The media has ignored the caucuses that get underway tonight. Louisiana also has a primary of little significance in Feb but its essentially a beauty contest unless a candidate gets 50% or more of the vote.

Candidates win uncommitted delegates as usual in the caucus but in the event someone gets 50% in the primary then 50% of the delegates from the caucus are obliged to support that candidate. That is unlikely which means the caucus result will mean everything.

Apparently Ron Paul has a mass of support down there and could take it all so it will be interesting to watch. CNN doesn't even have the caucus listed on the event calender, only the primary. I don't even think they know what is going on, or anyone else for that matter lol.

Ultimately this will lead to continued lack of coverage of the potential second place candidate in the GOP race should he win.

I'm sure he might do as well as he has been doing.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Loyola University in New Orleans is fast becomming the bastion of libertarianism. All five economists on staff are libertarians, one of them, Dr. Block, is Paul's economic advisor. He is also a senior faculty member at Mises Inistute. Along with Kjar and Barnett, there are Austrian Economists, which is what Paul is.

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"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

Ron Paul didn't win New Hampshire the unofficial "Libertarian" state and he didn't win Nevada, the two states where his ideals should have been most welcome. He's done.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

yup but these paul supporters like to dream.

Then blame media bias when the vote counts dont lie

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Hardcore Conservative !

I said Conservative not necessarly Republican or Democrat. Liberals are in both of those parties.

Ron Paul's supporters will never acknowledge that the reason he loses is he's a poor candidate, and people don't care for him.

It'll always be someone else's fault...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

Look, Barack Obama gets a free ride from the msm while Ron Paul, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden never did. Obama hasn't had to prove himself or really talk about ideas while the other guys with experience are pressed.

It also doesn't help when there are huge and powerful interests that don't want you to win. FOX excluding him from the debates for instance.

It takes a long time to make big changes, and the mainstream writes him off as "too extreme".

Paul supporters know that the media must make this assertion because his brand of change doesn't help the lobbyists and corporate interests.
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Ron Paul is about to take 27 delegates tonight if he wins in Louisiana. Three different bloggers are saying that the caucuses they attended were packed with Paul supporters while one blogger said his dad was going to vote for Huckabee, couldn't find any Huckabee people at the precinct, so voted for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul must be doing well down there because results were supposed to start coming in over half an hour ago.

I wouldn't say he is a poor candidate. But, he is certainly not in the current mainstream of the GOP. This of course, causes tremendous problems for him. And that, combined with a lack of media coverage and hostitiliy from other Republicans makes his candidacy even weaker. Now, let's imagine a scenario in which the media gave equal press coverage to all candidates (forget how we will determine what "equal" is, just go with it.) Even in a scenario like this, I find it unlikely that Paul would win the nomination. He would certainly be doing better, and his chance of winning would certainly increase, but I don't think he would win. Now, one or two months ago, I would not have said this. However, after having watched the primaries, after having called voters, and after having canvassed in my precinct, I see that Paul is too outside mainstream to be the candidate.

But, all is not lost, not has Paul's campaign been worthless or a disaster. First of all, he still has a chance to win, how ever small that chance is. I think his best bet is a brokered convention. I'm not saying that a brokered convention equals a Paul win, but I am saying that a brokered convention is pretty much a necessary condition of Paul's winning (as one person said here, a metor could strike the debate hall and only leave Paul standing).

But more importantly is the message that Paul has gotten out. More than we in the LP could ever do, Paul has gotten his message to people. I mean, when was a LP candidate ever in a national debate? Just from my own personal experience, the LP is really bad at this sort of thing. Now, their are myriad reasons for that, and I will not get into them. But, siffice it to say that the campaign managers, volunteers, etc. have experience working on LOSING campaigns. This means that there are no real "winners" in the LP. However, Paul has a much better team.

Right now, I think we can all agree that Paul will end up with somewhere between 8 and 12 per cent of the vote. While this isn't a staggering number, it does give me hope. I know that there are atleas 10 people I have converted in my precinct to Paul's side. Sure, in a precinct of over 2000 voters 10 ain't a lot. (By the way, my entire immediate family and my grandmother, aunts and uncles, even the socialist are supporting Paul.) But it is 10 people who now share libertarian or paleo-conservative principles. That is 10 more than any LP candidate would have converted this year. Yesterday, Paul had about 3500 new donors, so it appeas that even more people have been convinced of Paul's message. Now, I realize that my side is still very much in the minority of the GOP. However, Paul's campaign has converted more people than any LP campaign that I can imagine.

