• The Democrat race is still in the air a bit. While Clinton is ahead by nearly 100 delegates there is still many states left and a long time till their convention.
• McCain did well as expected. I think primarily because of the number of winner take all states. Had the delegates been split up it would probably would have been much closer.
• McCain won 9 states. Huckabee 5. Romney 7. Paul 0.
• Accounting for things like what occurred in West Virginia the number of delegates dedicated to each candidate is not quite accurate.
• The available numbers also don’t account for any internal events which may be occurring in the states. I’m not familiar with the workings of all the different states but some use this primary or caucus to vote for state delegates which will at a later time pick national delegates. In those cases the MSM reports the national delegates as if they were already selected. If someone was to drop before the nationals are selected than they could vote differently.
• In several states Giuliani actually got votes. He even beat Paul 5% to 4% in California with 90% reporting. Assuming much of those votes would have gone to McCain it doesn’t look like they would have changed the results in any of the states. Again given the differing systems it’s hard to say for sure. Thompson even got 3% in Tennessee. In that race it could have changed the outcome. Huckabee got 34% and McCain got 32%. I suspect it would have helped Huckabee more than McCain however. I’d like to know if these were protest votes or people who didn’t realize their candidate of choice had dropped. I hope it’s the former.
• There has been several accounts of voting issues with Paul supporters. Three from people I know. Steve Miller in Brooklyn saw issues with voting machines not working and those running the poll said that only 2 Republicans where running and Jim Lesczynski and his wife had changed their party affiliation months ago yet the voting place had them as their old party. Here in NJ they had my girlfriend and I marked as unaffiliated and we had to choose which party to vote for on the spot. No harm but sad that I had changed to R months ago and received confirmation saying as much.
• Paul did well in states he was expected to do well in but not as well as some thought. 3rd in Alaska is disappointing given the level of support that was expected. He was the number 1 fundraiser there. In Montana Paul was again the number 1 fundraiser with more than twice what Romney in second raised. Yet Romney won 38% of the state delegates vs Paul’s 25%. Unfortunately Montana is a winner takes all state and the delegates are apparently required to vote for that individual. It’s even more interesting in North Dakota where Paul again was the largest fundraiser with Romney raising the least yet Romney won the majority with Paul a close 3rd with 21% to McCain’s 23%. Both get the same number of delegates as does Huckabee with his 4th place 20%.
• He also did worse in some states where he was polling last but with higher percentages than he actually received.

Paul generally got spanked but that was expected. The race is still not over and even with McCain in the lead he’s only 60% the way to the nomination. Obviously money does not mean votes. As a movement we need to better target the public. I truly believe the MSM did us great harm in this race and we need to figure out a way to deal with that in the future. The counties around the several states where Paul won or did well should be analyzed and replicated. I don’t believe there was anything particularly special about those voters it was how we advertised and presented our candidate to them. We need to convince people not only of his platform but his electability. As much as we hate that that is a major component to the average voters decision it’s reality and we need to counteract the MSM putdowns and writeoffs. Spend less money on blimps and more on newspaper, radio and TV ads. More articles to the editor which aren’t defensive and complaining about being left out but offensive and comparative and explains why our policies are right and better for the average voter. While we may lose this battle the fact we are able to get such high numbers in some areas of the nation should give us encouragement. In local and national elections were we are targeting much smaller audiences we have a better shot at getting freedom fighters in office. Murray Sabrin’s campaign for Senate has been able to get more money than they where asking for from 47 states. That kind of support will hopefully help get those people elected. Also as a libertarian candidate we’ve gotten a low of 3% and high of 25%. This is just unheard of in the Libertarian Party generally. Nationally Paul is pushing 7%-9% from what I’ve seen. That’s really huge. We do have an audience we just need to approach them. We probably have a larger audience we just need to get by the MSM’s attacks and blackout. On a local level that’s much easier.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when and if Huckabee or even Romney drop out. It seems to me that those supporting them would be hard pressed to support “liberal” John McCain. If Paul does not drop and seeks the Libertarian ticket he could possibly pick up quite a few delegates. I understand that is a fairly unlikely situation but I’d love to see it just to gage what and why people choose a candidate.

To leave on a more optimistic note, A Scorecard You Won’t Find on Fox News:

Supporter Loren C. sends in this excellent summary of what Ron Paul has achieved so far.

A friend of mine asked me tonight, “Should Ron Paul just quit? I never hear of him on the news so he can’t be doing very well today (Super Tuesday).” Here is my reply to him:

I don’t care what the liberal media is saying, he has,

2nd place in Nevada

2nd place in Louisiana (possibly first once they get it sorted out)

2nd place in Montana

2nd place in Maine

3rd place in Utah

3rd place in North Dakota

There is about 21 more states left to vote,

He has plenty of money,

No one has even close to enough delegates to take the nomination,

He has the only true Republican stance on the issues,

He is the only candidate who believes our government should follow ALL of the Constitution,

Quit?

Not even close. Keep fighting, Ron Paul is!

Well said. And while the momentum John McCain has been gaining lately may appear daunting, Ron Paul supporters are the ones who should be least intimidated by it, because as the other, fraudulent alternatives to John McCain fail one by one — Mitt Romney is certainly on the ropes after tonight, especially if, as appears to be the case, he loses California to McCain — the real alternative to McCain-ism, Ron Paul, will only become more attractive to conservative Republican voters.

