(CNN) – It’s some Republicans’ worst case scenario: a presidential primary which “drags on.”
But that’s what GOP presidential longshot Ron Paul is looking for.
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“We need more debate, we don’t need people closing this out, saying, ‘We got our candidate,’ ” Paul said Thursday in an interview on CNBC.
Asked about suggestions that the continuing primary race could hurt the Republican Party in the future, he replied emphatically, “How do they know that? How do they make that assumption?”
Despite Paul’s rhetoric, the numbers are stacked heavily against him.
In February, he raised slightly more than one-third of the funds Mitt Romney drew in the same month.
Paul has yet to win a primary or caucus, and lags significantly in the delegate count. He has 71 delegates, according to the latest CNN estimate, and Romney has nearly eight times as many. Nearly 45% of the delegates have been apportioned, and Paul has only 6% of those needed to win the GOP nomination.
He has vowed to stay in the race, and in January said it would be “fun” to use his delegates to influence the Republican Party platform, even if he has no chance of winning the nomination.
Tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina echoed the sentiments of a growing number in his party when he said Thursday that the party ought to focus their fight on President Barack Obama.
“The sooner we can make a decision, I think the sooner we can focus on the real problem, which is Obama,” DeMint said.
A poll released earlier in March showed an increasing number of GOP voters see the ongoing contest as bad for their party.
Also see:
Ann Romney urges folks to lighten up
Who does Jeb Bush want for vice president?
From CNN Politics
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Paul may well be the best candidate for the GOP. Mittens has become the biggest liar in campaign history. He has taken taken the coward's way of lying about everything, in order to deflect his own disasterous inadequacies. Mitt is unfit.
We have a $15.5 trillion national debt. I guess America will be ready for Ron Paul when the debt reaches $30 trillion. I feel betrayed.
Why is it the RNC this year and DNCin 2008 think they have the right to take away our right to vote for candidates? If we are using a democratic procress to select candidates, then let people vote! If a candidates drops, that is his or her choice and no one elses.
They said the same thing about the extended Democratic primaries in 2008. All it did was get people in all 50 states excited to participate in the process and left them primed for the fall election wherein the ultimate nominee CRUSHED McCain. Even though the popular vote was almost completely split down the middle when November hit everyone who had invested in the process over the primaries came out to the polls. This notion that one or two states should go first and make a decision and the other 48 should just sit back, shut up, and fall in line is just silly. We should let the process play out to its natural conclusion.
Ron Paul is pretty much the only good thing about politics today, and they bury him for it. Wake up everyone, this country is corrupt.
Ron Paul won the U.S. Virgin Islands caucus just over a week ago and has taken the majority of the delegates in many of the caucuses he placed third or fourth place in. You might know that if you actually did a little research before publishing this article.
Ron Paul gets more support from democrats and independents than any other GOP candidate, AND he has the most enthusiastic supporters. This is why HE has the best shot against Obama in November. There are many instances of election fraud being reported where Ron Paul people are not having their votes counted or where they have been arrested for trying to video tape the counting of the votes. The GOP establishment is running out of options and Ron Paul's message of liberty is popular and will continue to spread.
Some of Paul's concepts have real merit. Others are the rantings of an old anarchist. He may be trying to lay the ground work for his son. Regardless, he is over.
Ron Paul has some interesting ideas. The problem is that these ideas only would work if everyone were rational and honest. He has failed to see that his idealism doesn't work in a non-ideal world. I think that he was robbed of a win in Maine when Romney stole it, but I can't prove it. Paul's other major problem is that his supporters don't vote. If they don't vote, he doesn't win.
He's won a contest, try enlightening people with the truth rather than covering up anything you disagree with. And since the mainstream media has decided to only look at delegates for wins, you better switch Missouri to a Ron Paul win, cuz he's raking in the delegates down there.
How would CNN know the delegate count. Isn't delegate selection still going on in nearly all the states?
i will vote for ron paul no matter what even if it means writing his name in for the general election for president
Only that Ron Paul won the popular vote in the Virgin Islands, but CNN mysteriously still hasn't gotten the numbers that are right on the site.
A brokered convention – YAHOO!
I just hope all this Republican bickering continues for the rest of the primary season, resulting in a brokered convention in Tampa. Then, and only then, will America come to understand just what a bunch of losers all the GOP candidates
are. So petty, mean, snarky, self-serving, offering the same-old, same-old anger, fear, hatred and division, along with economic, military and foreign policies that are PROVEN FAILURES.
I mean, folks, have you been following the GOP primaries and how Ron Paul won in the Virgin Islands, but they gave all the delegates to Mittens? And how weeks later, Iowa took a delegate from Sanitorium and gave it to Mittens? And how the recent Missouri caucus was shut down because it was getting so out of hand that the organizers called the police?
I'm not making this up; do an Internet search and you'll see just how nutso these people have become in their frantic, desperate try to regain power, knowing that they've got NOTHING to offer us!
Obama/Biden 2012
Paul will release his delegates to Mitt Romney.
Ralph Nader / Ron Paul
Thats Be Friends Tour 2012
More debate, thats good but it should be like intellegent and grown people. Right now newt and rick act like kindergarten.
This article is just plain wrong. I don't even know where to start, so I won't. Check your "facts", CNN.
Either describe how you came to your preposterous estimates on the delegate count, or stop referencing it.
Can't help but lose respect for Paul the longer he goes on appearing to work for Rmoney (if he or Rand lands anywhere near Rmoney in a couple of months we'll know the fix is/was in). For a while there was hope Ron Paul would stay focused on his sane foreign policy views rather than his Ayn Rand economic manure. Having made exactly the wrong choice on this, he is now just like the rest of the GOBP: Big on crazy Rand myths and unwilling to be openly anti-war. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
If Paul doesn't win the GOP primary, November will be an easy landslide victory for Obama.
John McCain remarked that this is the worst and dirtiest political campaign that he has ever seen. Remember who he was tallking about, people. McCain was talking about his fellow Republicans and how low they can go.
Wrong! Paul won the Virgin Islands caucus by popular vote and CNN still can't manage to list the vote totals on their site. He has surely won others along the way that have been fraudulently stolen from him. Paul has over 200 delegates at this point and is leading Santorum for second. Pull your ignorant heads out... YOU ARE NOT IN CHARGE!
the truth is cnn doesn't know the real numbers. they will know the actuall ones when more state conventions are heald. North dakota is the first at 3/31-4/1. Paul will get the palety of delegetes.
------No one is listening the truth he is telling, either this nation is biased, or color-blinded. We need to quit these with GREED to make the nation more progressive. God bless.
PS: I like this dude, only scary is is too old, we need young to pop in.
Do not listen to the Obama owned media, Fox News wants Obama to win...
Ron Paul has the most delegates in Iowa , Missouri , Maine and Washington state..
In the second round of voting Ron Paul will win...His supporters are determined
to regain their civil liberties. which Obama,Mitt,Newt and Rick all want to deny us.