So, what to do now? Well, we are going to continue to fight for Paul. We will not let up. Why? Because maybe 10 more people are out there ready to be converted. But, most importantly, we must not lose the momentum of Paul's campaign. Specificaly speaking to those of us in the LP and other 3rd parties, we need to drop those parties and get into the GOP. Otherwise, MattLarson and Steve will be right. One year from now, people are going to be saying, "Paul who?" So, let's step up. Let's join the party and maintain that 10% (or so) support that Paul has, and then let's grow it! This is the time.

Changing the minds of people in this way is not a one step process. It is like knocking a vending machine over. You have to tilt it and rock it for it to go over. Paul has gotten the montemum of the vending machine going, we have to keep rocking, now, until it tumbles over. This requires a grass-roots movement. This requires that the immature, skate-board Paul supporters grow up, go to County GOP meetings, and GET INVOLVED. Create Liberty Caucauses, pay for ads, elect like-minded leaders.

And never get involved with the social liberals of the LP. Do not let them join liberty caucuses. They do not help, they hurt. As Hoppe said, "the hell with them." I believe one reason that Paul has been more successful than any LP candidate is that he doesn't engage in ideologically impure actions like walking in gay pride parades, parades that have very anti-libertarian goals. By not doing stuff like this, Paul is able to appeal to younger generations like college kids, and older generations, like my grandmother. And, if her husband were alive today, I can almost gaurantee that he would support Paul. Why? Because he does not get involved in crazy social liberal events. He is a true social conservative, with a libertarian approach to government. He is like Rothbard.

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"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. That's what the Paul campaign reminds me of.

Had McCain or Romney or Huckleberry had those huge money bombs, the mainstream media would have covered it much more extensively because those guys are "status quo" and Ron Paul isn't.

Special interests now run America and Ron Paul has no allegiance to those people. Americans used to like candidates like Paul, who speak for themselves, speak clearly and directly, and are on the right side of the foreign policy debate and the immigration issue.

With Thompson out of the race now, Ron Paul is the most pure conservative left in the field.

McCain is for amnesty.

Huckabee's a tax and spender.

Romney's the Kerry of '08.

That leaves Ron Paul, the only reasonable candidate left on either side who doesn't want to run your life and police the world.

Wow I cannot believe this. I won't count my chickens before they hatch but I just checked the Facebook group for Ron Paul and people down there are saying that he has won almost every district. We won't know the official results until tomorow but its very likely Ron Paul is sitting with the second most number of delegates in the GOP race at this very moment. Of course, you won't see it on the media...they don't even realize there was a caucus lol.

From National Review Online:
UPDATE: Just spoke with somebody on the ground in Louisiana, and caucus turnout is heavy all over the state. Romney and Paul supporters appear to be the most vocal and visible thus far.

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"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

Apparently since everything is paper ballots down there(the best way to get the most accurate results)they will be publishing the results this morning. They're saying turnout was very heavy in some areas.

Louisiana has a caucus and a primary. The winner of the caucus gets 27 delegates and the primary winner gets the other 20, only if they collect at least 51% of the vote. If no one collects 51% or more, the delegates go the convention as "unpledged" though they typically end up going with the winner of the caucus.

Ron Paul spent some time there this week and there is apparently an outside shot that he won tonight.

One blogger tonight in Louisiana claims that Ron Paul easily won in 4 or 5 different precincts, one other blogger was at a caucus of only 15 people, 11 of whom went with Paul.

It would be terrific if Paul could wrest 47 delegates there and go into SuperTuesday with as many delegates or more than Huckabee or maybe McCain if he can't in Florida.

We kind of need Romney to pull it out in Florida so that McCain doesn't start to sweep. But I think the party is so split that there won't be a sweep on SuperTuesday anyway.

There's a forum for Huckabee supporters and they go on for two pages tonight about how Ron Paul seemed to be the only campaign that knew ahead of time what it needed to do at the caucuses last night.

Ron Paul supporters flooded so many precincts that eventually Thompson/Huckabee/Giuliani supporters banded together on the "Pro-Life/Pro-Family" ticket in the hopes that if they combined their forces they could stop Ron Paul. But with Thompson dropping out and Huckabee and Giuliani going broke, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney appear to be the only two candidates really putting an effort in Louisiana anyway.

From what I understand, this is the way Paul has conducted his entire campaign. Because his is a bottom-up campaign, rather than top-down, things like the LA Caucus are really easy to pick up on. So, they train their precinct leaders and they train their supporters. They tell them what they need to do win. So, if Paul won, that is certainly why.

I'm getting excited!

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"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address