My heart sank a little when I read those first two paragraphs. There’s no way this was a mistake. The media have been misleading as ever, but the wording of that email was begging for the interpretation they made of it. I cannot believe this was done independently of Paul, as if Benton has ‘gone rogue’ somehow. I also cannot believe that someone ‘got to’ Paul, or that someone found a huge skeleton in his closet. None of those really make sense to me. It MUST be strategic.
The delegate strategy is working incredibly well right now. It seems very sensible to focus attention on state conventions and rules/legal challenges, rather than spending millions on ads in Texas, California, etc. I totally agree with the strategy described in the announcement. It isn’t really a change of strategy though… we know it’s all about delegates, and caucus states not primary states, and so on. If this message was merely meant to let supporters know not to expect big campaigning in the remaining primaries, it would have been worded differently.
It could well be that this was done primarily as a means to demotivate Romney supporters from going to state conventions or fighting as hard. This may have been part of the reason for it. There may have been other strategic reasons.
One theory that I read on RPF was that the campaign may be distancing itself from possible actions (e.g. breaking the rules) taken by passionate Paul delegates at state conventions. Maybe the campaign is keeping it’s nose clean so that it cannot be accused of dirty tactics. (This would also tie in with why Benton essentially (in Kokesh’s words) ‘conceded’ by letting the Romney campaign and the national party fundraise together. They don’t want to be accused of betrayal and get blamed for four more years of Obama.)