Paul Fail?
By It looks like Ron Paul isn’t going to be officially nominated for the presidency in Tampa.
His backers failed to win a plurality of delegate slots at the Nebraska GOP convention Saturday, leaving the Texas congressman short of the support necessary to have his name placed into contention at the national convention.
According to national party rules, a candidate needs a plurality of the delegates in at least five states to have his name presented for the nomination – by falling short in Nebraska, the last state to hold its convention, Paul came up one state short.
Via Mataconis. While it’s mildly disappointing that we won’t have big “Restore America Now!” presence at the GOP convention, on balance I’m amused that the Paul fanatics, at one point convinced that they could upend the convention through delegate selection, will be almost completely shut out of the process. Paul’s strategy was to game the system in order to produce a nominee (or at least competitive campaign) whose political positions were dramatically at variance with the bulk of his party; this strategy was premised on the assumption that the Paul people were, in effect, the smartest people in the room. This is generally in accord with the “you just don’t get it, do you” feeling that accompanies any conversation with a Ron Paul fanatic, and it’s altogether satisfying to see that deflated.