CPAC and Maine: Romney wins, Ron Paul declared Vice King of Maine

LOS ANGELES, February 10, 2011―A pair of poll
results came in, and Mitt Romney won both of them. The losing candidates
will most likely argue that the results do not matter.

So before
dissecting the actual results of the CPAC poll and the Maine Caucus,
let's create an integrity zone free of excuses. Finishing first is a
win. Will Ferrell summed it up best in "The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" when
he said, "If you're not first, you're last."There are no moral
victories, and exceeding expectations is nonsense. Being the most
improved player is not the same as being the most valuable player. Close
only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.Refusing to compete
is not an excuse for losing. Every single one of the candidates has at
some point downplayed the results of a contest because it was not
"friendly terrain." What this means is they did not compete because they
knew they would lose anyway.

Discounting results and declaring
contests unimportant after results come in is self-serving nonsense. To
declare some contests "beauty contests" is disrespectful to the many
people who come out all across America, often on cold, snowy nights, to
participate in democracy.The CPAC results and the numbers from
Maine both brought the same result, one that only those disputing cold,
hard numbers could refute: Mitt Romney won.

That is it. There is
no "almost" or "yeah, but" about it. Mitt Romney won. At CPAC, Romney
finished with 38%, Rick Santorum 31%, Newt Gingrich 15%, and Ron Paul
12%.

This was clearly a disappointing finish for Gingrich. He
thought he had Santorum on the ropes a week ago, and then Santorum won a
clean sweep in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Santorum and Gingrich
together won more votes than Romney, but neither of them is backing
down. Santorum could have won at CPAC, but he did not. As for Gingrich,
he excels in the debates. The next debate is February 22nd in Arizona.
This race remains fluid.As for Dr. Paul, he again finished dead
last. Every time he finishes dead last, his supporters prepare their
list of excuses. Conspiracy theories and plots against Dr. Paul are
often more palatable for them to stomach than the notion that most GOP
voters disagree with him. The problem is that the Paul supporters often
disagree on a varying number of excuses that are contradictory. Since
the other candidates and their supporters do not make excuses with such
fervor and frequency, it is best to help prepare the CPAC excuses for
Paul supporters so they can pick their preferred cop-out.Excuse #
1: Dr. Paul was deliberately excluded from CPAC. This is part of the
ongoing plot to marginalize him. Therefore, the results are skewed
because his supporters did not attend to vote.

Excuse # 2: Dr.
Paul skipped CPAC because CPAC is irrelevant. By Dr. Paul refusing to
participate, CPAC is marginalized. Maine was much more important, and
zero delegates were at stake at CPAC.

The Ron Paul supporters
need to have their own special excuses caucus because excuses #1 and #2
cannot both be the reason he finished dead last. Whatever excuse they
choose, CPAC was much more successful than last year due to his
supporters staying away. They preach fiscal responsibility, but they
attended last year in droves because it was free. This year only people
willing to pay to attend CPAC attended. The young college kids did not
have somebody else's money to get them to party for three days. CPAC is
not for people to run out around screaming and shouting.CPAC is
meant to be a serious discussion for conservative activists to promote
ideas in a serious manner. The lack of a Ron Paul presence led to a much
better CPAC Convention.Dismissing CPAC is a tough sell because
Ronald Reagan spoke there many times, and it is the premiere
conservative convention in the United States. Yet CPAC survived without
Reagan speaking, so naturally it did just fine without Paul in
attendance. Nobody is indispensable, another issue the Paul supporters
disagree with.

CPAC seemed to matter to the Paul supporters when
he won, so it should matter when he lost. So the only choice for his
supporters is to blame CPAC for excluding him, even though this may not
be the case. It seems he just rolled the dice and went to Maine.

Paul
does not get a free pass for skipping CPAC, just as Santorum and
Gingrich do not get free passes for skipping Maine. The number of
hostile responses expected from their supporters about this fact is
expected to be zero.

Only two candidates competed in Maine. Ron
Paul spent days there, while Mitt Romney spent one day there at the last
moment. While some wanted to dismiss Maine as unimportant, the event
was serious because Charlie Webster is the Maine GOP Chairman.

I
have never met with or spoken to Webster, nor have I ever been to
Maine. Yet Webster resembles a walrus, and people everywhere trust
walruses. So despite Chairman Webster insisting that this was a
non-binding, unofficial result, his slight resemblance to Captain
Kangaroo gives him automatic moral authority and seriousness of purpose.
The results did matter.

Romney finished with 39%. Paul earned
36%. Santorum ended with 18%, and Gingrich finished last with 6%. Romney
won. Everyone else lost. The Paul supporters again had to decide
between contradictory excuses.

