Posted on 10/29/2007 9:25:13 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Stephanie Burns and Ben Parkinson strolled down sun-drenched Fillmore Street with political thievery on their minds.
Both are grass-roots volunteers for Republican presidential contender Ron Paul, a Texas congressman whose libertarian views might seem to make him a tough sell in this legendarily left-wing city.
But Burns, Parkinson and other Paul supporters have been spending their weekends marching, staffing tables and knocking on doors in an improbable quest: picking up some of California's 173 convention delegates in the Feb. 5 primary.
On the surface, the plan seems quixotic given general assumptions about California: that the state is too big for retail politics, and that campaign victory requires expensive TV ads in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento.
But for the Republicans, that changed when the state party amended its rules before the 2004 primary. Instead of awarding all the state's delegates to whomever wins the statewide vote, the GOP doles out three delegates to the winner of each of the state's 53 congressional districts. (Eleven at-large delegates also go to the top vote-getter in the state, and three more delegates are unpledged.)
The rule change might seem arcane, but it has forced campaigns to reach into the state's nooks and crannies beyond key media markets.
And it has emboldened Paul supporters to organize here in San Francisco, across the bay in Oakland and in other districts with relatively few Republicans, under the theory that it's easier for a small fish to campaign in a small pond.
"We don't have to chase that many people," said Burns, a construction site manager from Sausalito who leads a 345-member group of Bay Area Paul supporters who came together through Meetup.com. "That's what makes it attractive."(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Nobody is afraid of Ron Pat Paulson or your boss HilaryCare. The only reason he has support in NH is it is a crossover state where you and your flunkies can disrupt our primary. Nice try though.
He would make a good Ross Perot, but he ain’t no Ross Perot.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Well, if they looked beyond the perception that “Paul hates Bush, too” to realize that Paul has no plans to give them any free government money, they would hate him as much as they hate any other Republican. ;)
Exactly.
AND... He’s Pro Life and Pro Guns - and the left wing anti-Bush folks are loving all over him.
They should read below the Anti-War Posters to the fine print sometime.
Paul would hurt the GOP more than he would the Democrats. But it's moot anyway since he won't run as a 3rd party candidate.
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