The RNC establishment absolutely HATES Ron Paul's guts. Given the slap in the face to all the RP volunteers, a large percentage of them voted for the Libertarian candidate in protest, voted for Obama as a protest, or did not even vote.
If you look at Ohio, Florida, and Virginia (I am going from memory here) - the votes gotten by the libertarian candidate represented a large portion of votes needed to swing the state to Romney. And those 3 states' EC votes would have put Romney a lot closer, giving him 266 EC votes. Add in Colorado (numbers below) and he would have won.
Florida: 29EC votes; difference was 61,000 votes, L. got 44,000 votes
Ohio: 18E votes: difference was 104,000 votes, L got 47,000
Virginia: 13EC votes: difference was 116,000, L and Constitution parties got 44,000 .
Colorado: 9EC votes: difference was 113,000, L and Constitution got 37,000 .
Clausewitz, in his treatise "On War" dedicates an entire chapter to "Moral Forces" , what we would term "an organization's morale" .
Did crappy software contribute? Perhaps.
But wars and elections are not won by software, but by people.
That critical Libertarian slice or whatever you want to call it, of the traditional Republican base, was demoralized over Ron Paul and that resulted in an Obama victory.
> The RNC establishment absolutely HATES Ron Paul's guts
It's not just the RNC - it's also most of the voters who don't like Ron Paul. Reading about politics mainly on forums gives you a myopia, but in the actual US most people don't agree with his ideas.
Regardless, there's no way all of those Libertarian voters would have voted Republican. Some who voted Libertarian did so out of concern for civil liberties or drug legalization or avoiding war, and many of those would be more likely to vote Democratic than Republican if the option of voting Libertarian were not present.
So even making the incorrect assumption that 100% of the Gary Johnson votes were coming from would-be Republicans, none of the outcomes would have changed.
That is not what I said... key sentence is "That critical Libertarian slice or whatever you want to call it, of the traditional Republican base, was demoralized over Ron Paul and that resulted in an Obama victory."
Meaning the libertarian section of the Republican base, not meaning the people who necessarily voted for Gary Johnson.
If you look at Ohio, Florida, and Virginia (I am going from memory here) - the votes gotten by the libertarian candidate represented a large portion of votes needed to swing the state to Romney. And those 3 states' EC votes would have put Romney a lot closer, giving him 266 EC votes. Add in Colorado (numbers below) and he would have won.
Florida: 29EC votes; difference was 61,000 votes, L. got 44,000 votes
Ohio: 18E votes: difference was 104,000 votes, L got 47,000
Virginia: 13EC votes: difference was 116,000, L and Constitution parties got 44,000 .
Colorado: 9EC votes: difference was 113,000, L and Constitution got 37,000 .
Clausewitz, in his treatise "On War" dedicates an entire chapter to "Moral Forces" , what we would term "an organization's morale" .
Did crappy software contribute? Perhaps.
But wars and elections are not won by software, but by people.
That critical Libertarian slice or whatever you want to call it, of the traditional Republican base, was demoralized over Ron Paul and that resulted in an Obama victory.
Description of rule changes at RNC convention: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/28/news/la-pn-ron-paul-...