Day: March 13, 2012

Paul: Caucus fraud ‘possible’

I took a lot of flak for talking about Ron Paul a few weeks back, and I can’t see how he has a path to the nomination. But I was chastised for the fraud allegations his supporters put out with the tacit acceptance of the campaign.

So I was quite interested to see this Stephen Dinan story from the Washington Times on Monday, and the money quote I’m repeating here:

“Sometimes we get thousands of people like this, and we’ll take them to the polling booth, and we won’t win the caucuses,” he said. “A lot of our supporters are very suspicious about it.”

He said he doesn’t have proof of actual fraud, but said it’s a possible explanation.

“It’s that kind of stuff that makes you suspicious, because quite frankly, I don’t think the other candidates are getting crowds like this,” he said.

I suspect the crowds are partially because the candidate has a certain buzz about him, but after seeing and hearing him they may not be convinced he’s worth voting or caucusing for. Needless to say, the online polls and rallies only prove that Paul’s followers may be rabid but not convincing.

However, the problem they present for the other candidates in the race is their attitude: “Paul or none at all.” I beg to differ because staying home is a vote for Obama and that’s the last thing we need.

Yet I wondered why the caucus strategy was ever thought to be a valid one when, even if Paul won every delegate available from the caucuses he wouldn’t even be halfway to the number needed for nomination. Getting 10 to 15 percent of the primary vote isn’t going to work in the four-person race it’s become, particularly once the winner-take-all races begin with Maryland and Wisconsin on April 3rd. (Apparently Texas, which was also slated for April 3, won’t have their primary until late May due to questions about their redistricting winding through their courts.)

So there’s very little chance Paul will win the nomination, but having three essentially conservative candidates split the right-wing vote against the party’s moderate minority means we could have another John McCain or Bob Dole wipeout on our hands. Needless to say, our country can’t afford that.

Sometimes we have to step back and, to use a sports analogy, take what the defense gives us. I’d rather work with a Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich in the White House than another moment of Barack Obama. If Ron Paul can’t win in the places where he’s supposedly strong and can only resort to wondering if he’s being cheated somehow, that’s no path to victory.

Funding the resistance, redux

Back in January I posted about a New York blogger who was having financial difficulties as part of a longer riff on the state of conservative bloggers who are struggling financially because our side doesn’t have the set of patrons those on the left seem to.

Well, Marianne has averted the original financial trouble she encountered but now is fighting what she believes is late stage Lyme Disease. That’s something perhaps people in my sphere of influence can relate to as the Delmarva area is also prone to the spread of Lyme thanks to infected deer ticks.

Because of that, I’ve placed a badge in the “public service announcement” area of my site which notes that conservative bloggers are supporting conservative bloggers. Marianne’s not looking for a government handout, but after noting the paucity of “Lyme literate” doctors who deal with late stage Lyme Disease she also has this to write:

There will likely be more doctors in many different fields going “off the grid” as Obamacare draws near and the noose of bureaucratic micromanaging tightens on healthcare providers who fail to do what they are told by a panel of pencil pushers rather than do what is best for their patients. When I am feeling a little better, I plan to do some investigative blogging about this phenomenon.

And there’s nothing like a conservative woman, in pain, scorned – I have no doubt that she’ll latch onto this like a bulldog.

Now some may ask why Marianne would put herself out like this and make her pain public for all to see. Well, back in the old days we asked for help through institutions like family, churches, and communities. I have no idea what sort of familial support she has (aside from being married with children) or where she goes to church, but I do know that in this day and age the idea of community goes far beyond the boundaries of whatever place we live in.

Last night when I actually wrote this, right after I put up the widget in my sidebar, I took a moment to consider something I hadn’t really thought about. I link to about 80 other websites, and while most are local or Maryland-based, they are spread out all over the country. (By the way, Maryanne has me stomped insofar as links goes.) But I have only met the purveyors of maybe a dozen and a half in person, and communicated with perhaps a dozen others on a personal basis as opposed to leaving a comment. Yet I have this connection to them through the internet. The same goes for a surprisingly large number of my Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

So even if it’s not all that likely that one particular reader can be of assistance, there’s a fighting chance that someone who runs across this website can help “Zilla” out. And if not, that simply means you’re destined to be of assistance in some other fashion to someone else. Later this week I’ll revisit something I wrote about last month as part 2 happened over last weekend. A lot of people came to help out a perfect stranger most haven’t met.

And I’ll guarantee you that not all of them shared my political views, or most likely had that much in common with the family in need. But most of us are instilled with some desire to serve our fellow man and fortunately the rampant increase in government handouts passed around in this day and age hasn’t dampened our enthusiasm to help a person in need ourselves.