Infighting hampering GOP

Sen. John McCain is sailing toward his coronation as the Republican presidential nominee while the Democratic candidates battle fiercely. But Republicans also are engaged in some infighting that could disrupt the national convention and make it more difficult for him to unite the party in the fall.

At state and county GOP conventions, die-hard supporters of maverick U.S. Rep. Ron Paul are staging uprisings in an effort to secure a role for Paul at the national convention Sept. 1-4 in St. Paul, Minn.

In the primaries since clinching the nomination in early March, McCain has yet to reach 80 percent of the vote, as Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee continue to siphon away votes, even though Huckabee has withdrawn from the race.

The lingering anti-McCain sentiment among some voters and the continuing Paul insurgency suggest McCain has not fully quelled hostility from some elements in his party who have problems with McCain's advocacy for immigration-policy overhaul and restrictions on campaign spending by independent groups.

Paul remains the lone holdout actively campaigning. He has indicated he is unlikely to endorse McCain, and his zealous supporters have turned out in large numbers to battle for delegates at recent GOP gatherings in Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada and Oklahoma.

The Paul supporters do not see themselves as fighting for a hopeless cause, but as members of a new movement founded on libertarian principles. Paul's newest book, "The Revolution: A Manifesto," has soared quickly to No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list.

"This is about continuing the message and having a voice of freedom, constitutionalism, and peace inside the Republican Party," said Paul's Maine coordinator, Ken Lindell, a former state representative. "The goal at the national convention is to get a speaking slot for Dr. Paul to deliver that message."

Other Paul loyalists said they may try to open debate on the party platform at the convention. Paul, a physician and congressman from Texas, opposes the war in Iraq and what he describes as an interventionist U.S. foreign policy.

He also advocates minimal government, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and a return to a monetary policy based on the gold standard.

Paul has 19 delegates to McCain's 1,413, the latter being far more than the 1,191 needed for the nomination, according to the latest Associated Press unofficial tally. Paul's campaign, which shattered online fundraising records early in the campaign, had $5.1 million in cash at the end of March.

In Minnesota, Paul loyalists captured seven delegate slots at congressional district meetings, and in Nevada, the convention recessed April 26 after balloting showed Paul supporters winning at least half of the initial contests for delegate slots to the national convention.

"We want them to know we're not going to roll over anymore, and as long as [Paul] is running, we'll stand by him," said Arden Osborne, a Paul supporter and chairman of the Nevada Liberty Alliance. Osborne thinks he won one of the slots to the national convention during the state convention in Reno.

No date has been set to resume the convention, said Zac Moyle, the Nevada GOP's executive director. "It was by no means an attempt to suppress certain people," he said.

The problem, he said, was that rule changes pushed by the Paul group and supported by others opened a flood of new nominations for delegate slots. That would have added hours of more deliberation and the party had overstayed its contracted time with the Reno hotel-casino, he said. In the Jan. 19 Nevada caucuses, Paul, with 14 percent, finished second behind Mitt Romney.

The Nevada convention alarmed party officials in some states with later gatherings, and the efforts of Paul forces to flood these proceedings have caused headaches for party leaders.

Last weekend in Maine, Paul's activists picked up one of the 18 delegates at stake.

In the state's Feb. 1 caucuses, Paul finished third, with 19 percent of the vote, behind McCain with 21 percent and Romney with 52 percent.

In Missouri, where activists will elect at-large delegates at a state convention at the end of May, a credentials challenge to up to 300 Paul supporters is under way.

On some Internet sites, Paul supporters have contended they are being discriminated against by the party's establishment.

Jared Craighead, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, said the challenges were initiated by neither the party nor the McCain campaign but by "various individuals."

"We have no accurate way of knowing who is a Paul supporter," he said in an e-mail in response to inquiries.