Update: Just spoke to Mr. Nader regarding Wednesday's press conference

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Update #2: A quite appreciated mention on Mr. Rockwell's Blog:
http://www.lewrockwell.co...

He was here in Cincinnati and I went down to see him speak hoping that he would take questions afterwards and he did.

I asked him if he was aware of a third party unification ticket to be announced this Wednesday.

He said he was unaware of a "third party unification ticket" but said that he would be at the press conference along with Cinthia McCinney and Bob Barr and that there would be an "unprecedented announcement".

Not sure if he was playing word games regarding a "third party unification ticket", but it sure sounds like it might be a big announcement.

UPDATE:

Here is my guess, and it is nothing more than a guess.

This is a complete guess, but man this would be unbelievable.

Mr. Balwin steps down and Paul takes his place.

Paul makes it perfectly clear that this would be fine by him, but will not sign anything or campaign for anything so as to not jeapardize his status as a Republican.

Barr, McCinney, and Nadar volunteer states to the Constitution party so that Paul can be on every state ballot except Oklahoma.

This would show unity while maintaining minimal damage from those three campaigns and it would not upset too many of their volunteers.

There are a total of 14 states that need to be given to the Constitution party for this to happen.

My guess is that the Libertarians give the most states since their volunteers would be extremely happy to be helping Paul out. Nader and McCinney probably only sacrifice one state each, simply as a show of unity.

Not sure which states have sore loser laws where a candidate can not run after losing a primary in a different party. Does anybody know the answer to this?

I think I found the answer to this last question:

http://www.ballot-access....

Only four states maintain that their “sore loser” laws apply to president: South Dakota, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas. After LaRouche won in court against Ohio in 1992, Ohio amended its “sore loser” law in 1993 to specifically apply to presidential candidates. No precedents have been set in Mississippi or South Dakota. In Texas, unfortunately, in 1996 the Constitution Party filed a lawsuit against Texas to get a ruling that the “sore loser” law doesn’t apply to president. The federal judge who got the case, James Nowlin, refused to enjoin Texas’ interpretation that the “sore loser” law does apply to president. The denial of injunctive relief is reported as US Taxpayers Party v Garza, 924 F Supp 71 (1996).

However, the opinion does not discuss the fact that the true candidates in November are running for presidential elector, not president. A presidential candidate’s name is not listed on the November ballot in his or her role as a candidate. Instead, the name is an identifier for specific slates of candidates for presidential elector.

Since Congress has repeatedly recognized that presidential electors may vote for anyone who holds the constitutional qualifications to be president (by always counting the votes for so-called “faithless electors”, except in 1872 when some electors voted for Horace Greeley even though he was deceased), it seems plain that no state can tell a slate of presidential electors that they cannot label themselves with the name of anyone they intend to vote for. Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court said in Anderson v Celebrezze that a single state has a lesser state interest in blocking a presidential candidate from its ballot than from blocking candidates for other office. Since the overwhelming majority of states permit “sore loser” presidential candidates, it is likely that a court in the future would not uphold Texas’ interpretation.

And, if it did, the Texas Libertarian electors could always say that they are pledged to Ron Paul, Jr., the Congressman’s son. Then, if they were actually elected, they could vote for Ron Paul, Sr., notwithstanding their ruse.

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