Ron Paul 2012 Wins 12 Of 13 Minnesota Delegates

Ron Paul's 2012 campaign said last week that it would not be spending large sums of money on remaining state primaries in pursuit of popular vote supremacy, which is all but locked up by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

But the campaign explained that it does plan to continue to lock up delegate hauls, which Ron Paul hopes will allow him to have a major presence at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., this summer, or even to pull off an unlikely win during what will probably be a raucous convention.

During the announcement about scaling back the Ron Paul 2012 campaign, Minnesota was identified as the next target of Paul's delegate strategy, and it appears to have paid off, as he won 12 of 13 delegates at the state convention, according to Yahoo News.

That seems to be in keeping with the plans of the campaign, according to Ron Paul 2012 campaign manager John Tate:

Victories in Minnesota and other states demonstrate that Ron Paul supporters possess the adaptability, organizational muscle, and unmatched enthusiasm required to continue winning delegates in upcoming contests, Tate said in a statement obtained by Yahoo.

The clean-up over the weekend means that of 40 national delegates Minnesota will send to the RNC, 32 of them have committed to supporting Ron Paul, who has yet to win any primary's popular vote.

It's an odd scenario -- Ron Paul is going to have large numbers of delegates headed into the convention, but he hasn't been able to get much of the popular vote. He chalks it up to a lot of things, one of which is his stated independence from special interests, who have bankrolled much of the primary-winning candidates' campaigns.

Our campaign will continue to work in the state convention process. We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates, and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that liberty is the way of the future, Paul said Monday,according to USA Today.

Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have, he said.

Paul also earned delegates in Michigan, Virginia and Vermont over the weekend, adding to his haul, which now counts states all across the country.

Though an Associated Press tally recently put Romney's delegate count at 966 vs. Ron Paul's 104 (1,144 delegates are needed to secure the party's nod), that greatly underestimates the endurance of Paul's influence, which could make for an interesting convention.

Paul is on track to notch major delegate hauls in Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Alaska. Even Romney's home state of Massachusetts is leaning Paul-ward, according to the Boston Globe.

One of the key factors at play that is allowing Ron Paul 2012 to continue to rack up delegates is the level of anyone-but-Romney sentiment that remains in the Republican party's more conservative corners. As the party has lurched rightward in recent years, libertarian and ultra-conservative groups have gone from the fringes to the mainstream, which only helps Paul's prospects.

As voters who went for Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain begin to weigh the two remaining candidates, many of them are joining the Paul camp out of dissatisfaction with the policies of Romney.

And Paul, though a long-shot, still has a chance of winning the nomination, if historical precedent is to be considered. Warren G. Harding, who in 1920 went into the RNC with fewer delegates than any other candidate still on the ballot, ended up winning the GOP nod, and eventually the presidency.