Rumor had been that should Paul not finish in the top three, his delegates would walk out of the convention. Instead, they met in closed session in the 'Ron Paul Room' at the Charleston Civic Center to consider a proposal from the state Huckabee leadership and a last minute offer from the state leadership of the Mitt Romney campaign. Although Mr. O’Neil, one of the state Romney leaders, offered five national delegates to Paul in return for their support, Burgess indicated state Paul leaders did not consider it a credible offer. “The Romney supporters in WV had not been treating our Ron Paul supporters in WV well. We did not feel we could trust [the late offer from those] who did not care to invest anything in a relationship of trust. West Virginians that support Huckabee took the time to develop a relationship of trust, they treated us fairly, they treated us as equals, and they recognized we were genuine Republicans and a force to be reckoned with,” Burgess said. “West Virginia Romney supporters thought we would leave the convention after the first round,” Burgess said. “We caught them off guard. They underestimated us. They believed their own lies about Dr. Paul and his supporters.” West Virginia Huckabee and Paul leaders had treated each other with mutual respect since November. Anticipating no candidate would receive 50% on the first ballot, the agreement was to present an offer to the delegates of the candidate who finished in fourth place. “There were no back-room deals,” Burgess said, adding, “ We pledged to them that we would present the offer [of three convention delegates] to our delegates. We caucused amongst ourselves, discussed the long standing relationship; we discussed the Johnny-come-lately offer, and we decided to go with those who had treated us with respect and taken the time to treat us as equals,” Burgess explained. It had been agreed by WV leaders in the Huckabee and Paul campaigns. This explained why Mike Huckabee said in a national television interview that he had no knowledge of the agreement. It was exclusively the culmination of a relationship that had developed in West Virginia among honorable state leaders supporting both candidates.
Whatever. The whole long paragraph is a statement by a Paul supporter that says, without any explanation or substantiation, that the WV Romney delegates "weren't nice to us" and so we talked to the nice Huckabee folks. We made a deal with them for three delegates instead of Romney's offer of five because we've really dig each other. There was no backroom deal, we just "caught them off guard" by not waiting for the second vote and announced our switch.
The guy completely contradicts his shared view with Huckabee that there was no backroom deal. They just took two less delegates and jumped the gun before the second round. Romney couldn't counter offer because he had ALREADY OFFERED MORE DELEGATES TO THE PAUL PEOPLE THAN HUCKABEE.
This was a textbook example of a backroom (clandestine) deal. And Huckabee and his supporters that deny such show exactly why me and others believe Huckabee to be a bald-face liar and insulting to our intelligence.