(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
The little voices will not be silenced! From TPM2012‘s Benjy Sarlin, Monday at 6am:
As Chaos Mounts, Ron Paul’s Convention Plans Remain Mysterious
Mainstream Republicans afraid Ron Paul’s steady accumulation of delegates will cause chaos at their national convention in Tampa just received a terrifying preview of what a worst-case scenario might look like.In Oklahoma on Saturday, Paul supporters and Romney supporters reportedly came to blows as the Paul side fell short of electing their slate of delegates amid cries of foul play, including the use of a voice vote instead of a more painstaking roll call to decide the outcome. Speaking at the event, Romney surrogates Tim Pawlenty and the state’s own governor, Mary Fallin, drew jeers.
At the state convention in Arizona, also this weekend, the presumptive nominee’s son, Josh Romney, was booed off the stage by Paul supporters, some of whom derided his father as “the white Obama.”
At this point it’s way too late to keep Paul from having a sizable presence at the Republican National Convention, and likely control of enough state delegations to put his name up for a floor vote against Romney. But it’s still an open question just what these delegates and other Paul activists planning events for the national convention will do when they actually get there….
Benjy Sarlin, timestamp Monday 2:35pm:
The Revolution Retreats: Ron Paul Partially Suspends Campaign
Ron Paul is shutting down all operations in upcoming primary states, dramatically scaling back his campaign due to a lack of resources.“We will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted,” Paul wrote in an e-mail to supporters Monday. “Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have. I encourage all supporters of Liberty to make sure you get to the polls and make your voices heard, particularly in the local, state, and Congressional elections, where so many defenders of Freedom are fighting and need your support.”…
Paul has yet to make clear what he plans to do with his delegates at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, and activists planning on attending have expressed differing views and sometimes confusion as to what their goals will be heading into the event….
A political cynic might consider the narrative line between these two stories and ponder what kind of blistering RNC emails greeted the good Dr. Paul when he padded downstairs in his fluffy goldbug slippers this morning. Or what the RNC shills eventually offered him in return for dialing back the crazy from 11 to, say, 6.5. The RonPaulistas are not cynics of this stripe. The comments to Sarlin’s second article are a rich buffet of… let’s call it eleven-dimensional multifocal global strategerizing: