Just a Vapor

Yesterday I got home from the State Republican convention in Rochester. I decided not to stick around for the activities going on yesterday, which I understand to mostly have been speeches. I really only attended Friday, when all of the important business took place.

Friday began with an early morning speech by Ron Paul. As I had said in my previous post, Dr. Paul was not allowed to speak at the convention, so he was relegated to an outdoor stage in a park behind the convention center. Fortunately, though rain was expected, it didn’t come until after the speech was over.

Once Dr. Paul was finished speaking, everyone made their way inside for the convention. Dr. Paul moved in as well, and shook hands in the lobby, and signed copies of his book (for people who brought them). My new cell phone has a camera built in, but like any camera in a cell phone, it isn’t that great. It was all I had, but I managed to snap this picture. I hope it’s clear enough to see Dr. Paul.

The convention itself was about what I expected. News of Ron Paul supporters showing up in as big of numbers as possible is starting to catch up with us. Those delegates who dislike Paul and would otherwise have stayed home, considering the Republican party has a presumptive nominee and the only other candidate running that would garner state approval – Norm Coleman for Senate – is an incumbent, showed up anyway because they wanted to make sure that Juan McCain got as many delegates from Minnesota as possible.

There was a lot of chicanery going on with the state party as well in regards to candidates for National Delegate and Alternate. First, the rules were very strict, and made it difficult to become a candidate. I hear that this is very normal, and wasn’t done in response to the Ron Paul movement. However, their selective enforcement of the rules clearly was, and it caught up with them. The biggest contention was over the rule that required candidates to appear in person before the nominating committee on Thursday morning. Being the convention was held in Rochester, which is in southeast Minnesota, it was very difficult for some people to get there, especially if they were from rural areas in northern Minnesota. Several requested that they be allowed to phone in to the nominating committee, and were sternly declined. Where this caught up with them was that Governor Tim Pawlenty, it was learned, was granted special treatment and was allowed to phone in. The party could have saved themselves a lot of grief and made this clear up front, and possibly even moved to change the rules to allow this (which would have required a vote at the convention among the seated delegates). Considering that Pawlenty has a lot of supporters among the delegates, he would have likely prevailed in such a rule change, it was foolish not to do this. The fact that they didn’t caused a lot of anger, even among Pawlenty’s voters and supporters for the National Delegate position. The appearance of unfairness was impossible for them to sweep under the rug, though they tried hard. There were a lot of Ron Paul supporting candidates that didn’t make it on the ballot. In the end, we had 5 of the 14 people on our slate that made the ballot. The biggest reason for this was this rule that required the candidate to appear in person. As far as National Alternate, none of our candidates made the ballot, and we abstained from the vote.

In the end, the issue was swept aside hard enough that nothing was done. There was talk of disqualifying him. In addition, because the rules required 14 votes be cast on every ballot for National Delegate (there were 14 positions to fill), had he been disqualified, there was talk that any ballot with a vote for him would have to be considered spoiled. Had that made it through to the final outcome, the McCain slate would have been virtually wiped out, all five of the Paul-campaign endorsed candidates would have been elected, and all candidates on neither slate would have been elected as well.

Another area of contention, which I found humorous in a way, was that there were several McCain people at the convention wearing red “McCain” hats that were walking up and down the aisles and sitting in the balcony, telling people how to vote for just about everything. In this picture, you’ll see a man in the balcony with a green-yellow sign. It says “YES” on it. He also had a red “NO” sign he would hold up.

This second picture was intended to show the guy walking the aisle closest to me. He is behind the woman handing out leaflets. The guy behind him has a makeshift sign that says “I’m a loser” with an arrow pointing down towards the guy in the red hat.

The reason I found all this somewhat humorous was that people began going to the microphone saying they wanted these people removed, and accused them of being Ron Paul supporters in disguise. Actually, our crew was much more discrete; we were sent text messages on about a half-dozen votes, which no one seemed to pick up on. Compare that to the McCainers who held up their sign on every vote.

In the end, the party elites did a fine job of making things appear fair. Things clearly were not in regard to National Delegate and Alternate candidates, but on everything else, so long as things were in order they gave us a fair vote.

In the end, I am glad I went through the caucus experience and followed through with it as high as I could go. I learned a lot on the one hand, and confirmed a lot on the other. The system really favors those in control, but with time and perseverance, I know that control can be wrested away. If the Ron Paul contingent in Minnesota can stay organized, I think they can eventually prevail and win the party over and swing it back to its more Conservative roots. It will take time and patience though.

That doesn’t mean I intend to become more involved in the party. I will most certainly be voting for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party in November, unless another third party I am comfortable with seems to be doing much better (perhaps the Libertarians). I will not, under any circumstances, vote for McCain though.

That’s that, and we’ll see in 2010 if I have the desire to go through this process again. My guess is not, but I’m not making my final decision until 2010.

UPDATE:A fellow Ron Paul Delegate snapped a few good shots of the McCain guys who were instructing their people how to vote. More available here.