The process of actually selecting delegates for the August
Republican National Convention continues, and Paul’s forces
continue to do well. The latest out of Oklahoma,
via Paul activist Allan Stevo:

After Ron Paul’s campaign captured an estimated 60% of
Oklahoma’s available delegates at the congressional level, Mitt
Romney’s campaign started to realize they had a problem on their
hands in the Sooner State. It was apparently a problem they didn’t
feel they could handle.

Romney’s campaign has convinced a former member of the Santorum
campaign team to round up Santorum supporters for Mitt Romney and
to make sure they attend this weekend’s state convention, a task
Romney’s campaign has so far not been very good at.

David Van Risseghem, Rick Santorum’s Oklahoma state
coordinator, sent out an e-mail May 9 to Oklahoma Republicans
attempting to get them to turnout in opposition to Ron Paul and
therefore presumably for Mitt Romney, the only other candidate in
the race. The note was apparently sent from an e-mail address owned
by the suspended Santorum campaign.

The vitriolic note from the Santorum campaign stated, ”It’s
time for all values voters to work together to keep our communities
safe for the next generation. Several Ron Paul activists want to
legalize recreational drug use, decimate obscenity laws, and
sanction prostitution.”

The pro-Paul author of this piece pulls a bit of faux-outrage,
pointing out that such positions are not explicitly part of Paul’s
stated platform on his campaign page, and that he’s running for
federal office not state, which is true; still, such positions are
indeed part of the larger libertarian perspective from which Paul
arises and which many (not all) or his current fans embrace fully.
It is hard to say that to most GOP primary voters; but Paul
activists should be prepared to explain the philosophical and even
constitutional logic behind believing that government should not be
involved in policing drug use, obscenity, and prostitution.

More from Stevo:

The note from Santorum’s campaign is again another sign of a
struggling Romney campaign in the face of Paul surging. It now
looks like Paul may win as many as 12 states and may even have
ardent Paul loyalists outnumbering Romney loyalists at the
Republican National Convention – the highest legislative body of
the Republican Party.

Mitt Romney believed and the media has reported that after
Santorum left the race the rest of the nomination process would be
easy for Romney. To the contrary, it’s become evident to many
watching that he is unfit as a leader in the GOP as he can’t
inspire convention goers – the most dedicated of Republicans – and
he has so far failed at uniting the party.

A Romney nomination spells defeat for the Republicans, as it
will no doubt leave Paul’s supporters feeling alienated, perhaps
even searching for a candidate outside of the GOP.

Romney, the presumed front runner, instead of working to bring
some 15%-30% of the Republican Party into the fold is spending his
April and May alienating these Ron Paul supporters with rumors,
dirty tricks, and ugly Chicago-style tactics.

Details from Daily Paul on how the delegate process
has gone so far in Oklahoma, via a memo from anti-Paul forces:

This Saturday, in Norman, Oklahoma; Ron Paul’s people intend to
complete their grand design and add Oklahoma to the growing list of
state delegations they already control.

The national media is largely ignoring the recent developments
in many state and district conventions.

Rick Santorum won Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, Louisiana,
Iowa, and several other states. But the states I just named are now
under the control of Ron Paul, and those delegates intend to vote
for Paul regardless of the outcome of their Caucus results.

Oklahoma pledged all their 40 delegates to Santorum, Romney, and
Gingrich; on Super Tuesday (March 6th). Ron Paul received less than
10% of the vote and zero pledged delegates.

But when the time came for selecting which individuals will wear
those national delegate badges, Ron Paul’s activists have already
successfully received 9 of the first 15 national delegates from
Oklahoma.

Each congressional district was allowed to select 3 national
delegates and three of Oklahoma’s district conventions (3, 4
5) were all controlled by Ron Paul activists. Districts 1 and 2
selected primarily Santorum supporters. Ron Paul’s activists
attempted a coup at District One and they are now petitioning to
vacate the results of District One.

Some video from the Okalahoma
GOP proceedings here. More on the complicated
procedures for allocating Oklahoma delegates from
an Examiner writer out of Oklahoma City.

*Early last week, frontrunner Mitt Romney took a swipe at Paul,
his only opponent, for daring to be just a bit too serious about
cutting spending and debt, as
the Washington Times reported:

Speaking Monday at a town hall style-meeting event in Cleveland,
presumptive GOP presidential Mitt Romney plunged a fork into the
idea that he could come around to embracing Mr. Paul’s call for
deep cuts in federal spending.

“My job is to get America back on track to have a balanced
budget. Now I’m not going to cut $1 trillion in the first year,” he
said, distancing himself from Mr. Paul’s (http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2011/oct/19/paul-time-cut-spending/)
plan to slice more than a quarter of the estimated $3.8 trillion
being spent by the the federal government.

His reason, is exactly why Paul often says that what he’s
fighting isn’t just the Democratic Party, or even all political
establishments: it’s Keynesian economics, which Paul fights with
his Austrian perspective. Says Romney:

“The reason,” he explained, “is taking a trillion dollars out of
a $15 trillion economy would cause our economy to shrink [and]
would put a lot of people out of work.”

Would that we had some sort of national movement, say
representing the principles of the American Revolution, to make
sure a candidate such as Ron Paulwho actually believed in reining
in government spending and overreach seriously got big support and
people like Romney disappeared. Perhaps they could name themselves
after some icon of that revolutionary era, like, say, the “Tea
Party” or something. If only, if only….

*Grace Wyler at Business Insider continues her
great Paul coverage with
profiles of various women of the Paul revolution,
including GOP National Committeewoman Ashley Ryan, Emily O’Neill,
Nena Bartlett of the Ladies for Liberty Alliance, vlogger Julie
Borowski, Bonnie Kristian, Corie Whalen, and others.