Does Romney really have the nomination?

After the republican primary in Texas, Romney graciously accepted the GOP nomination for president. But is he speaking to soon? According to the main stream media and the national GOP, Romney is the nominee. The only problem is the Ron Paul contingent, their never say die attitude that won’t allow Ron Paul to drop out of the race. Paul’s campaign has even stopped spending money in the primary race but he hasn’t stopped gathering delegates. In fact, even though Romney “won” the Nevada caucus, during the State convention 20 of the 28 delegates selected are Ron Paul supporters. Not only did Ron Paul supporters fill a majority of the delegates selected in Nevada, but they also took over the state party. They replaced the national committee chairman and chairwoman with Paul supporters and took control of the Clark County Republican Party and the state Central Committee. Four years ago, the Nevada convention was shut down because of the fear of Ron Paul winning the convention and now the RNC has threatened to not seat the Nevada delegation to the national convention, even though they have stated that they would respect the results of the caucus held in February. This is not just happening in Nevada but in other states as well. What does all this mean? It could mean a lot, especially if you look at the ruling made in 2008. That year the RNC legal counsel interpreted the rules the bind delegates to vote for a specific candidate are not really binding, that delegates are free to vote for whomever they want. Most state parties have rules that bind delegates; however the national rules override state rules, meaning that there are no delegates officially awarded to any candidate. So any candidate could technically win the nomination, even Huntsman, who dropped out of the race extremely early. There are delegate counts that show Romney has the delegates to gain the nomination and there are delegate counts that show him about halfway to the nomination, but as the 2008 RNC ruling shows that the delegate count doesn’t really matter until the convention in Tampa later this year. So I guess we will just have to wait and see if the national convention turns into a three ring circus. As always, please check my examiner article here for links.