Fred Cederholm: What are Ron Paul, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney Planning?

I've been thinking about preparations. Actually, I've been thinking the conventions, election 2012, Obama, Romney, Paul, tax returns, birth certificates, Bain Capital, and the veeps, the political party's conventions are almost upon us. The campaigns have been running for just over two years, but it seems far longer. Will the two major parties be ready to put on "the show of shows" and announce their standard bearers for the election of 2012? We may think we have a handle on who will be the candidates, but I am hardly certain the choices are as unanimous as the elephant and the mule. You see, election 2012 has endured an awfully long battle to what British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli dubbed the top of "the greasy pole." Now the main stream media has focused on what they believe to be the two front runners: The current President Barack Obama and contender Willard "Mitt" Romney. For months they have ignored the candidacy of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who I might point out, has been collecting delegates for the convention since the first primaries and caucuses. Only the alternative media websites have been chronicling the epic odyssey of candidate Paul. He has an army of loyal followers and contributors, who have vowed to fight to the bitter end. The GOP has a tangled spaghetti plate of rules and procedures which govern, and I use that term loosely, and they are still in effect. These are the legacy of messy past campaign cycles and were never cleaned up. I suspect this will prove to be a major OOOOPS in Tampa Bay. If they can call for a vote on just Paul's candidacy via a "rules of the house" maneuver, all binding commitments to specific candidates "kinda sorta" evaporate and the delegates can vote their conscience - what a novel concept in the political world!