The Louisiana Caucus (which took place on Tuesday) first wanted to give the prize to Fred Thompson but as he had pulled out hours earlier things started shaking out a little differently.

Now, the system in this state is arcane to the point of pathology, apparently shaped to ensure that no matter what happened, the delegate slate would never stray far from the old boy network which ran the state machine. The Washington Post tried to explain:

“Louisiana has 47 delegates total, 20 of which will be determined during a separate state primary on Feb. 9. Tuesday’s caucus elected 105 delegates to attend the Feb. 16 state convention, who in turn will elect 21 delegates. (The remaining six are split between the state chair, national committeeman and national committeewoman and the three bonus delegates the state received in the wake of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s election.)”

Is that better? No? Didn’ think so.

Now the ward bosses are saying that Senator John McCain won the night, but supporters of Ron Paul are saying that there are 1000s of Ron Paul votes they are refusing to count and that Ron Paul came in first and not second as announced.

Unlike the claims of Senator Barack Obama’s people in Nevada, Rep Paul’s people might actually have a case though, this being Louisiana, it might take some time before the evidence sees the light of day. (didn’t they used to say that Louisiana’s state motto was “Half Unemployed, half under indictment”?)

To see where a candidate stands on the issues, visit Issue 2008