Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul isn’t happy with the way the Maine Republican Party handled voting in the Maine caucuses last weekend, however he still believes he will win the fight for delegate votes coming out of Maine.
The Texas congressman made an appearance on CNN’s “State of The Union” Sunday, to discuss his strategy in the Republican primary race going forward.
CNN anchor Candy Crowley pressed Mr. Paul about his caucus focused strategy, questioning whether he could really garner enough delegate votes to make a credible argument for the Republican nomination at the Republican National Convention in August.
“You get great crowds, you do those money bombs, you get all that money, yet you don’t have a win and it seems almost impossible to envision a presidential nominee that can’t get a win in a state somewhere,” said Ms. Crowley.
Mr. Paul’s closest finish of the race thus far came in the Maine caucuses, where he came within 194 votes of defeating rival Mitt Romney according to the original results reported by the Maine Republican Party.
Despite not having a win thus far in the race though, Mr. Paul still believes that his campaign will achieve their goal of winning enough delegate votes to be competitive at the RNC convention.
“It all depends on how you measure winning, if you measure whether or not we’re winning the maximum number of delegates in states, we actually have had wins even though the final tallies not in,” said Mr. Paul. ”We think we’re going to have the most delegates out of Iowa, and the same thing probably about Maine, and they’re still very confused up there on actually what is going on with the popular vote.”
Mr. Paul’s campaign team slammed the Maine Republican Party for their blunder in handling the votes. Several precinct votes were never tallied, and Washington County canceled their caucus voting due to a severe weather forecast.
However, after a recount that inlcuded Washington County’s votes and all the other mishandled votes, Mr. Romney still came away victorious.
In an interview with Politico Friday, Maine Republican Party chairman Charlie Webster called Ron Paul supporters “conspiracy theorists” for questioning whether he was acting as a Romney surrogate with all the mishaps involved with the voting in Maine.
Regardless of what happened in Maine though, Mr. Paul has stated that he plans on remaining in the race through the RNC convention this summer. His campaign team is still focused on garnering more delegate votes than his rivals, taking advantage of RNC rules regarding the distribution of delegate votes in certain states.
The former Air Force surgeon continues to trail all of his rival candidates in recent polls of Republican voters nationwide though.
“The enthusiasm seems to be growing, I know its missing the national TV but if anybody travels with us, they know something very special is going on in the frustration level. Those others who are at the top now, doesn’t mean they’re going to stay there, not the way this campaign’s been going,” said Mr. Paul.
