Just a Vapor

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I grew up in a staunchly Democratic household. By the time I was old enough to vote, I didn’t know any different, you voted Democrat because the Republicans were just rich people who wanted to screw everyone else over. Sadly, I voted to reelect Bill Clinton at my first election. I was young and I trusted my parents, there was no reason for me to question their judgment. My first mistake.

Two years later, realizing that voting Democrat because my parents did was a bit silly, and I needed to figure things out for myself. However, I still hadn’t softened to the Republicans. In 1998, I voted to elect Jesse Ventura Governor of Minnesota. My second mistake, but heading in the right direction.

Six months later, in May of 1999, at the age of 21, I came face to face with my Savior. It was a radical change in my life, and I would never be the same. I immediately took interest in all things related to Christianity. Among the first things I ever prayed was that the Lord would show me His view of the world, and where mine was wrong. I chalk it up to answered prayer, but I immediately became very Conservative. I understood at once that no matter how I tried to justify it, abortion is murder. I realized that there was a reason why socialism is a relatively new phenomenon in America, which it hasn’t always been – that the redistribution of wealth is nothing more than legalized theft – “Plunder” as Bastiat called it. I had a year and a half to go before the next election, and I was firmly on the Right.

So you’d think I’d be a Republican now, right? Wrong. In late 1999 and into 2000, I could see that most of the candidates seeking the Republican Presidential Nomination were watered-down Democrats. John McCain was getting great praise from the media, and W. was preaching “Compassionate Conservatism”, which struck me as neither compassionate nor Conservative. Alan Keyes, among the more “fringe” candidates, really struck a nerve with me. He was very articulate, and clearly very intelligent. He was my guy!

Keyes was asked at one point: if he were to run as a third-party candidate, what party would he run under? He was adamant that he would never run as anything but a Republican, but to answer the hypothetical question, he’d run under the Constitution Party.

I had forever abandoned the Democrats, but wasn’t yet convinced by the Republicans. In 2000, I voted for Howard Phillips, Constitution Party Candidate (and party founder). After hearing the answer to the question posed to Keyes, I looked at the Constitution Party and knew that small minority or not, they were my new political home.

Between 2000 and 2004, and also the 2002 and 2006 mid-term elections, I received a lot heat from my friends on the Right for not jumping in line with the Republican Party. When I argued that they hadn’t done anything to convince me that they deserve my vote, or that they are even Conservative, I got all the usual platitudes about them being better than the alternative. I didn’t believe there to be only one alternative.

Along with the usual, I was told that if I wanted to get a true Conservative elected, and I didn’t like the Republican Nominee, I should become more involved in the Primary process.

That brings me to the 2008 political season.

Much like in the 2000 season, I quickly saw only one candidate that I really respected. There were a few others that I would have given the opportunity to try to win me over (Douglas and Tancredo), but only Ron Paul impressed me as a true Conservative, thoughtful on all the issues and not just a few of the more prominent ones.

(I have been familiar with Ron Paul for 5 or 6 years now, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that he had entered the ring as a Presidential candidate.)

I have sat back this season and watched as so many Conservatives lamented the poor selection this time around. The mainstream media had decided early on that McCain, Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee were the “viable” candidates. The punditry lamented that Fred Thompson wasn’t running, and quickly abandoned him when he did enter the race. After 7 years of unprecedented spending increases under G.W. Bush and the Republican Legislature, a war that has been promised to last decades, no dent in the abortion holocaust, and the curtailing of person freedom in the name of a “War on Terror”, one would have hoped that the Right would be eager to rally around a true Conservative. However, they quickly decided that Conservatives were “unelectable,” and resolved to have a Liberal candidate be the nominee.

Foreseeing this coming September and October, when the Right will be crying “you have to vote for our Liberal because otherwise the Democrat’s Liberal will win and plunge us into a Dark Ages that will last for decades,” I stepped up and got involved in the Caucus process here in Minnesota. I didn’t want to be blamed for not speaking up when I had a chance, and allowing a Liberal to get the Republican nomination.

So all should be well, right?

Not exactly. Apparently, it’s insulting that I’ve gotten involved and begun working my way up the delegate process heading toward the national convention. I was elected as an alternate on Feb. 5, and went to my BPOU convention on Monday night. I had to leave before the election results were announced, but there is a very good chance that I will be going to the Congressional district caucus as an alternate at the least, and I hope to make it to the State convention (they are parallel in the process, and both are one step before the National Convention). Conservatives begged young people like me to get involved in the process. Now that I am involved, I’m disliked because I don’t support their apparent nominee – likely to have gotten where he is because of Democrat and Liberal Independent cross-over voters. People are furious with me because they have been going to caucuses all their lives and I’ve earned a better place at the table with almost no effort.

Wait until they lose the election because of all the people just like me who will either stay home in November, vote third party, or write in Ron Paul. We aren’t interested in compromise and we aren’t interested in following orders – we’ll vote how we want to, if we want to at all.

I have learned in this process that there is much to like, but much more to dislike. What I like is that it takes more effort to get anywhere in a caucus than in a primary, which discourages uninterested voters from showing up to vote for the guy with the nicest haircut and going back to American Idol before the end of the commercial break. If you want to make a difference at all in a caucus, you have to get elected as a delegate and show up at the next caucus where you have to do it all over again. Not until you reach the top does your voice matter a hill of beans.

And that is also what I don’t like. There are a lot of people who are Republicans for the same reason I was a Democrat prior to 1998. They have no idea what it really means to be a Republican than I knew what it meant to be a Democrat when I just went along with my family. Many of these people are older, approaching retirement (if not already there), and are just as tied to their Government handouts as any Democrat. They want to elect Liberal Republicans who will continue their Social Security checks, pay for their prescription drugs, and expand health care entitlements. They have time, and they are involved.

The biggest drawback I have experienced so far about the caucus/delegate process is that no one declares what they stand for when they run for the next level. All you have is a bunch of names and a ballot. I don’t know if I’m voting for another Ronald Reagan or a John McCain. It’s worse when the rules at the caucus require you to vote for a specific number of candidates – no more and no less – or your ballot is voided.

By the way, I found out at the BPOU level that you don’t have to get elected to the BPUO to be eligible to run to the next level, you just can’t vote for the next level unless you are a seated delegate. You can show up as a guest, nominate yourself, and get elected to the next level.

To those of you who are upset that I – a Ron Paul supporter – can show up, get elected, and move to the next level while you slave away at the phones for the John McCain or Mitt Romney Campaign and get nowhere – too bad. I did what you said and got involved. I played by your rules. I got ahead. And I did it without disrespecting you.

By the way, take notes this time, you’re getting stomped on by “Wingnuts” because you are so proud of yourself you don’t bother to put together any real organization. The Ron Paul campaign has done a very impressive job of rallying their base to support each other in order to achieve the greater goal of supporting Dr. Paul. I had a list of all the other Ron Paul supporters at the convention, and I know exactly who to vote for to the next level. I saw no one else with such a list that wasn’t a Ron Paul supporter. If you like McCain, but don’t know who the other McCain supporters are, you probably voted for me or one of my compatriots, and it is our voices that will matter at the National Convention when we cast our votes while you watch it all on Fox News and see their collective jaws drop because Ron Paul came up with far more delegates than any of their pundits thought possible.