Some delegates not happy with Romney's new rules compromise

But a number of conservative delegates believe the changes will have other, more damaging, effects. “In my opinion, Ginsberg and some of the others who are pushing these changes have used Ron Paul and Ron Paul supporters as a boogeyman to try to scare a lot of Republican regulars into thinking we need these changes without giving them a lot of thought,” says Drew McKissick, a South Carolina delegate and member of the party rules committee. “It’s completely unnecessary.” As McKissick sees it, Paul reached his “high water mark” and still lost, and the states which had a Ron Paul problem will tweak their own rules to prevent such situations in the future.

If Paul is a pretext, what is the actual motive of those proposing the changes? McKissick, who supported Romney in 2008 and again this year, declines to speculate. “That’s supposition,” he says. “But let me put it this way. Regardless of motivation, what I will say is those changes, if they were to have gone into effect as they outlined them, what they will do is diminish the influence of conservatives in the Republican party. They will diminish the influence of conservatives to be able to control who their delegates are. Delegates in each state convene and caucus and elect their two members of the platform committee, so if you’re controlling delegates, you’re controlling the platform committee down the road.”