I think if you are talking about a conspiracy to eliminate independents from the South Carolina primary, you must look at who the South Carolina voters support. A national poll is meaningless, you can't just cherry pick the polls that support your opinion. The latest polls from SC likely voters have independents broken down like this; Romney-- 30% Paul -- 21 Santorum -- 13 Gingrich -- 12 Huntsman -- 12 Now that Huntsman is out and endorsing Romney, and Romney is typically the second choice candidate for independents, I would expect the numbers now to be closer to 35% Romney and 25% Paul.
Paul already said he is not going to spend money in FL. This goes back to what I was saying the other day. He is feeding supporters with the "We're in this thing... nipping at Mitt's heels..... etc". But in the end his is a cause, not a campaign. He's happily building the cause for his son to take over. But that means absolutely not running third party and using the strength of the GOP party as much as possible. He recently said that he is just trying to get enough delegates to get meaningful attention. That means skipping any early winner-take-all states. Focusing only on proportional states with a decent number of delegates and a fairly inexpensive ad market. He can't sink $3MM into FL and get no delegates from it. That means he will spend all his time and money on; Nevada Colorado Minnesota North Dakota His biggest problem is the schedule doesn't favor that strategy at all if Romney is in the race. Normally, Paul could have a really decent showing in Nevada, but the mormons have a huge presence in the GOP there. Romney wins in a landslide. Paul would normally get about 1/3 of the delegates, but not against Romney. Colorado will be a good Paul contest, as will Maine. But neither will get him a ton of delegates. Then you have Minnesota, where Paul should do ok and will probably get him the most delegates in the early states. But the other early states are AZ and MI. AZ is WTA and Romney wins in a landslide there. MI, is like NH for Romney. His family is very popular there. So the schedule really favors Romney because the sates that would otherwise give Paul a boost either have a heavy mormon presence or are already Romney's stomping grounds.
Can you provide a link to these polls you cite? My poll shows Paul with a two point lead over Romney for the independent vote in SC (conducted between Jan 11-12) http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres2012/primary/rep/sc/
That's a bit of a stretch. Ron Paul will decide to spend cash in Fl based on whether the delegates are proportional or winner take all. You seem to be advancing the conspiracy theory that Ron Paul is duping his support base but that is absurd. If he's proven himself to be anything...it's honest. It makes no sense to spend in Fl if it's winner take all and the jury is still out. You seem to be attempting to take that as a smoking gun but it does not pass the smell test. There are plenty of other states (like Va) where he can easily make up delegates, should he decide to skip Fl. At any rate, Ron Paul has already won imho. Obama is pulling troops out of countries, talking about shrinking the size of the federal government...and who do you think provided Barry with the motivation to do that?
Sure. It is the most recent South Carolina primary poll listed on RCP. The Insider Advantage poll. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2012/InsiderAdvantage_SC_0115.pdf But the one just posted from Monmouth University is pretty similar, although the questions were asked and grouped differently. It groups independents and dems in the same category, but only 1% of participants identified as democrat anyway, so that doesn't really make a difference. The Monmouth University poll also shows Romney with 26% of independents and Paul with 17%. Still a 9-point difference favoring Romney. http://www.monmouth.edu/assets/0/84/159/2147483694/b12e469b-c692-4269-a657-d71566dbf64e.pdf
I know what your opinion is, and I share your sentiment. But you are just reinforcing my point. He is pushing a cause, not a campaign. That's why you can say things like, "He has already won". His cause has been advanced, and that is his main goal. You should also realize that I'm getting a lot of my information from his campaign staff. They have stated that he will not be targeting FL much because the media market is too expensive there and so far it is still WTA. If they change to proportional it will still probably be WTA by congressional district, so Paul would still face the same problem he did in Iowa. He won't win any districts, so he still won't get delegates, even if they are proportional. Listen, I really like Ron Paul, but reality is reality. I can't just cherry pick stats to try to make him look good. My brain doesn't play that way. In the end, Paul likely only gets about 200-300 delegates.
Looks like the just released Rasmussen poll comes up with the same conclusion, except that it has Romney ahead by a slightly higher margin. He leads with a plurality in every group except Tea Party supporters, where Gingrich has 30% and Romney only gets 27%. Paul is only at about 15% of the Tea Party in SC although he does get more of their support nationwide. Also noteworthy to the other statisticians out there. In contrast with Iowa, where a very large portion of voters indicated the ability to be persuaded to a different vote, SC voters are mostly locked in. Less than a third said there is any possibility of a vote change, which is by far the lowest so far. Not good for the other candidates when that poll shows Romney with a 14-point lead. I would include one disclaimer though. I don't like the way that Rasmussen conducts their polls. They typically don't spread them over more than one day. I would prefer to see them conducted over a few days and during multiple time periods. My stat comparisons have shown that they consistently overestimate whatever candidate is favored by the 45-80 year old block. In this case it is Romney. But when all recent polls are essentially saying the same thing, it lends a bit more credence to it.
I think from the debate last night we can safely conclude that it was Gingrich who Fox news wished to prop up.
DAS, please, please let it go. LOL. Enough of the conspiracies. You are not doing Ron Paul any favors by being that way.