BY MURRAY SABRIN

COMMENTARY

In his second attempt to win the Republican presidential nomination, Ron Paul is coming up short, based on the “official” delegate count so far. However, with several state conventions yet to decide the actual delegates from the caucus states, Ron Paul may have more delegates waiting in the wings to lift the number of delegates he will have at the Tampa convention in August and possibly be a kingmaker if no one has 1,144 delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot.

And with primaries in Texas, California and New York coming up in the next couple of months, a Ron Paul surge is not out of the question in the last few weeks of the primary season as more and more GOP voters realize that he is the only candidate who has solutions to end the bipartisan big government policies in Washington D.C.

Nevertheless, on Super Tuesday the Paul campaign—and his supporters—were disappointed he did not win three caucuses, Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota, where he campaigned extensively and was met with huge and enthusiastic crowds. Instead, Dr. Paul finished second in North Dakota, in a virtual tie for second in Idaho and third in Alaska. Again, there is anecdotal evidence that the GOP establishment did “its thing” to hold down the Paul vote at some of the precincts.

But by not winning any of the 23 primaries or caucuses the mainstream media will now marginalize Ron Paul’s candidacy even more, if that is possible. Already, in the post-Super Tuesday reporting of the GOP presidential race, Ron Paul is not being mentioned in most articles (New York Times, Wall Street Journal. etc.) I have read in the past two days. In other words, the MSM now have “proof” that Ron Paul cannot win the GOP presidential nomination, and therefore they can rationalize not covering him let alone mention him in articles about the GOP primary.

This MSM’s lack of coverage of the Ron Paul campaign is one reason he has not fared as well as the other candidates who have surged and crashed since the beginning of the primary campaign. By not getting any respectful coverage by the MSM, by that I mean not being considered a “contender” for the GOP nomination, but instead being protrayed as engaging in a quixotic quest to change America, reporters have asked Dr. Paul repeatedly about running as a third party candidate and whether he would support the eventual GOP nominee, thus planting in voters’ minds that he will not win the GOP presidential nomination and therefore voting for him would be a “wasted” vote. Dr. Paul fed this perception by not stating unequivocally that he is only seeking the GOP nomination. Period. End of the discussion. The more he explained any possible third party bid, the more he used up valuable time to discuss why he is the best GOP candidate to defeat Obama.