http://www.opednews.com/…

When Gabe Razzano went to the polling place on Tuesday evening where his mother tried to vote for Ron Paul he was told the same thing, “Ron Paul has dropped out of the race” He was actually shown the display card which by law must hang on the wall and where they had crossed out Ron Paul’s name along with Rudy Giuliani’s. Gabe did the only thing he could do, he called the police. The Freeport Police arrived and asked what the problem was. Gabe proceeded to tell them that his mother tried to vote for Ron Paul but was told she could not because he had dropped out of the race when in fact he had not. The police officer, Sargent Essex, went out to his car, spoke to his superior and came back in to tell Gabe that there was apparently no problem as “Ron Paul had dropped out of the Race”. *Note, when Gabe went to pick up the police report yesterday, the police officer left off the fact that he said that Ron Paul had dropped out of the race. Gabe has 3 witnesses that the police officer said this.

Well, Ron Paul has NOT dropped out of the race for President of the United States of America. And Freeport Long Island is not the only place where this rumor spread……. when Steve Miller, a volunteer poll watcher for Ron Paul, called in a report that a woman was trying to vote for Ron Paul at her polling place, PS 180 in Brooklyn, when her machine malfunctioned. She was given an emergency ballot and was informed by multiple poll workers that she could not vote for Ron Paul because he was not on the ballot. (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/supertuesday/2008/02/ron-paul-backer-cries-foul-in.html) Eventually she was able to vote when they realized they were wrong. But what about the people who tried to vote earlier?

Eddie in Monroe County, New York, was told by a poll monitor in his county that Ron Paul had been taken off the list. He knew better as he is also a grass-roots volunteer for Ron Paul but he wonders at other’s who were easily convinced by these misinformed people? Tim M in Marlton, NJ –our friendly next door state– had a member of his meet-up come to the rescue by calling the appropriate agencies when a particular polling place in his town were telling the voters that they can’t vote for Ron Paul because he had dropped out. There are more stories. I started a thread on a Ron Paul message board and stories keep coming in but there are already youtubes all over the country of this sort of thing happening in many of the Super-Tuesday states.

On closing….my fifteen year daughter was helping at her high school on Tuesday night for Super Tuesday. When she came home I told her about what was going on with the Ron Paul election fraud situation and her exact words were “Yeah, I heard today from lots of my friends that Ron Paul had dropped out”……..

It may not seem like much but your average voter may very well be convinced to vote otherwise if this occurred. There are other reports in the comments. It’s easy to believe that this occurred because of mallisious intent. However, it’s also just as easy to believe this all happened because of the MSMs blackout of Paul. When he gets less time in a debate to speak than time used to ask questions it’s understandable that some people would think he was out of the race. They simply don’t give him much air time.

• 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.