How About Those Ron Paul Presidential Odds

by  Christopher Costigan

With Republican Ron Paul still in the US Presidential Race and gaining momentum, there is talk of a potential brokered convention.

Say what?  Wasn't Ron Paul dead in the water?

Well, this is no ordinary political race and it shouldn't surprise too many people that someone who is still getting 8 percent of the vote in recent state primaries (16 percent in Pennsylvania) would suddenly be taken serious again.

An AOL poll conducted last month showed that much of the Northwestern states were in favor of Ron Paul over John McCain.

From the Salt Lake City Tribune:

As they have done in Nevada, Minnesota and elsewhere, a number of Utah Ron Paul backers are trying to get elected today as delegates to the Republican National Convention where, under a proposed rule change, they could be free to vote for whomever they want.

Under existing party rules, the 36 Utah delegates to the convention are obligated to vote for Mitt Romney, who won the state GOP primary with 90 percent of the vote.

the state party will consider changing its rules to release the delegates and let them vote for whom they see fit.

The proposed bylaws change comes in response to a request from Romney, after he dropped out of the race, to release his bound delegates.

That could free the delegates to support whomever they want at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September - a point not lost on Paul supporters.

On blogs and in e-mails, Paul backers have spread a strategy aimed at getting Paul supporters elected as delegates in order to keep Sen. John McCain from getting enough delegate support to clinch the nomination. That could force a convention fight, they argue, and give Paul a path - albeit a contorted one - to win the nomination.

"We will try to force a brokered convention - there is no way around it," writes Steve Parent on "The Daily Paul" blog.

But something else interesting happened on the way to the Convention that has helped build momentum Ron Paul's way.  His new book - "The Revolution: A Manifesto" - is number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. 

Upon its official release on April 30th, "The Revolution: A Manifesto" was the number one bestseller on Amazon.com and remains the number one bestseller in political books.

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