Ron Paul’s threat to Romney’s campaign

>>> ron paul is not suspending his campaign and he's not dropping out of the race. dr. paul plans to active campaign.

>> that was ron paul 's chief strategist on a conference call this morning clarifying the campaign statement which many media outlets took to mean he was ending the campaign. while he's not ending the campaign, he won't invest in the remaining primary states. can ron paul still be in, then if he's actually out.

>> he's never been in or out. and he didn't suspend and when you talk about the end game here, steve, they outlined three goals. they would like to continue more states, continue party leadership positions and more delegates. presumably because they want to have a roll in tampa and what role that is specifically worth discussing. you think the paul campaign , according to a piece you wrote yesterday, could create chaos in t tampa ?

>> yes. forget all of the substantive stuff. if you see any of these video clips from republican state conventions where delegates are picked, this is many tampa bays, basically. the paul supporters have been flooding these things. they have been heckling romney speakers. and overtook the convention. there is some dispute over what happened but they were booing mitt romney 's kid. romney has won the right to have delegates but who they actually are is totally up for grabs. the ron paul people have grabbed, by their estimate, a couple hundred delegate spots reserved for mitt romney . they will go to the convention and have to vote for mitt romney but they are paul purists at heart. are they going to show up there and heckle speakers in what is supposed to be an infommercial?

>> they all don't have to vote for romney . some of them they are not committed.

>> well, this -- and this, again, points to romney as a candidate having a really hard time building a coalition which is different than the tea party , although that's certainly a strain of ron paul 's support base. when we talk about ron paul on this show, when i talk about ron paul , i think, you know n. a large part we sort of dismiss his lasting legacy in the republican party because i do think there will be some moment of sort of wag don scircling after november. it really does resonate with younger voters and they are true believes in this message. and when you talk about where does ron paul go from here? he goes to rant and he's got a database and he's got a following into a 16. this is very valuable for his son.

>> ron paul is basically close to a mainstream republican figure who is a credible contender. he got elected statewide.

>> and i'm dying to see what his supporters do at the convention. whether they are comic relief, whether they really staged some noisy protest or light up a bunch of joints, you know.

>> i think this has got to add some interest.

>> can there be a pot smoking dreadlocked contingent in tampa ? the media would certainly hope so, right, ben?

>> we do hope so. and they were going to try to tell the people how to behave themselves.

>> and then charlie was teasing in politico, my own sense is that paul was sending a message to the gop establishment that he's not interested in the convention.

>> who has control over his own supporters does not strike me as total.

>> but that you talk about rand in 2016 , that is ron paul 's incentive to keep his crowd under control.