3 GOP Electoral College members say they may not vote for Republican ticket of Romney/Ryan

Washington Post ^ | September 13, 2012 | AP

[JerseyanExile]

At least three Republican electors say they may not support their party’s presidential ticket when the Electoral College meets in December to formally elect the next president, escalating tensions within the GOP and adding a fresh layer of intrigue to the final weeks of the White House race.

The electors — all supporters of former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul — told The Associated Press they are exploring options should Mitt Romney win their states. They expressed frustration at how Republican leaders have worked to suppress Paul’s conservative movement and his legion of loyal supporters.

“They’ve never given Ron Paul a fair shot, and I’m disgusted with that. I’d like to show them how disgusted I am,” said Melinda Wadsley, an Iowa mother of three who was selected as a Republican elector earlier this year. She said Paul is the better choice and noted that the Electoral College was founded with the idea that electors wouldn’t just mimic the popular vote.

The defection of multiple electors would be unprecedented in the last 116 years of U.S. politics. It also would raise the remote possibility that the country could even end up with a president and vice president from different parties.

Because so-called faithless electors are rare, the position of elector is largely viewed as symbolic. Each party chooses people to serve as electors in the 50 states, and electors from the winning party convene in each state capital in December to officially select the president and vice president.

[Antoninus]

They expressed frustration at how Republican leaders have worked to suppress Paul’s conservative movement and his legion of loyal supporters.

Ain't nothing conservative about Paul's "movement".

[Eva]

I was thinking the exact same thing, there is nothing conservative about the Ron Paul movement. Their goal is to destroy the Republican party, if Obama wins re-election in the meantime, so much the better, as far as the Paulers are concerned.

[JediJones]

There’s not much conservative about the Republican party either, so how can it be all that un-conservative to destroy it? Please don’t confuse “Republican” with conservative.

[Eva]

You won’t just destroy the Republican Party, you will destroy the country. There is nothing conservative about Ron Paulers. Paulers hate the social conservatives as much as they hate the Republican big spending elite. Paulers are closers to George Soros on foreign policy than they are even the big spending Republicans and no where close to the conservative Republicans.

[JediJones]

Libertarians, including Ron Paul supporters like John Stossel, are ultra-conservative on economics and states’ rights, far moreso than the Republicans. On foreign policy they are isolationist. Where they stand on social conservatism probably varies and depends on the point-of-view. They’d be for repealing Roe vs. Wade and returning the abortion question to the states. But they might not support banning abortion in their own states.

[Eva]

The Libertarians have no set agenda other than destroying and taking over the Republican party. The Libertarian/ Republicans in WA are more interested in legalized marijuana than anything else. A good percentage of the so-called libertarians in WA are union members, public union members. Reconcile that with being a libertarian, if you can.

They stand for nothing and have no set ideology, other than anti-Republican establishment. John Stossel and a few others might know what they are all about, but not the rest of the supporters.