What Really Happened in Fort Worth

What really happened out there
On September 2nd, 2007 bozimmerman says:
(copied from comment area on another Texas Straw Poll topic)

Like a good poker hand, the outcome is never quite clear until the cards are fully dealt. In this case, Saturday morning, when those cards were dealt, the outcome became quite clear.

First: the location. Dallas/Fort Worth is about 5 hours from Ron Paul's home base near Houston, which means that his delegates would have had a hard time getting to him. Late registration had to occur either on Friday (an overnight stay), or Saturday before 10am. Dallas IS, however, a stronghold for certain neocon establishment institutions, which worked heavily to get their nearby delegates from Dallas/Fort Worth crowded in for Hunter. They did a fantastic job -- my hats off.

Second: the candidates. Everyone that mattered dropped out of participation except for Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul. Whether intentional or not, this greatly narrowed the pro-war vote for delegates who appreciate participation. Had all the candidates shown up, Ron Paul would have run away with it simply from the dilution of the hawkish vote.

Third: the turnout. Low, but not quite low enough. Texas Republicans are generally displeased with their choices this year and, for that reason, Fred Thompson has become an early favorite simply because he is so well known, and yet, his positions so UNKNOWN, that folks can attribute to his politics whatever they like. He has become, here, like a "default" candidate for unhappy Republicans. The fact that he's a fellow Southerner didn't hurt at all either. Here in Texas we knew and feared this, which is why we hoped and prayed for a low turnout -- let the contest be decided by committed activists and their delegates. However, enough of the undecided hawk delegates showed up that Thompson carried second place.

Forth: the show. Hats off again, this time to Townhall.com, who put on an orchestrated hatchet job against Ron Paul for the delegates main presentation. The final presentation (immediately before voting) was a Pentagon-attack survivor from 9-11 who told his tear-jerking story of severe burns, even to the point of showing pictures of his horridly destroyed body. Very few dry eyes could be found during this 30min-1hr presentation; it was indeed a sad tale. After that emotional pull, he stressed the importance of killing every man, woman and child in Iraq, and pleaded with the delegates to bear this all in mind when they went to vote. Infuriating!!!

Fifth: the voters. Ron Paul supporters were everywhere. If the vote had been open, we would have carried it. However, only official delegates to Texas Republican conventions in the last 4 years were allowed to vote. That narrows it considerably to folks who were big supporters of Bush and his lackey, our governor, Rick Perry.

Now, the good news:

Dallas/Fort Worth meetups did an AMAZING job of enticing delegates to allow RP supporters to tag along and get credentialed. That's how I got in. Ron Paul supporters from all over the state (and a few others) showed up and DOMINATED the convention, outside because of our presence, and inside due to the sleight-of-hand mentioned previously.

Last thing: Folks, this convention was designed, orchestrated, and carefully crafted to make SURE that two things happened: Duncan Hunter won, and Ron Paul got 0 votes. Instead, thanks almost ENTIRELY to all of you who participated in the letter writing and calling program, we got 216 votes and 3rd place. If we can do this at an event like this one, just think what we can do at a REAL election.

God bless, and Go Ron Paul!

Bo Zimmerman
Austin, Texas