James Robert Kelley

(Update May 9, 2008: Looks like CNN felt the heavy weight of my post, and updated their site.  Ok, maybe they don’t even know I exist, whatever).

I probably sound like a broken record, harping about the evil deeds the media does to Ron Paul this election cycle. Today I discovered another evil deed, and it definitely show a strong desire to keep the viewing sheeple calm and under control.

Indiana and North Carolina recently held their primaries, which led me to CNN’s website to see the delegate counts. I was interested in knowing if Ron Paul was able to pick up any delegates, now that he is the only guy running against McCain. Here is a screen shot from the CNN “Election Center 2008″ page:

This screen shot was taken early on Thursday May 8, 2008. CNN posted the Democrat delegate counts as they came in, but after more than a day passed I started to wonder if they were even awarding delegates on the Republican side. Then the aweful truth set in, Ron Paul must have won some delegates and the establishment does not want anyone to know!

Why would they care? The establishment, whoever they are, want us all to be calm little sheeple. If the presumptive nominiee is not mopping up all of the delegate, it means there is dissention in the party ranks. We cannot have any dissent! This set me on a fact finding mission, to see if Ron Paul had in fact picked up any delegates. I didn’t know if he would have, since he only scored 8% of the vote, but I had to know if my suspicion was correct.

My next stop was the Republican Party of Indiana’s website. There was ZERO information on their site that I could find. It seems like this primary was a total snoozer in Indiana. So I stopped by the North Carolina Republican Party website and could not find any useful information. I did find something that further increased my suspicions on on North Carolina Republican Party Candidates webpage:

Notice anything missing? They have on the page, in more detail than I’ve shown in this snip, a full list of candidates for the various offices in North Carolina. We can see that Senator Elizabeth Dole was facing competition from Pete DiLauro, etc. This missing part should be in the list of candidates running for President. It ONLY lists John McCain! Unbelievable! Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul were both on the ballot in North Carolina. Ron Paul is still officially in the race, yet his name is not on the list.

Basically, the NC GOP is telling us to not look behind the curtain and be loyal party sheeple, don’t question, just vote for the guy we ordained.

So, after that little journey, I still did not have my question answered. Did Ron Paul win any delegates? Is CNN and the Republican Party trying to hide the truth from us? A couple searches on Google turned up a result from an AOL webpage detailing North Carolina primary results, surely maintained by someone who has a lust for numbers and technology with little regard for politics:

There, My Friends, is the proof. AOL somehow let this one slip. Ron Paul won 5 delegates. So much for party sheeple, we still have a few people out there willing to think for themselves. Maybe, if the media will just report and not decide, the rest of America can wake up and break free from their TVs.

Mitt Romney “suspended” his run for President after the Super Tuesday primaries.  “Suspended” means something quite different than “dropped out.”  Mitt Romney is basically still in the running, he is technically taking a breather.   This could be a rest that lasts the entire Primary process, he could rejoin the race, or he could use his delegates in a bid to gain the Vice President slot in the GOP nomination process.

The possibility of rejoining the race seems remote, but I see a possible strategy he could be employing.  John McCain gained a “front-runner” status after Super Tuesday with nearly 700 delegates in the bag.  The momentum he gained seemed unstoppable, so Romney would consider it prudent to drop out of the race; even without a strategy to win the nomination.  The strategy would be to “suspend” his race, which would unite the anti-McCain voters toward Huckabee or Ron Paul.  As we have seen in the February 9th primary and caucuses, Huckabee took all of the delegates awarded.

Huckabee has gained momentum during the February 9th Primaries due to the absense of Mitt Romney.  This could put an end to John McCain’s momentum and unlock his grasp on an outright nomination.  If that happens, John McCain will need to survive a brokered convention, which is not as certain.  Mitt Romney would then be able to reenter the race at a time when John McCain is down and try to gain enough delegates to become a force in the brokered convention.

Will this happen?  I have no idea, but it seems very possible that Mitt Romney could be counting on it.

The 2008 Presidential Election cycle is not the first time John McCain has run for President. He was defeated by George W. Bush in 2000 for the Republican nomination, even though he did well in some of the early primary states.

John McCain first introduced the The McCain–Feingold Act in 1995, in preparation for the 2000 Election. McCain–Feingold was filibustered and did not gain any traction until 2002, after the 2000 Election cycle in which John McCain was defeated by his opponents superior fund raising. I believe this was the main reason he pushed the bill through in 2002.

Rudy Giuliani recently dropped out of the race, mainly due to his inability to raise money under the McCain–Feingold Act’s restrictions on fund raising. Mitt Romney is somewhat immune to this Act, since he is personally wealthy. Ron Paul is also able to raise large amounts of funds from small donors, but there is no doubt that his existing opponents would be able to far out raise McCain if they were able to draw on restricted funds.

Mike Huckabee is a strong example. He does not have much support from small donors, but he would be able to draw in large amounts of money from religious organizations. Mitt Romney would be able to draw funds from corporate interests and Ron Paul would be able to draw funds from Libertarian groups.

With this in mind, I am convinced that John McCain feels assured he will win the nomination, because he has been crafting his plan and laying down the groundwork for over a decade. I am sure some of the readers will be able to point out additional laws and regulations John McCain has influenced to ensure his path to the Presidency, such as influence over election rules and even voting machines.