February 7, 2012 was Republican Caucus night in Minnesota. The non-binding straw poll was won by Rick Santorum with 21,988 votes. Ron Paul finished second with 13,282 followed by Mitt Romney with 8,240 votes. However, the caucus results are not binding. Minnesota has 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention. Three of these delegates are unpledged RNC delegates. Twenty-four delegates are decided at eight separate district conventions held throughout Minnesota. The other, 13 delegates are decided at the state Republican convention on May 5th.
The result of the delegate selection from the 8 district conventions, all of which were concluded by yesterday, April 21, 2012 are as follows:
2012 MINNESOTA REPUBLICAN DISTRICT CONVENTIONS
DELEGATE ELECTION RESULTS
Candidate 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th TOTAL
Romney 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Santorum 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2
Paul 2 3 3 3 3 3 1 2 20
Unknown 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2
At this juncture, Ron Paul has 20 of 24 of the elected delegates to the Republican national convention. Thirteen more delegates are to be elected at the state convention in two weeks. It is not at all unreasonable for Paul to walk away with 30 or more of Minnesota’s 40 delegates to the National Republican Convention.
An attendee at one of the district conventions tells me that this is a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party, a party that has strayed far to the “left” in the past 50 years. The younger folks in the room are Paul supporters, normally 25-40 years of age. The old men in the room represent the Republican establishment, which has been responsible for the excessive government that now burdens us. Unlike their elders, the young Paul supporters are much more “libertarian” in their views; wanting the federal government to stay out of their pocketbooks and out of their bedrooms.
These young Minnesota delegates to the Republican National Convention aren’t going to accept “business as usual” from Mitt Romney or any establishment Republicans. They’re not going to compromise on their insistence for truly smaller government. If enough of these young folks are elected Republican delegates from other caucus states, we could see a deadlocked Republican convention.
Editor Note:
As a “classical liberal” I find it refreshing to see these results from Minnesota. While this story won’t make the main stream media, it could foretell a wonderful new future for the United States of America.
The web site confirmation of this information is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Republican_caucuses,_2012
DonSalyards.com 
Thanks for reporting this! I was there at the CD1 convention and witnessed 2 of 3 national delegates selected for Ron Paul DESPITE a public united effort from Romney and Santorum supports to block this. A slate was publicly posted for their supporters to vote for and emails sent out weeks before hand. Rules were adopted without much of a chance to change them which included, “No national delegate nominations are accepted from the floor. All national delegates must make their Presidential preference known.”
I even educated a republican county chairman (will remain unnamed in case this is embarassing) on what happens with Santorum delegates and what happens if Romney fails to win on the 1st vote at the national convention. After hearing this, he appeared to be a little in shock, as if he just discovered all of his assets were in low grade mortgage securities.
You can count the 1 uknown in CD1 to Romney btw.
This happened the last time around in Minneapolis…our liberal south Minneapolis district voted for Paul. Unfortunately I don’t take this as a sign of things to come. Why? The GOP is too fixated in the “southern strategy” which is all about about social conservatism, racism, and war abroad as a matter of patriotism. Republicans have staked their future to the least educated and institutionally ignorant portion of the electorate with this strategy…the white southern male. What a bunch of socially liberal northern Republicans think or want has never been farther from the GOPs minds.
Unfortunately, Ron Paul holds a very Un-Libertarian position when it comes to women, he is anti-abortion rights. For me and most of the women I know, that is a deal breaker and will continue to be the deal breaker for the Republican Party. Apparently for Paul, the government holding a gun to our heads to collect taxes is unacceptable, but holding a gun to a woman’s head to force her to bring a pregnancy to term is a-okay. When do we get a real Libertarian candidate?
I too disagree with his aborition issue but I have no problem with removing federal funds from such clinics. As for a presidential candidate, I don’t feel they have much power over the abortion issue.
I’ll gladly take Paul as president with his anti-abortion stance as long as he is against all forms of bailouts and interventionalism which the President directly affects. Along with exeuctive orders that encroach on civil liberties.
As President he wouldn’t be able to do much to existing abortion legislation.
Unfortunately I agree with the above poster in regards to what the GOP cares about. Most “Old Guard” republicans are dismissive or out right against “Ron Paul Republicans”.
“They come and go. They aren’t here for the party. They’ll be here this year then you’ll never see them again.”
“They’re horribly disruptive and counter productive. They try changing planks and push delegates through without thinking about the whole party.”
Basically, if you’re a Ron Paul Republican, they don’t want to lump you in as an actual Republican with the same interests as that would mean an inter party party battle or acceptance of division over the war mongering / social conservative issues.