and sending them off in a self-conlficted rage was quite amusing. One kid was calling for anarchy and at the same time was calling for government to step in and regulate the banks more. Point is, this kid’s whole world-view was completely hypocritical. On one hand, this kid (and those like him) want to scream “Fuck the man!” and “Fuck the police!” while on the other hand want the government (the man and the police) to step in and regulate everything even more than they do now. I don’t understand how so many young people can’t seem to make a correlation between these two things? You want the government who is bought and paid for by the banks to regulate the banks? You can’t see how this is completely asinine, let alone how this is what has caused all these problems to begin with? Your solution to the problem is more of the problem itself? Does the meth addict break the cycle by taking more meth? No, the meth addict dies! Common sense is like a disease in the hipster socialist-anarchist psyche.

The ones who are so passionate in their ignorance don’t even care about the real crux of the problem. They want to continue to buy into their conflicted and hypocritical indoctrination and smash anyone who doesn’t swim in their sea of shit. On top of that, they don’t want to better themselves, they want to stay at the bottom so they can continue to bitch as they wallow in dirt and filth because if they were to try and actually get out of it, they’d be outed as a “sell out” or even worse a “hard-working capitalist pig consumer”. Yep, keep pointing your Djarum-clutching fingers as you slur your PBR-soaked words kiddies.

Not all is lost on the generation after mine however. Amongst the sea of those I dealt with, only a few were bad apples and completely hopeless. I remember myself at that age, as I had a similar view of the world. It was someone challenging me on my preconceived notions that got me to pay attention and learn how this whole game really works. If at least one of those kids breaks free from the mold and is affected by our encounter, my debt is repaid. I enjoyed the friendly and civil debates and even had fun with the assholes. In the end, it is about standing your ground and living by your own code not the code of some undefined group whose ideology is lesser than the sum of its parts.

I got home, feeling pretty good about how most of the weekend went down. I also felt great for ignoring my responsibilities for a few days while not even paying attention to what was going on in the news. I didn’t really miss anything, other than Rick Santorum finally wiping away his bitch tears to endorse Mitt Romney, which just gave me flashbacks to 2008 when he was riding that Romney train hard. Something tells me that if I had the same debates with Santorum supporters that I had with the college youth of Gainesville, it wouldn’t have been as civil. I hope that all of those sweater-vests the Santorumites bought up like quaaludes at a disco are constructed of Iranian dog hair and Chinese asbestos. It would be the perfect ending to such a vile group of people.

Despite what you may have heard from the mainstream media, Mitt Romney does not have the Republican nomination locked up.  In fact, he is rapidly losing delegates that almost everyone assumed that he already had in the bag.  To understand why this is happening, you have to understand the delegate selection process.  Each state has different rules for selecting delegates to the Republican national convention, and in many states the “voting” done by the public does not determine the allocation of delegates to particular candidates at all.  And the truth is that delegates are the only thing that really matters in this race.  In state after state, the Ron Paul campaign is focusing on the delegate selection process with laser-like precision, and it is paying off big time.  At this point, there is still a legitimate chance that Ron Paul will be able to win enough delegates to deny Mitt Romney the nomination on the first ballot at the Republican national convention in Tampa.  If Romney does not have the 1,144 delegates that he needs on the first ballot, then it becomes a brokered convention and anything becomes possible at that point.

Sadly, most Americans have no idea how this process really works.

For example, originally we were all told that Mitt Romney won Iowa.

Then, later on we were told that a mistake was made and that Rick Santorum actually won Iowa.

Well, it turns out that Ron Paul actually won 20 out of the 28 delegates in Iowa.  That is because the process of actually selecting the delegates occurred long after the voting by the public was over.

So what happens if the Ron Paul campaign is able to produce similar results in state after state?

The Ron Paul campaign is very organized, very motivated and they understand the rules of the game.  As a recentPolitico article detailed, there are huge amounts of unbound delegates out there that are still up for grabs….

There are roughly 30 states and territories where delegates aren’t bound to a particular candidate. The majority of the other states, according to a number of party officials, call for delegates to be bound for a first round of balloting but not the ensuing rounds.

“The dirty little secret is: At the end of the day, these guys and gals can vote any way they want,” said a Republican who has attended national conventions for decades. “Each state has different (laws) on pledged delegates.”

In many states, the “official” results of voting done by the public mean next to nothing.  The talking heads on television often tell us how many delegates are “projected” to go to a particular candidate, but as we have seen in Iowa and in so many other states, those “projections” are basically meaningless.

A recent Salon article discussed how the delegate selection process really works and how the Ron Paul campaign is using these rules to shake up the game….

In many caucus states, the “official” results that most people saw this winter were from nonbinding straw polls conducted in conjunction with precinct-level caucuses. But when it comes to choosing national convention delegates, the real action is at district caucuses and state conventions. In the past, this distinction hasn’t mattered much, but for the Paul forces – who lack the numbers to win statewide primaries but have the devotion to pack any room, anywhere, at any time – it has offered an inviting loophole. When turnout is small and no one is looking, the Paul folks can win, and that’s what’s been happening in a number of states.

