Ron Paul May Have Secretly Won The Iowa Caucuses
DES MOINES ? Ron Paul may have officially come in third tonight, but if the campaign's caucus strategy went off as planned, then Paul may actually be the real winner of the first Republican voting contest.
That's because Paul's massive organizational push in Iowa focused on both winning votes, and also on making sure that Paul supporters stuck around after the vote to make sure they were selected as county delegates ? the first step towards being elected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
That's because Iowa's Republican caucuses are non-binding ? they are technically just a straw poll, so once selected, delegates are free to vote for whichever presidential candidate they choose.
"Part of what we've been training the Ron Paul people to do is not to leave after the vote," Dan Godzich, a senior campaign advisor, told BI. "Stay and get elected to the conventions and get us those delegates."
Godzich and Sydney Hay, another Paul advisor, crisscrossed Iowa in the weeks leading up to the caucuses, making sure precinct leaders knew what to do and organizing slates of delegates that would ensure Paul walked away with a strong majority, even if he lost the caucus' straw poll vote.
By the eve of Election Day, Hay said she was confident that Paul would come away from Iowa with a strong majority of the state's delegates. It's a good first step toward making sure that Paul has a strong presence on the floor in Tampa this summer ? something that his supporters believe will help force the Republican party to start reckoning with their Movement.
UPDATE: 1:40 a.m.
Sources close to the Paul campaign indicated Tuesday that they were happy with their delegate count. Although we couldn't get specific numbers, a source told Business Insider that Paul nailed down the delegates in all of Iowa's smaller counties, and made a strong showing in several larger ones.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-p...trategy-201201
Did Ron Paul just win Iowa?
COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA -- "I think Ron Paul just won Iowa," declared Mark Hansen, Ron Paul's Pottawattamie County coordinator. Here at a bar serving as the unofficial county headquarters of the Paul campaign, Hansen had just conceded that Paul would not win the popular vote in Iowa, but he also pointed out that after the straw polls, the precincts appointed delegates to the county conventions in March -- and that in every precinct in Pottawattamie, at least, two or three Ron Paul supporters volunteered to be delegates, and few other candidates' supporters volunteered.
Delegates at the county conventions help select delegates to the state convention, which then select delegates to the Republican National Convention.
Technically, tonight's vote was a straw poll, determining no delegates, but setting the tone. The only actions that actually could make a difference in electing delegates to the National Convention heavily favored Paul. Nobody will be watching in June, unless this election gets much more exciting, but Ron Paul might send more Iowa delegates to Tampa than any other candidate.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexamin...in-iowa/289986
We Won?t Know Who Really Won Iowa Until June
Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucuses by a mere eight votes in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, but what does he actually get? Not much more than bragging rights and the spectacle. The delegate allocation from Iowa is still very much undecided.
We won?t know the real winner until Iowa selects its Republican National Convention delegates in June, and the possibility remains that Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, or another candidate, will earn that distinction.
Iowa will send 28 delegates to the August Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. To win the nomination, a candidate will need the support of 1,144 delegates out of a 2,286 total, meaning Iowa?s delegates amount to 2.5 percent of the number needed to win.
But a candidate like Paul, whose campaign has emphasized state- and county-level organizing in places other campaigns have all but ignored, could possibly walk away with Iowa?s delegates by knowing Iowa?s rules and pitching the right battles.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...wa-until-june/