Indeed, it’s interesting to note that so many of the states McCain won tonight were blue states which any Republican (except the antiwar Dr. Paul) will have a hard, if not impossible, time winning in November. And despite his wins tonight, McCain does not have a majority of Republican National Delegates, so the fight for the nomination is still very much on.

For Ron Paul preferably. It would be most appreciated. In NJ he should be in column 2 after Rudy Giuliani (no longer in the race) and before Fred Thompson (also no longer running.)

CNN was at my polling place but I didn’t see any reporter around. Before voting for Ron Paul I walked around the precinct putting Ron Paul door hangers on people’s front doors as a last minute attempt to convert voters. We’ll see.

http://www.cnn.com/…

Ron Paul, as of the end of the 4th quarter 2007, is the number one Republican fundraiser still in the race in the following states:

• Montana¹
• Alaska¹
• Hawaii
• Kansas¹
• New Mexico
• North Dakota²

Is second in:

• Washington
• Oregon
• Idaho
• Iowa
• Wyoming
• Arkansas
• Wisconsin
• Kentucky
• Nebraska²
• Minnesota²
• Oklahoma²
• Indiana²
• Tennessee³
• Mississippi^2,3
• Georgia^2,3
• West Virginia^2,3

¹ Including Democrat candidates. ² Giuliani raised more before dropping. ³ Fred Thompson raised more before dropping.

Obviously money doesn’t mean votes nor will those locations where he has gained rank because of some dropping out help him much. It is however interesting with regards to how the MSM regards him as a gadfly. He’s raised more from the numerous branches of the military than all other candidates combined. He raised more than twice what any other Republican did in the 4th quarter at nearly $20m. He’s the number one Republican fundraiser in 5 states and second in 8 without removing those who have dropped out.

My ranking of donations per capita has been updated with 4th quarter numbers, top 5:

1. New Hampshire
2. Wyoming
3. Nevada
4. Alaska
5. Montana

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/…

Well, it’s official, ladies and gentlemen. Believe it or not, Rep. Ron Paul, the 72-year-old Texan who hardly ever gets mentioned in Republican political news and the one-time libertarian who always gets the least time on TV debates if he isn’t barred completely, was, in fact, the most successful Republican fundraiser in the last three months of 2007.

By a Texas mile.

By the thousands Paul’s fervent followers donated $19.95 million to the “Ron Paul Revolution.” He spent $17.75 million and at year’s end had $7.8 million cash on hand, making him the only Republican candidate to increase his fundraising totals in every quarter of 2007. According to his website, Paul’s Paulunteers have contributed another $4.1 million this month to…

fuel the strict constitutionalist’s travels and advertising campaign.

Compare that impressive financial success with, say, the late candidate Rudy Giuliani, who raised only $14.4 million from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 and spent $18.2 million.

Or the departed Fred Thompson, who collected $8.9 million and spent $13.9 million.

Or even the newly-minted Republican frontrunner Sen. John McCain, who raked in only $9.9 million, spent $10.5 million and had only $2.9 million cash in hand. Of course, McCain’s string of primary victories in January will have boosted his financial fortunes. Everybody loves a winner.

Mitt Romney actually raised only $9.2 million from other people last quarter, less than half of Paul’s haul. However, the former Massachusetts governor — and if he keeps spending at this rate the quite possibly former multimillionaire — gave himself $18 million more of his own money last fall for a total of $27.2 million and $2.4 million cash on hand.

The former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who’s had trouble raising money, issued an unusual statement Thursday night. “My presidential campaign,” he said, “has defied the odds and will continue to do so, as we head into the Super Tuesday primaries, proving the power of of message over money and mechanics.”

The statement did not include any Huckabee figures for the fourth quarter. Which suggests that the winner of the Republican caucuses in Iowa didn’t have a very good fourth quarter.

Well… I’m not shocked really. Seems the LA Times is. Last time when we got the 3rd quarter numbers they made a huge deal of them. Paul’s $5m got a decent amount of press but he was still seen as a nobody at the time and that he’d drop out soon. Now that he’s the top raiser I suspect they won’t talk about it though I wouldn’t expect them to as much since there is only 4 people left.

http://www.ballot-access.org/…

Although Louisiana holds a presidential primary on February 9, the Republican Party chooses its delegates to the national convention with a two-step caucus/convention system. The first round was held on February 22, when approximately 10,000 Louisiana Republicans turned out to vote in eleven different cities for delegate to the state convention. Each U.S. House district chose 15 delegates.

It appears that Ron Paul supporters outnumbered the supporters of any of his opponents. But since this was predicted, the supporters of Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, cooperated to set up a “fusion” slate of unpledged candidates for Delegate. The “fusion” slate, labeled the “Pro-Life/Pro-Family” slate, beat the Ron Paul slate in each of the 7 U.S. House districts. Formally, the “fusion” slate billed itself as an “uncommitted” slate, and no one really knows how many supporters of each presidential candidate are on the fusion slate, except the campaigns themselves.

This is what happened in Wyoming too. Over at LewRockwell.com/blog they have a link to a handout for the Pro-Life/Pro-Family delegate slate. It’s sad they have to resort to ganging up just to keep him out. Hopefully some of those chosen are pro-Paul.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/…

In a statement issued by his campaign, Fred Thompson said:

“Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.”

I’m a bit surprised. I knew he was very tight on cash but I thought he’d stay in till Super Tuesday. I think if any supporter is to jump to Paul it could be those Fred Heads who supported Thompson as the “true conservative.” We’ll see if he endorses anyone… I would suspect not at this time. I like how the first comment for this article is “Huckabee will be next…” Lets hope so.