To Paul die-hards, this will all culminate in a surprise for the ages in Tampa, with the political world suddenly realizing that Romney actually doesn’t have the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination, thereby allowing Paul to extract major concessions or even steal the nomination for himself.

So could Ron Paul really deny Mitt Romney the Republican nomination?

At this point, nobody really seems to know what the real delegate count is.

Websites such as The Real 2012 Delegate Count are more accurate than most sources in the mainstream media, but even that site has been underestimating the true number of Ron Paul delegates.

Right now, Mitt Romney is not anywhere close to having the number of delegates that he needs for the nomination and Ron Paul just keeps picking up more delegates with each passing week.

For example, a Washington Post article that was posted on Sunday reported that Ron Paul just achieved a stunning delegate victory in Nevada….

Despite former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s overwhelming victory in the Nevada caucuses, Texas Rep. Ron Paul has won a majority of the state’s delegates to the party’s national convention later this year in Tampa, Florida.

Thanks to organized Paul supporters, who have been working to increase their candidate’s support at state conventions around the country, 22 of the 25 Nevada delegates up for grabs will be Paul supporters. (Another three are automatic delegates.)

That was a state that Romney supposedly “won”.

It looks like Romney has a real problem.

In state after state, Ron Paul is gobbling up delegates.  The following are quotes from a recent Huffington Post article about what the Ron Paul campaign has been able to achieve in the past few weeks….

-”Sure enough, Paul has already won 20 out of the 24 delegates allocated in Minnesota, by winning a majority of the congressional district contests.”

-”In Louisiana, Paulites “dominated” the congressional district caucuses this past Saturday, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Paul’s supporters carried four of the state’s congressional districts, and are guaranteed at least 17 of 46 delegates in the Bayou State, with the potential to pick up more at the state convention on June 2.”

-”The other state that Benton likely has his eye on is Colorado, where the Denver Post reported in mid-April that Paul supporters and Santorum backers combined forces to win a “stunning upset” at the state convention, guaranteeing that about half of the state’s 33 delegates will be for Paul in August.”

And look what just happened in Maine according to USA Today….

In votes leading to the close of the two-day Maine convention, Paul supporters were elected to 21 of the 24 delegate spots from Maine to the GOP national convention in Tampa, Fla.

So Ron Paul is definitely accumulating a huge pile of his own delegates, but even many so-called “pledged delegates” for Romney could end up playing a huge role for Ron Paul.

In some states, Ron Paul supporters have been getting elected into delegate slots that are supposed to go to Romney.  This is highly unusual, and it could really shake things up at the national convention.  As a Salon articlerecently explained there will be quite a few Ron Paul supporters that will actually be going to Tampa “disguised” as Romney delegates….

Besides the pledged delegates he’s won so far and the extras he’s collecting through caucuses and state conventions, Paul will also have some supporters disguised as Romney delegates. To understand how this works, just consider his campaign’s mischief in Massachusetts, where Romney won 72 percent of the primary vote – and with it, a monopoly on the state’s pledged convention delegates. But to determine who would fill those pledged delegate slots, the state GOP held caucuses recently, and the Paul crowd came out in force, gobbling up 16 of the 19 available positions. In how many other states will this happen, or has it already happened?

But those delegates are required to vote for Romney, right?

Not so fast.

The Ron Paul campaign could actually ask those “disguised” Romney delegates to abstain during the first round of voting in Tampa.  If Romney did not win on the first ballot, those delegates would then become unbound and would be able to support Ron Paul.

In fact, Ronald Reagan considered using this tactic against Gerald Ford in 1976.  The following is from a 1976 article entitled “Reagan Forces May ‘Steal’ Ford Votes”….

“In secret strategy sessions, Reagan aides have toyed with the idea of asking delegates to abstain as long as their state laws require them to honor the primary verdicts.  This would prevent the President from riding up an early-ballot victory.  Then, in subsequent ballots, they could legally switch to Reagan.

Delegates have abstained from voting before.  Back in 2008, at least 14 delegates abstained from voting at the Republican national convention.

So what would happen if the Ron Paul campaign was able to get 100 or 150 “Romney delegates” to abstain from voting during the first ballot in Tampa?

That is a very intriguing question.

And remember, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich also have significant numbers of delegates pledged to each of them.

So Ron Paul does not need to accumulate 1,144 delegates himself to deny Mitt Romney the nomination on the first ballot.  He just needs to keep Romney from getting to 1,144.

The race for the Republican nomination is not over.

You can find a state by state breakdown of delegate voting rules right here.

It is not too late to get involved.

If nobody gets to 1,144 on the first ballot in Tampa, it becomes a “brokered convention” and anyone can become the nominee – even someone that is not running right now.

So if you are not satisfied with Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee, don’t lose hope yet.

The game is still being played.

It would be a challenge, but if his supporters get energized enough, it certainly is possible that Ron Paul could still win enough delegates to deny Mitt Romney the Republican nomination on the first ballot in Tampa.

And if that happens, anything is possible.

CONTINUED at the American Dream.