maneuvers

DES MOINES — Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses in January, with Mitt Romney a close second, but neither was the true winner this weekend when the delegates who actually will vote at the Republican National Convention were selected. That would be Ron Paul.

The congressman from Texas finished a distant third in the Iowa caucuses more than six months ago, but of the 28 delegates selected Friday and Saturday to head to the national convention, 23 are Paul supporters – and they are not bound to support the victor of the state’s first-in-the-nation voting contest.

It’s part of a quiet strategy by Paul and his backers to amass an army of supporters at the GOP gathering in August in Tampa, Fla., to push Paul’s views on liberty, states’ rights, the monetary system and foreign policy. By working arcane electoral rules and getting supporters into positions of power in local, county and state party operations, the strategy is paying dividends across the nation.

INTERACTIVE MAP: Iowa GOP caucuses

Paul has stopped actively campaigning and has conceded that Romney will be the GOP nominee. It’s unclear whether Paul’s name will be submitted for nomination; mathematically, he does not have the numbers to derail Romney. But his supporters can have an effect on the party in other ways.

“We want to have a real big voice on the platform; we want to influence the direction of the party more than anything else,” said Joel Kurtinitis, a Paul supporter who was pleased after the Saturday vote.

He was Paul’s state director in Iowa until Paul suspended his presidential bid in May, and he said that although he would love to see Paul awarded a prime speaking spot at the convention, his followers’ efforts are about more than one man.

“We’re going to hold up our values and we’re going to bring conservatism back to the mainline of the Republican Party. That’s where my hopes are at and that’s my hope for this convention more than seeing Ron Paul do X, Y and Z,” Kurtinitis said.

Romney and his campaign have treated Paul and his followers deferentially, perhaps mindful of not alienating his incredibly loyal supporters. At the Iowa GOP convention, a Romney staffer who flew in from Boston watched the proceedings but did not get involved. At the Romney table, workers distributed three fliers to conventioneers – a general brochure about his candidacy, an invitation to a rally in Davenport on Monday and a news release that touted Romney’s endorsement by Paul’s son, Rand Paul, and effusively lavished praise on the Kentucky senator who many believe is the heir apparent for Paul’s movement.

But others say the move by the Iowa GOP is a black eye for the state’s caucuses and for the presumptive GOP nominee.

“Embarrassment is the word that comes to my mind,” said Jamie Johnson, who served as Santorum’s state coalitions director in Iowa. The former senator from Pennsylvania, who narrowly won the caucuses but has endorsed Romney since ending his presidential bid in April, appears to have one solitary Iowa delegate who supported him heading to the convention.

“I believe that it seriously puts the Iowa caucuses’ first-in-the-nation status in jeopardy,” Johnson said. “It will be a major embarrassment to Gov. Romney if there is a strong Ron Paul vote from the floor on the night in which the votes are counted.”

Paul is counting on having 200 delegates on the floor who can vote for him, and a few hundred more who are bound to vote for Romney but are his supporters.

“While this total is not enough to win the nomination, it puts us in a tremendous position to grow our movement and shape the future of the GOP!” Paul wrote in an email to supporters last week. “I hope every one of you continues the fight we have advanced so well this year. I hope you will finish your local and state conventions, and, if you were selected as a national delegate, that you will head to Tampa in August to force the Republican Party to listen to the voice of liberty.

“We have never had this kind of opportunity. There will be hundreds of your fellow supporters in Tampa who will be ready and willing to push the Republican Party back to its limited government, liberty roots.”

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Nov. 12 (UPI) — President Nicolás Maduro announced activation of a “higher phase” of the Independence Plan 200, a program of joint civilian-military exercises designed to test Venezuela’s ability to respond to external threats.

The deployment includes the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, or FANB, the Bolivarian Militia and police units across all states, with a focus on Apure, Cojedes, Carabobo and the capital region, TeleSURTV reported.

The measure, announced Tuesday by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, aims to “strengthen territorial defense and enhance operational readiness” amid rising geopolitical tensions in the Caribbean.

Activation of this “higher phase” coincides with the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford in the region under the U.S. Southern Command.

The U.S. Department of Defense said the deployment is part of an operation aimed at “disrupting narcotics trafficking and dismantling transnational criminal organizations” operating in the region. However, the Venezuelan government has interpreted the move as a “provocation.”

According to Venezuela’s Defense Ministry, the new stage of the Independence Plan 200 includes command, control and communications exercises, along with simultaneous air, land, naval and river operations, the newspaper Ámbito reported.

The government described it as an “advanced phase” of the plan launched in September, aimed at ensuring “active resistance and permanent defense” against what it calls pressure and maneuvers by the United States.

Alongside the heightened military alert, the government enacted the Law of the Command for the Comprehensive Defense of the Nation, approved days earlier by the National Assembly.

The law establishes a network of comprehensive defense commands at the national, regional and municipal levels to coordinate the armed forces, civilian institutions and citizens in the “protection of sovereignty and peace.”

Maduro signed the law at the Miraflores Palace on Wednesday, invoking Article 326 of the Constitution, which defines the people’s shared responsibility in national defense. The president said he was prepared to confront any threat and ordered the immediate creation of the new commands.

“The order must be activated so that the comprehensive defense commands are established, structured and begin their work, to be prepared, if we as a republic and as a people are called to take up armed struggle to defend this sacred legacy of the liberators, to be ready to win, to triumph through patriotism and courage,” Maduro said, according to a report by NTN24.

These groups will be led by the Strategic Operational Command of the Armed Forces, which will oversee the integration, planning, coordination, supervision and control of the country’s defense organizations in support of military operations nationwide.

The government sees the legislation as a step toward strengthening its civilian-military defense doctrine, while analysts and opposition figures warn it could expand the militarization of the country and the political role of the armed forces.