Maine Democrats haven’t had much to cheer about recently, but they may have something to look forward to.

If the Ron Paul faction of the Republican Party can turn its national convention into the circus that they unleashed in Maine this spring, independent voters may be more likely to ride donkeys than elephants in November.

Additional Photos

Toby Hoxie, of Hallowell, left, and Chad Libby, of Winthrop, hang up a sign for presidential candidate Ron Paul on Friday afternoon at the Augusta Civic Center. The state Republican convention opens this morning and runs through Sunday. Staff photo by Joe Phelan

The Paulist faction of the Maine GOP is set to send the majority of delegates to Tampa later this month, in spite of a raft of complaints by establishment Republicans who feel the state convention that elected the delegate slate was railroaded by the political insurgents loyal to the libertarian Texas congressman.

Maine’s party stalwarts are threatening to challenge their state’s delegation to prevent the upstarts from representing Maine at the convention.

They offered Paul’s backers a compromise, and the fact that they turned it down flat is a telling sign of what they are looking for.

The Maine delegation could have taken their seats without a challenge if they agreed to vote for Mitt Romney, who won Maine’s Republican preference poll during caucus time.

The Paul delegates, however, decided they would rather take their chances with a credentials committee fight.

They are holding out for a good enough showing for Paul to force his name to be entered into nomination. That would mean a prime-time speech and a maybe a chance of winning the nomination, even though as a candidate Paul did not carry the popular vote in a single state.

Paul’s supporters tactics may not make sense politically, but they could provide a spark of spontaneity in a convention that is designed to be a scripted infomercial, like every major party convention since the Democrats exploded into riots in 1968.

Paul inspires something much more intense than the commitment Romney gets, as shown by the long line of not-Mitt front runners with whom Republicans fell in and out of love during the primary season.

The problem with Paul’s support is not its intensity, but its size. (Nationally, he got only 10 percent of the votes cast by Republicans this year.)

He may be able to use that zeal to steal some of the spotlight in Tampa, but that is not likely to do anything more than cheer up some Democrats.

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