NEW YORK (PNN) - February 23, 2012 - While the Republican nomination race is focused on the ongoing battle between media-declared frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, the Ron Paul campaign is waging an under-the-radar "delegate strategy" that could make the libertarian-leaning Texan the surprise kingmaker of the race.

In states that have already voted via a caucus system - rather than a straight primary ballot - Ron Paul supporters are conducting an intensively organized ground effort aimed at securing as many convention delegate slots as possible, often in numbers that far outweigh the number of actual votes that Paul got in the ballot.

If successful, it means Paul's campaign could arrive at the August Tampa convention at the head of an army of delegates far larger than the proportion of votes that it won during the nomination contest.

It could also increase the chances of a contested convention - where no candidate has enough delegates to declare the winner - as well as give Paul much greater ability to inject his positions into the Republican 2012 policy platform.

The strategy is based on the fact that the presidential race is in fact a delegate contest, in which each state, weighted proportionally by population, sends a number of delegates to Tampa, where a nominee is then chosen.

A total of 2,286 delegates are sent to Tampa, so a candidate must secure the support of 1,144 of them in order to win the nomination.

However, a bewilderingly complex set of rules exists - often varying from state to state - to actually assign these delegates. Ron Paul's campaign is seeking to work that system in order to maximize his delegate count.

So far, signs indicate the campaign is being so successful at its strategy that it may be able to win delegate counts in states where it did not win the popular vote.

"They will be able to perform well enough that in some states where they came in third or fourth in the straw poll, they will come in first or second in terms of the delegate totals. I am fairly confident in making that bet," said Professor Josh Putnam, a political scientist at Davidson College, who runs the Frontloading HQ blog, which is dedicated to tracking the delegate count.

The strategy works because of the varying ways each state assigns delegates to the convention in Tampa. Some states hold a "winner takes all" primary that assigns all its delegates to the candidate who wins the popular vote.

Other states assign delegates proportionally according to the vote, splitting the delegates roughly according to the results and ensuring each major candidate gets some delegates.

But it is in the caucus states that Ron Paul is focused. There the method of assigning delegates is complex and lasts a long time. In caucus states that have voted so far, including Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota and Maine, the process of assigning delegates in support of each candidate has barely started.

That process begins on caucus night when each precinct votes and then chooses delegates to send to a county convention to be held later in the year. Those county conventions will then choose a smaller number of delegates to send to a state convention or conventions held in each state's congressional districts.

Those state and district level conventions are the bodies that actually choose which delegates to send to the Tampa national convention.

However, at the start of the process - the precinct level meetings held on caucus day - the delegates selected to go to the later county conventions are frequently under no obligation to declare which candidate they are supporting or to support the winner of the day's voting.

Ron Paul's campaign strategy is to get enough of his precinct-level supporters to volunteer to become delegates to the county conventions so that they outnumber other campaigns. "Their strategy is to gobble up as many of these slots as they can," said Putnam.

If the campaign manages to stack the beginning of the process with Ron Paul delegates, then as the system moves through the county conventions and the district and statewide conventions the chances of Ron Paul-supporting delegates emerging at the end and being chosen to go to Tampa is greatly increased.

The entire strategy is helped by the fact that Paul's supporters are seen as far more organized and dedicated than those of other campaigns.

The fact is that Paul's delegate strategy would have little impact in a normal Republican race. The system is set up with enough winner-take-all and primary states to ensure that Paul's strategy has no chance whatsoever of picking up enough delegates via this method to actually win the nomination.

But it all changes when the Republican race becomes protracted and closely fought. If Santorum, Romney and Newt Gingrich all stay in the race beyond Super Tuesday and start to amass their own large piles of delegates, then reaching the vital 1,144 delegates needed to win starts to become more difficult.

If that scenario occurs - something most experts see as possible but unlikely - then Paul's delegate total becomes crucial. He could become a kingmaker, agreeing to throw his hefty delegate total behind one candidate who could then claim victory.

As a candidate with a very clearly defined agenda - on foreign policy, the role of government, fiscal issues and especially the Federal Reserve - Paul could demand a high policy price for that support.

However, even if a nominee emerges prior to the convention, Paul's delegates will still be important. If he amasses a loyal and large delegate total he will able to secure a high profile, possibly prime time speaking slot.

He will also be more able to get his agenda into the party's official policy platform. Given Paul's stance on issues like foreign policy and the war in Afghanistan, that could upset the party elite and the nominee.

Modern conventions are supposed to be highly organized, tightly controlled displays of party unity. A successful Paul delegate strategy could shatter that image.