Could Ron Paul actually win the GOP nomination?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So we're not only assuming that Paul stands a chance of winning the general election, but also that he could get his economic policies through Congress.

[Beet]

No, as I said, even though he's currently polling competitively I don't think he would win a general - even if a Greek crisis caused the economy to stall again. His record is just too toxic.

But as for Congress - I believe the House would pass the privatization of Medicare. In the Senate, it'd be more up to the filibuster. Democrats don't want to rely on the filibuster anyway because they're against it in principle, for valid reasons.

[The Mikado]

Question: is Beet actually serious, or is he trolling all of us?  Because if it's the latter, he's doing a magnificent job.

[Joe Republic]

There's a new website here called http://thereal2012delegatecount.com and it's bad news for my man Romney.

1,660 delegates are TBD in upcoming state conventions.

Paul's been able to capture 75%-95% of delegates in conventions thus far. If he comes anything close to that in the state conventions coming up, he will be nominated on the first ballot.

According to the site, Romney only has 322 "hard" delegates (delegates from states that have finished their process). Paul swept 15/15 CD delegates in Virginia, and will likely sweep another 9 on May 19. That wipes out another Romney state.

And this site is being generous to Romney - for example, it assigns him 8 "hard" delegates in Alaska to just 6 for Paul, but someone on this forum noted awhile back that Paul actually has an absolute majority of the Alaska delegates in support, even though some of them are still bound to Romney. At the convention, they'll be abstaining the first round and going Paul on the second round.

If this site is to be believed, the only major states that the Paulites will not be able to hijack is Ohio.

I'm increasingly believing that Paul not only could, but will win the nomination.

Notwithstanding your genuinely interesting analysis in the paragraphs preceding the bolded sentence, your predictions generally suck balls.  Sorry dude.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

There's a new website here called http://thereal2012delegatecount.com and it's bad news for my man Romney.

1,660 delegates are TBD in upcoming state conventions.

Paul's been able to capture 75%-95% of delegates in conventions thus far. If he comes anything close to that in the state conventions coming up, he will be nominated on the first ballot.

According to the site, Romney only has 322 "hard" delegates (delegates from states that have finished their process). Paul swept 15/15 CD delegates in Virginia, and will likely sweep another 9 on May 19. That wipes out another Romney state.

And this site is being generous to Romney - for example, it assigns him 8 "hard" delegates in Alaska to just 6 for Paul, but someone on this forum noted awhile back that Paul actually has an absolute majority of the Alaska delegates in support, even though some of them are still bound to Romney. At the convention, they'll be abstaining the first round and going Paul on the second round.

If this site is to be believed, the only major states that the Paulites will not be able to hijack is Ohio.

I'm increasingly believing that Paul not only could, but will win the nomination.

You forget that the nationwide GOP detests Paul. I'd imagine if all the Paulites have is control of the state parties/delegations, they'd simply declare Romney "nominated" and evacuate the building or pull some similar trick. Massively damaging to the GOP, yes. Ruining Romney's chance at Obama, yes. But then, Romney ain't likely to beat Obama unless there's a new war or the recession comes back in force.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'd hate to rail against Beet, since he's generally well meaning, but yeah, his prediction record now is about on par with that of Harold Camping. But even he's predicting that Paul's not going to win the general election, making me wonder why he's freaking out over the possibility. Paul's also not the type to run to the center after locking up the nomination or back down over his fringe views, sure he might de-emphasize them and just run on "lower taxes, less government, blah blah blah", but the guy's easier to hit than Mitt Romney's record.

Paul being nominated as quite a few advantages besides the lulz. For one, Democrats won't be able to rely on Republicans not being even worse on civil liberties and the drug war, if Paul endorses the vote to legalize marijuana in Washington for example, it's not likely state Democrats will rail against it heavily, more than likely the most prominent ones will just nominally endorse a no vote at most, which is quite a bit less than Feinstein co-chairing the No on 19 campaign, despite the prop helping Democrats with boosted turnout and receiving a hardly non-fringe 46% of the vote (Higher than Whitman's percentage.) Now Beet will say that's not as important as economic policy. But even he's admitting Paul's not going to get in office to implement that, and really just having someone like Paul promote such fringe views is going to help the Democrats in places that have moved against them in recent years.

Paul will also be a disaster for the GOP downballot, even disregarding the sheer embarrassment factor. Think of upper middle class suburban Republican types who think they benefit from Republican economic policies (basically 25%ers who think they are 1%ers), but would probably think Paul is a kook and would be terrified of his views on drugs and "national security". Hell even Torie, who actually agrees with Paul on these issues thinks he's a nut and won't vote for him. Since many of these types will refuse to vote for Obama, they'd likely just stay home, and that's in lots of swing areas. Plus the Paul cultists who will turn out aren't guaranteed to vote Republican downballot.

There is really no loss for liberals I can view from a Paul nomination at all.