I have been reluctant to share this possibility, because I did not want to fertilize the seeds of the Paulbots….. but it is now time to share.

Let me be perfectly clear.   I do not believe for one second that Ron Paul actually wants to be President.   Everything throughout the course of his life, and everything he has said and done points to his desire to be “in control” but not actually being president.   Indeed, I would argue that Ron Paul is happiest arm-chair quarterbacking everything from a comfortable distance, but not actually being the executive decision maker.   It is how he has led throughout his political career.   He recoils instantaneously when told to “actually lead”, *it is not in his DNA.

*Note* If you hold a counter opinion feel free to provide substance to back it up.  I’m open to being convinced otherwise, but I just don’t see it.

With that in mind, and understanding how a brokered convention actually works, it does appear that Ron Paul is quickly fulfilling his goal to be the King-Maker.   You see, even though other candidates are winning primaries, and both binding and non-binding caucuses, if any candidate cannot win 1,147 delegates then the entire primary process is moot and a “brokered convention” is established.

In a brokered convention all the delegates are released from their committed, or binding votes; and that is where Ron Paul comes to the forefront.    For over a year team Paul has been strategizing on such an outcome and they have instructed massive contingencies of Ron Paul supporters to apply and become the delegates in every state.   So while Ron Paul might come in 3rd place, and only actually win a dozen delegates in an individual state, he might have 50% to 75% of the delegates be Ron Paul supporters.   Once those delegates are released from any prior obligation they are free to vote for Paul.

What this means is a massive network of Ron Paul supporters at the convention in Tampa.   So massive they will actually represent a delegation big enough to provide Ron Paul with the winning majority.

NRO has just penned a similar article:  If you think Rick Santorum won Iowa, Minnesota, and Colorado, you’re wrong.

Let me explain: Santorum did win the caucus votes in all those states. But because none of those states have bound delegates, that means the state’s delegates to the national convention could theoretically vote for someone besides Santorum for the nomination, someone like say, Ron Paul, whose campaign is aggressively working to control as many state delegates as possible. In Minnesota, where Paul nabbed 27 percent of the caucus vote, the Paul campaign estimates that 75 percent of the current delegates are Paul supporters. In Colorado, where Paul got 12 percent of the vote, 50 percent of the delegates are Paul supporters. Now delegates face elimination rounds, so it’s unclear if the Paul campaign will be successful or not in maintaining these percentages. But the campaign is hoping to pull it off. From my piece today:

The campaign refuses to worry about backlash from the party if its plan succeeds, and Paul’s percentage of delegates at the convention is significantly higher than his percentage of votes.

“We think that’s the way a party should really pick its nominee,” [Paul national campaign chairman Jesse] Benton says. “We think that the activists that are most tuned in to the issues, most engaged in the process should be the ones selecting the nominee.”

It’s true that most states have bound delegates (or at least the vast majority of delegates are bound), so this strategy has limits. But if there is a brokered convention — which is not out of the realm of possibility this cycle — it will matter if most or a significant chunk of delegates are Paul supporters. And Benton proposed one other way Paul’s delegate domination could have an impact:

The campaign is also flirting with the possibility that “bound” delegates won’t ultimately be bound. “We would like to take a majority of the delegates and so if there is an unbinding after round one, or if there is a rule passed on the floor of the Republican National Convention to unbind the delegates, then the majority of the delegates [in a given state delegation] would be our supporters and we would control that delegation,” Benton remarks. He notes the campaign’s efforts in Nevada, where delegates are considered bound for the first round of votes: Paul came in third, winning 19 percent of the vote, but the campaign believes it currently controls 60 percent of the delegates. If by some chance those delegates became unbound (and the campaign managed to control 60 percent of the convention delegates), the convention-delegate vote would not mirror Nevada’s caucus vote.

The rules relating to delegate selection are arcane and confusing. But the Paul campaign has a considerable advantage here in that they both are very much aware of the rules, and are encouraging their supporters to know them and to embrace the process and become delegates.