Maine Caucus- The Real Story

The Corporate media is telling you that Mitt Romney won the Maine caucus with over 50% of the vote, and that McCain was a distant second with just over 20% followed closely by Ron Paul. They either don't know what they are talking about or don't care that they are reporting mis-information. It is a shame, but you have to turn to an amateur blogger to tell you the truth about what is happening in Maine....

There are actually two sets of elections going on in Maine. One is a non-binding preference poll for president, the other (more critical) elections are the ones where they pick the delegates to go to the state convention. Those are the people that will pick the delegates to the national Republican convention.

The numbers the corporate media are reporting are not for delegates to the state convention. They are merely the result of the non-binding poll taken of local attendees. In many cases this vote is taken even before spokesmen for the candidates make their case. What a caucus is really about is selecting delegates. If a Ron Paul supporter running for delegate has a lot of respect in their community, they can be elected as a town's delegate to the state convention even though most of the town voted for another candidate in the non-binding presidential preference poll.

Only the most committed citizens in the local caucus agree to also be a delegate at the state convention. As we read events on the ground, even though people voted for Romney in the non-binding preference poll, they voted to send supporters of Ron Paul to the state convention in at least equal numbers. When the dust settles in May, don't be surprised to see Paul getting more of the state's 18 national convention delegates than any other candidate.

In the state's largest city of Portland for example, at least 21 of the 59 delegates to the state convention are known supporters of Paul. In some of the smaller caucus meetings the results are even more amazing- in one meeting where they held the preference poll last, Paul supporters were 7 of the 11 delegates they are sending to the state convention even though Paul only got 6 votes in the non-binding preference poll! This happened when every Paul supporter in the room was selected as a delegate and one of them had to leave before the non-binding poll was taken.

The number one reason for the difference is in the level of commitment in the supporters of Paul relative to the other candidates. A close second would be that Paul had a lot of sympathy in the caucus meetings even from those who were (without much enthusiasm) voting for someone else.

To find out what the corporate media wants you to believe, turn on the boob tube. To find out what reality is, go outside your door and look around your town.