Excuse #1: Maine is irrelevant.
Walrus Webster said so himself. Everything is about delegates, so caucus
results do not matter. This was a beauty contest, and even Dr. Paul
would admit that Mr. Romney is handsomer. Look at him. The guy is a male
model. Paul is older and far less likely than Romney to be on the cover
of GQ Magazine. Gay and straight men can unite in admiring Mitt
Romney's hair and jawline. Therefore, the beauty contest in Maine is
meaningless since we are electing a leader and not a model.

Excuse
#2: The media deliberately made Maine irrelevant to marginalize Ron
Paul in case he won. Every established journalist in America, in a
desperate attempt to stop Ron Paul, began shouting, "Remember Spain, to
hell with Maine!"

Excuse #3: Ron Paul really did win, because
only delegates count. The will of the people in actual votes taking
place does not matter.

So first the Paul supporters need to
argue amongst themselves over whether to declare victory, declare the
contest meaningless, or blame the entire world for not recognizing how
meaningful it was. That again requires a separate Paul caucus.Ron
Paul himself refused to dismiss the event, so declaring victory was
really the only viable option. Fox News cut away from his speech due to
technical difficulties, but before the conspiracy theorists can howl,
CNN carried the whole address. If Paul supporters complain this is
meaningless because nobody watches CNN, on this point they may be right.
Fox News had a glitch, and it was unfortunate.

Dr. Paul could
not claim a lack of attention because he had the whole state of Maine to
himself for several days. Mitt Romney barely showed up. Dr. Paul had
virtually all of the attention. Yet Romney won and Paul lost. Since
actual numbers no longer matter, Dr. Paul saw the results a different
way.

In his non-concession speech, Dr. Paul said "It's almost
like we could call it a tie." Then he pointed out the difference between
delegates and poll votes.

Make no mistake about it. Had Ron Paul
actually won, his supporters would be declaring him King of Maine.
Maine actually has a tradition of independent libertarianism and kings.
This may seem contradictory, but Angus King was elected Governor of
Maine as an Independent. Ross Perot won 30% of the vote in Maine in
1992, good for second place, also known as a non-win. Unlike Perot and
Paul, Angus did win, as the King became the Governor.

(Angus King did not play in ACDC, and does not have anything to do with "Thunderstruck" or "Moneytalks." That was Angus Young.)

Ron Paul was trying to declare himself the Vice King of Maine when Wolf Blitzer asked him an important question.

"Why can't Ron Paul compete in a primary state?"Dr.
Paul pointed that Florida was a winner-take-all contest, and the issue
was money. He said he would compete in any state that has proportional
allocation of delegates. The problem is Dr. Paul may be wrong. Mr.
Gingrich is contesting the Florida delegate allocation, arguing they
should be doled out proportionally. He may win this argument.

While there is nothing illegal in pursuing a delegate strategy, the overwhelming popular vote has rejected Ron Paul.Mitt
Romney, and Rick Santorum have all won multiple contests. Newt Gingrich
has one primary victory. Even Pat Buchanan won one primary, New
Hampshire in 1996. Even Jesse Jackson won Michigan once. So far Ron Paul
has the same number of victories as Lyndon Larouche and Pat Paulsen.

Mitt
Romney won, and now the fight goes to Arizona and Michigan. Rick
Santorum and Newt Gingrich will soldier on, without making excuses.

As for Ron Paul, his supporters can explain the results of CPAC and Maine without a hint of irony.

The
contests do not matter, except when they do. He was excluded, even
though he chose not to compete. He chose not to compete because the
contests don't matter, even though if he had won they would. The media
has totally marginalized him, or only covered him in a negative light.

The
main culprit is me, proof of evil journalists and reporters for
covering him in a biased and slanted way. My repeated proclamations of
being an opinion columnist who has every right to be biased are ignored.
For those who want just the facts, they are as plain as daylight.

Ron
Paul is a demigod, the most handsome, fearless, and perfect dear leader
since the late Kim Jong Il. Any criticism of him shall result in verbal
violence. Everyone loves him, which is why he wins every contest and
has virtually 100% of the popular vote.Those few misguided souls
not worshiping him will be given the compassion of those in Iraq who
voted against Saddam Hussein or those in China not adoring Mao Tse Tung.
Verbal violence will be used against all not hailing the lord of the
Planet Rapulon.

A few precious supporters of Ron Paul will do
the one thing that could get them banned from the Ron Paul movement.
They will be introspective. They will ask a simple question. If we are
so awesome and everyone else is so vile, why do we keep losing?

Supporters
of the other candidates do not have time for such painful
self-analysis, despite having the ability to conduct it. They are too
busy winning, although in varying degrees.