In the 2012 Republican primaries, one thing is all but certain, Romney will be the nominee, or can an ideologically consistent twelve term congressman from Texas' fourteenth district change that? Ron Paul, the darling of the Libertarian movement and the godfather of the Tea Party has mostly been written off as a fringe candidate after failing to win any state primary or caucus besides the Virgin Island caucus, for which he still lost to Romney in delegates. And although his delegate strategy seems to be working in key states like Missouri, Washington, North Dakota and Minnesota, amongst others, he is simply seen as having no chance in hell to win the GOP nomination. But this doesn’t stop Paul, who has repeatedly stated his intention to stay in the race until the convention in Tampa. The Paul campaign is banking on a contested convention, which means that no one has the 1,144 delegates needed to wrap up the nomination after the first ballot, and if Santorum, Paul and Gingrich stay in the race and continue to make alliances to deny Romney those important unbound delegates, a contested convention could very well be a reality. Ron Paul’s hope matches that of an Ohio senator named Warren G. Harding, who was running for the Republican nomination in 1920. He went to the contested convention with only about six percent of the delegates. The frontrunner, Leonard Wood, was widely expected to win, but Harding came back to win seventy percent of the delegates after the tenth ballot, and went on to win the general election in a landslide victory, creating the largest popular vote deficit in election history. Even though the chances of the Paul campaign’s plan going off without a hitch are slim, he is still a factor, whether the GOP likes it or not.